IMPORTANT: PP Goals

[Christian Reiniger <warewolf@mayn.de>]

I haven't yet recieved a single comment on the goals draft I posted
some days ago. Is interest on what happens with PPlay really that low or
are you just all busy?

Well, anyway. PenguinPlay lacks a real focus and that has to change. So
here's some more general view: What do we want PenguinPlay to be?

(1) A complete (i.e. containing everything neccessary) game SDK with the
vast majority of code written by us?

(2) A "better game code" collection - implementations of things that are
not covered elsewhere or of which existing implementations are not good
enough (i.e. have serious design flaws or so) etc.? This wouldn't result in
a complete kit, but in a kind of "addendum" or "fixes & utilities
collection" to existing libraries.

(3) A "Distribution" with value-add. Essentially a compilation of the best
existing libraries into one comprehensive package *and* adding our own
code as in (2) to fill the gaps / cover the ugly spots / ...

(4) A pure distribution. Like (3) but completely without adding our own
code.


I don't like (1) because it both means reimplementing things that already
exist as very good code (BAD) and "distributing concentration" over the
entire spectrum of needed code instead of focusing on individual parts to
make them as good as possible (would generate some some
well-it-does-everything-at-least-mediocre-but-its-atleast-complete-yeah
package)

I also don't like (4) because it's the farthest from the original PPlay
intentions.
I however think that some such thing should exist - people concentrating on
getting the individual libraries to work together, doing the work of
properly packaging etc, giving feedback to the libs' authors about the
problems with this etcetc

Possibility (3) is a bit difficult - on the one hand it is the closest
match to what we are doing right now, on the other hand that doesn't mean
it is good. I especially don't like having a project that just creates a
collection of rather unrelated pieces. Such pieces should either be really
independent things or be a fixed part of something greater, something that
is complete in itself, something that is directly useable as such.

So I favor possibility (4). That wasn't really clear to me (consciously I
mean) when I wrote the previous proposal, but, well, that one reflects this
possibility reather well.


PLEASE COMMENT ON THIS!

Where do *you* want PPlay to go? What kind of project would you like to be
part of? What kind of project would be best for the world? What kind of
project fits best for the PenguinPlay as we know it? What do we want to
archieve?


Again: please think through that, and PLEASE comment on it. PenguinPlay
can't become a healthy project again if we are not sure what it is after
all.


	Christian
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