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Traveler
06-07-2005, 07:25 PM
Ever since this community started, it has been the starting point of my day. Well not entirely, as I there are some things that just have to go first, but yes after that, I start my pc, open Firefox and hit the PGD link.

But for quite some time now, something is bothering me.
Let me show you todays version of how my session in PGD went, as it is a prime example of how many appear to go the past few months.

"Hmm no news today. :(
Oh well, off to the forums. :D
Hmm only three threads with new posts. :(
Ah that's nice, cairnswm has posted an update about his 4E4 contest entry :D
Oh nobody has replied to his post yet" :(

I tried cairnswms updated game and wrote a little something about it.
I also added a PS to it, hoping somebody would reply to that. Only cairnswm did. Unfortunately he didn't see the hint I was trying to make.

For quite some time now, I have been asking myself the following question:What is the deal with PGD? I mean we have nearly 800 registered users. Lets say for the sake of argument that only 700 are valid users. Why is it then that we so few new posts in the forum? Why is it that only a handfull reply to new threads. Why is it that only 4.3% of all members have logged in today?

To put it all in a reallife example: why is it that someone like cairnswm who's working his butt off during the day, still finds a spare hour to work on his entry and only 5 people take the time to comment on his work!
Tell me how many of you have actually taken the time to download his entry just to try it out?
Don't you all care about it? I mean, he is reaching out for a bit of help. He isn't asking for a lot! Just 10 minutes of your time. Ten minutes to download his game run it and write something nice (or bad) about it. (I'm pretty sure I don't have to tell how important feedback is)

Sometimes I think that people only come here to get a quick answer for their problems or an easy source for some code and then quickly disappear again only to come back months later with a new problem.

I thought we were supposed to be an active community of pascal game developers. But right now, I don't know what to think of it anymore.

Do you?

cairnswm
06-07-2005, 08:27 PM
This site is always my first stop. I actually wanted to make a similar comment yesterday but didn't.

I think that this site has guys who are too focussed on their own stuff. I know I suffer from this - I dont often download other peoples stuff and test it out. I am trying to chnage this - if I want others to download my stuff I should download and test theirs.

Because of the lack of feedback I stopped writting articles. I dont see anyone actually reading them, and of the three I wrote this year I got 2 messages about the first and nothing else :(

On the net - this is my home. :) I live here. While I am at work (or connected from home I always have a window open here. :)

WILL breathed a whole lot of life into this site when he arrived. When he can he still does. But one person cannot make a site work. We all need to do it. I tried but my style didn't fit in with what WILL wanted :( WILL even got PGD onto the front page of GameDev.Net yesterday :)

{MSX}
06-07-2005, 08:55 PM
I mean we have nearly 800 registered users. Lets say for the sake of argument that only 700 are valid users.

Well that's too optimistic i think :P In whatever community there can be about 10% of active users.. maybe we are even less.
If you think, the hard-core posters are just 5 or 6 peoples.. and 15 peoples posted about 50% of posts.

Apart from this, sometimes i'm still disappointed to see so few messages :P This is one of my three everyday sites (along with slashdot and spacedaily/spaceflightnow), and i check it lots of time every day.
Anyway not all topics interests me. Most of them are just about stuff i don't care of. For example all the threads on gameboy are cool, but i don't own a gb and i'm not going to develop to it in whatever language.. So the number of topic i partecipate is quite low.

The thruth is that there are not so many pascal game developers around.
That's not that bad, in the end this is a small friendly group of people. I never saw a flame here and i almost know all of you (the most active at least) and what projects each one is following. that won't be true if the site were "C game programming" :P
Enought of this or i'll get affected :P

Paulius
06-07-2005, 09:32 PM
I tend to not reply if all I can write is a subjective negative opinion or generic good job post.
I guess there?¢_Ts not that much people interested in making games in Pascal, some might try it, google up PGD, make one or two posts and move on to trying other areas or languages.
Most active members seem to remain, except for a few mysterious disappearances, but then again there are people constantly in the "who?¢_Ts been online today" which weren?¢_Tt in DGDev.

Sly
06-07-2005, 10:21 PM
The vast majority of my time in these forums is while I am at work. Unfortunately, we have a policy in place here that downloading and running untrusted applications is forbidden, so that rules out trying any games that are posted here. I do post replies where it seems appropriate and the subject matter interests me.

cairnswm
07-07-2005, 05:09 AM
PS. as quiet as this site is - I still get more replies here on my game than I get on NAG.co.za :)

We have also lost a lot of our old regulars - TheLion, Alimonster are two that I seriously miss. Momor, Bluecat are another two that I cant remember when I last saw.

lief
07-07-2005, 05:49 AM
hi traveller, cairns. i see you around, even if you don't see me. :)
nice job on the shooter comp entry cairns (mine is still around, i didn't worry about trying to finish it in the 2 weeks i had, its a longer term project)
i stop in here at least 3 - 4 times a day, mainly for the forums. i skim the new posts looking for any newbies I can help etc but my focus is fairly limited - delphi (general), delphiX (i no longer use it but did for about 3 or 4 years), asphyre (my current wrapper - its brilliant... not sure i'm liking pro as much as the last 1.5 versions, its geared too much to 3d i think, and its also lost the mouse delta variable in input, replaced with a tkeyboard component), fmod ... and any 2d graphics questions at all.
i posted in the ai section a while back just hoping to get a few replies and a discussion happening, but nothing.
problem with forum: its too categorized.... makes it seem like a vast wasteland, there aren't enough regular posters to support such a system.
pull them back to broader sections (delphi, free pascal, sound, 2d, 3d, ai, offtopic) and most things fit in there somewhere, it also groups the users together more.
but like i said, i see a few of you around in surprising places, and i should say hello more often (hi, my name is lief, i live in australia, delphi game maker for 6-7 years now, contract artist for nintendo DS developer - im interested in 2d programming, pretty effects, AI & romantic walks on the beach :)

bye.

Traveler
07-07-2005, 08:53 AM
Thank you all for posting.

@cairnswm

Because of the lack of feedback I stopped writting articles. I dont see anyone actually reading them, and of the three I wrote this year I got 2 messages about the first and nothing else
When it comes to articles or tutorials, feedback is a must. Unfortunately as you make clear with this example. We get very little. Perhaps the audience is again too small. And of the few that actually do read it (because they have an interest in the matter), only one or two take the time to write something.
Its becoming a vicious circle: no feedback on articles means less interest in writing a new article. No new articles means less visitors to the site. Less visitors, less feedback etc etc.

WILL has indeed done a lot for PGD. However, where WILL came in the picture, people like BlueCat just... vanished.


@{MSX} I think you are right when it comes to the number of active people. My estimates were a bit overestimated. 800 people may have subscribed, but as the memberpage clearly shows, only a little under 450 people have actually written a post. In fact only 225 members have written 5 posts or more.

You also have a point about the threads of interest, I too find it hard to reply to some topics. Some simply dont have my interest, others have questions I find myself unable to answer.

@Paulius
I visit cgtalk (a cg site where people post 2d/3d art) quite often and you see a lot of "good job" posts there. Sometimes one image gets 5 or 6 pages stuffed with 'well done' and 'good job' posts, in just a day or two!

While the posts do get tiresome to read after a while, and actually don't have anything constructive to add, it is IMO so much better than to see that only one or two have replied to your message.

Also a negative, but well argumented reply is IMO better than no reply at all.

@Sly
Your position applies to a lot of us I think. Myself included. Although rules for installing software aren't that strict, in my case.

@cairnswm
The replies at Nag were actually the reason for this post, because it actually annoyed me that the (constructive) replies there outnumbered the replies here.
You see, if you count all posts here and at NAG (of the 4E4 entry), excluding your own, NAG posts win by 10%. Infact, in terms of constructive posts, bugs 'n ideas that sort of things, NAG is clearly better.


We have also lost a lot of our old regulars - TheLion, Alimonster are two that I seriously miss. Momor, Bluecat are another two that I cant remember when I last saw.
Very true! Question is why did they leave? Is it reallife issues or did they find a new home?

@lief
Perhaps you are right about the number of different categories. It is something we have discussed earlier. However, at the time it seemed like a logical step. And I'm not sure we can easily change that now.

Crisp_N_Dry
07-07-2005, 05:01 PM
I always download programs made by PGD members. I love hearing and seeing what others are working on even if I never display my own work. I always try to give some form of feedback about design or basic hard data regarding framerate, crashes etc. Of the members list I would say there are probably 20 members that I would recognise as regular posters but I guess since Pascal game development is in my eyes a very niche area it doesn't surprise me to see a lack of post or feedback. In fact, the biggest surprise to me is that there are as many as 800 registered members on this forum, although most are undoubtedly AWOL. Maybe we could all give a bit of feedback on others work but there's a thin line between recognising a persons hard work and turning the forum into a circle jerk, many forums have gone the same way. I'm not so sure that a "Good Job" post has any merit whatsoever. If any of you guys are familiar with the late Pixelation forum you'll know that the mods put a restriction on this sort of thing and encouraged proper communication of what is good or bad about a particular work. Pixelation was obviously an art forum but I think the same rules can be applied in any creative forum.

lief
07-07-2005, 10:46 PM
circle jerk?! o_0
RIP pixelation. I was a regular there. Try out pixelerate.. its rather elitist though (but I still got a picture into their hall of fame woohoo!)

czar
08-07-2005, 12:49 AM
I think PGD has got itself into a vicious circle. There are two things

1. Because there are only a handful of people posting it means that for an outsider it looks intimidating. So people don't bother posting. It makes the forum come across a bit elitist.

2. Following on from it being a bit elitist is that the interests in the forum of the hardcore posters tend to be a bit far removed from what the average punter is up to. I would hazard a guess that the majority of people programming in pascal are in fact using Delphi and that most are working with Windows and using easier to use wrappers like DelphiX, Asphyre and Omega etc. So they get here and people are going on about OpenGL, lazarus, free pascal and linux. I believe that puts off lots of prospective people. I have seen the following appear quite often as a reply to a newbie posting: "Great demo when are you porting it to Lazarus, linux or whatever?"

Anyway that is my rant. I would be interested to hear what people have to say...

BTW no offense intended

lief
08-07-2005, 01:02 AM
agreed. delphi game development is small enough let alone the free pascal and linux and whatever. i get put off by that myself... im here to post about pascal code in general, and the 'standard' packages... follows on from my comment on the categorizing. that said, there is a place for almost any question on anything to do with delphi & pascal game dev with any package on any level, just because there aren't any questions doesn't mean there are any answers.

Paulius
08-07-2005, 06:20 AM
I don?¢_~t think it?¢_~s an elitism thing, just somehow there are very few people over here that actually use these packages, it?¢_Ts not just for simpler packages (check GLScene forum), I believe that?¢_Ts the same reason cairnswm got no feedback on his GLXTreem articles, no active members seem to use it.

lief
08-07-2005, 06:58 AM
like i said, there is a place here for nearly any question. 'just because there are no questions does not mean there are no answers.'

i know that I come here looking for a more meta-delphi-game-dev experience, rather than specific package help. I more likely to search the appropriate forum for such things eg. www.afterwarp.com is where I go for my asphyre questions (theres only about 13 topics in forum so far, and they answered two of my queries).

my reason for saying it may be offputting is that looking at a last post date of '1 Feb, 2003' (which is an exaggeration) can lead someone to believe that is no help available or not much activity in those areas.

combining certain groups together would create more active threads which in turn seem to lead to more posts. this has been covered however, and is out of the question.

in the meantime i'll post to whatever topics i have knowledge of, which rules out most specific packages (excepting delphix and asphyre), openGL, freepascal, gba, linux and mac questions. which leaves delphi, sound, art, music, ai, offtopic and projects.

I posted a message in a dead AI thread hoping for a discussion, but it seems as the question was answered it is considered dead? is this against this forum's etiquette (necropostilism :))

to tell you the truth - this is an active thread so i am posting...

i am an active delphi game developer, but as this forum is fairly quiet since I've been here I have had not much call to post (excepting my projects). I'm a following poster, not a leading poster.

Traveler
08-07-2005, 08:19 AM
You've got some good points there lief. Especially your last sentence
I'm a following poster, not a leading poster sounds very familiar, as I consider myself to be in that category as well. Perhaps more people are like that.


'just because there are no questions does not mean there are no answers.'

That is true, but at the moment we don't seem to be having much questions at all. And the questions we do get are of an above average level. With that in mind, the idea stated by czar that this forum is becoming for the elite is not that far off, IMO.

I also agree with the idea posted by czar that most 'gameprogrammers' are still using the 'simple' packages DelphiX or Omega (not so sure about Asphyre). With the exception of DelphiX, Omega has a very good forum (click (http://www.delphisanctuary.com/forums/)). So I can see why users there aren't going to post their questions here, because the chance to get an answer there is so much bigger.

I'm not really sure what we look like to the outside world. Could it really be that we scare off newcomers with our (Free)Pascal instead of Delphi? Our discussions about conversion to Linux instead of just for Windows?

technomage
08-07-2005, 08:23 AM
Hi everyone

This place is pretty much the only site I visit regularly when I get time to go online. The number of posts have dropped off, but perhaps that's because it's summer :?: I know allot of people who only tend to be active online in the cold winter months. Personally I get to spend maybe 20 - 30 minutes on the site most evenings, the site is blocked from my work place so I post when I can.

I can understand the lack of feedback from articles cairnswm and WILL are probably the only ones who commented on the ones that I wrote. The work on part 3 has stopped as a result. But that said , I haven't commented on any articles either.....

The point about the libraries people use is a good one. It would be interesting to see which library was the most popular out of the members we have :idea:. I did some work on porting the A3D nGine to SDL a while back, and that project seems to have died, infact I think that last post in that forum was in 2003..

That all said I don't know where we go from here

Dean

technomage
08-07-2005, 08:27 AM
Mmmmm


Could it really be that we scare off newcomers with our (Free)Pascal instead of Delphi? Our discussions about conversion to Linux instead of just for Windows?

That is a good point. Given that the most popular game platform on the PC is windows perhaps linux talk is scaring people off, or they are just not intersted in cross platform development..... food for thought....

BlueCat
08-07-2005, 01:32 PM
Hey! :cat: :shock: Anyone remember me? :twisted:

Just wanted to let you all know I'm still around :salute:

I might start a poll, "Who remembers BlueCat?" :lol:

Been a while, just been so busy. I do miss the old days :cry: Just kidding :wink:

I think PGD is a great site and have decided to make the time (not sure how yet) to start posting again as much as I can, if you'll have me back that is :mrgreen:

Traveler
08-07-2005, 01:44 PM
Now that's what I call a surprise!!

Welcome back BlueCat! :D


if you'll have me back that is
Are you kidding? You just made my day :)

Paulius
08-07-2005, 01:57 PM
:D It's so great to see a returning face

BlueCat
08-07-2005, 02:28 PM
:oops: :oops: :oops: :oops:

Thanks, good to see you too :)

Crisp_N_Dry
08-07-2005, 05:44 PM
Lief -
Circle jerk = When guys sit around jerking eachother off for no good reason. Patting someone on the back is fine but it needs explanation otherwise it's worthless.

WILL
08-07-2005, 09:28 PM
AAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!! :o
... oh... it's not a ghost, it's Blue!!! :D

;)


:D It's so great to see a returning face
Are you kidding? This is the man who got me involved in creating the PGD site over a yeah and a half ago. Not to mention he was the man of the 'Delphi' scene scene back in 2003. I have nothing but good things to say about this man.


As for leif, technomage, Traveler and the rest of everyones thoughts; There is a lot of good points and a ton of issues brought up in this thread. A lot of stuff that has been an issue since PGD was started and some even before we changed it over from the original sites (DGDev & DelphiGamer).

Truth is, I would love to fix alot of these issues, but we need a bigger staff and more of the modivated individuals that we do have now. Me and Dom have discussed this, and will have to fill in BlueCat sometime soon I image, that we are goingto go hunting for possitively modivated people to help do the vital things on this site.

Now noone take this as me bashing the current staff or esp. Dom. Every one of these guys to a smashing job of keeping the site from going under while I'm away, but as it has become evident since I started sailing with the Navy normally, the site seems to go into a near comma whenever I leave for 2 weeks.

Why? Well because I think I have taken on far too much responsability onto myself here. I cannot count the number of positions I fill on a daily basis. I seek out from my nice thick selection of bookmarks and report news almost daily, I do the Editor's job when required, I add new and fresh content to the Library('our' big project) weekly(thanks to tux's help in keeping up with them), I do consistant modifications to the site's scripts to fix up critical errors and any bugs the break the functionality of the site, update the news bar, recently published the ]Alimonster[/b](formerly active member of DGDev and the current PGD sites) once told me before I became a daily visitor of the old DGDev(before I became an admin and created the PGD project) He said "...it's up to YOU (points to reader) to make it an interesting place to be..." meaning that what people bring tothe site is what you get back form it. I would offer this advice to anyone and everyone that even just visits to the staff that runs it. We want it to be a nice big community active and growing then we have to be active and help it grow by seeking out news and new Library listings, writting new articles and posting interesting topics like we do see in the forums.

If we put our hearts into this site it will grow becasue we will make it so. Pascal has that potential in it's scene and it's community of developers.

Sly
09-07-2005, 12:43 AM
I seek out from my nice thick selection of bookmarks and report news almost daily
Been there and done that for the turbo site. It got to the point where I was tired of searching each day for something to post, and real life left me with less and less time to spend maintaining the site. I would post news items when I found them, and often not get any response, or sometimes one or two comments. The biggest response I got was when I announced that I was closing the site. I didn't realise just how many lurkers were out there. Now the site has been passed on to Kai Jager who has been doing a good job of keeping it updated. I still visit it every now and then.

Specis
09-07-2005, 02:43 AM
Mmmmm


Could it really be that we scare off newcomers with our (Free)Pascal instead of Delphi? Our discussions about conversion to Linux instead of just for Windows?

That is a good point. Given that the most popular game platform on the PC is windows perhaps linux talk is scaring people off, or they are just not intersted in cross platform development..... food for thought....

I have to agree here, There is an air of negativity here about none crossplatform projects :) or projects that ignore Freepascal. I personally use linux but im not intrested in writing games for linux. I dont use freepascal because really why would i? I have delphi. I slowed my posts down yup.. im at fault for that myself. But i done it because the core group here seem, and im not saying this is true, but seem to be big freepascal fans and if i aint crossplatform they aint really intrested. I still visit almost daily though and if i may post a few comments about the actual site which i dont like :D please remember this aint a personal attack WILL.

Anyway the forum itself.. there's just so many sections.. IMO its way to much and needs to be trimmed back theres sections with subsections. Its kinda a pain to move about really.

The news items on the main page are great. but how about a recent discussions list too? So we can see from the entry page which threads have been active since our last visit. Kinda get new folk into the forums.. without them having to click the forum button at the top then getting greeted by so many forum sections.

The Articles bit on the main page :) its javascript.. i personally know quite a few folk who disable javascript on there browser. i myself do it, so i dont actually see anything in there.

I know everything is reachable from the menu at the top.. but this site is kinda large and isnt that user friendly for someone that hasnt visited before.

Thats just my views, erm thanks for reading them.

Paulius
09-07-2005, 07:00 AM
@WILL: What did you find of a joking nature in me saying that it's good to see BlueCat back? Enough boasting how good of an admin you are, better go and fix what needs fixing since PGD started: unreadable dark yellow text on blue-grey background (like in the "who's online now" for normal users) and changing site feedback forums description from DGDev to PGD :wink:

WILL
09-07-2005, 09:37 AM
I think you misunderstood my point of listing all the things that I listed Paulius. I work a full time job and then some(It is the Navy afterall) and have a company that I work on with a friend and yet I have all these things that I've commeted to doing and need doing to keep the site going the way I envisioned it and when I stop so does most of the workings of the site. Not because everyone else is lazy or doesn't care. They do and they are extremely busy and have families to boot. So I can't ask them to sacrafice that. I figured that I could keep this up for the start and when I'd finished the start of it then we'd get help to keep the speed up and it just didn't happen. I'm going to burn out pretty quick like this. If you see this as boasting well then you missed the point.

As far as BlueCat being back, think of it as my way of saying "Damn right we're glad to see him back!". :) I was posting in good humour, but I think somehow you had taken a sour air about my entire post and you had taken to turning nasty, which is unfortunate. :?

Specis: I don't mind man. It keeps me on my toes and points out areas that I need to improve upon on PGD. I don't always get to it right away, but it's not from lack of caring. I just spread myself too thin. It's hard to do so many things without help. Which is the major factor with getting everything under control.

This is just my personal thoughts, but I don't think that there is really a major FPC vs. Delphi problem on the site. I think it's meerly that alot of people are upset with Borland and the direction of Delphi and that this mixed with a ton of new Free Pascal talk might be confusing to those that, if I'm wrong someone correct me, have seen PGD as a Delphi mostly site. I think that there may be alot of FPC optimizim that modivated those that have 'found Free Pascal' (gee, sounds like a religion said like that doesn't it?) that brings them to turn all Jahova on their Delphi asses. :lol: But that should probably not be pushed on too much as I can see it might have an intimidating factor so this is an issue to look at, but not nessissarily a problem. If you guys feel otherwise please let me or Dom know, I don't want to dismiss this, but I haven't gotten this feeling myself yet. Then again I'm one man and it might not be where I'm focusing my attentions. Esp. since I'm trying to encourage increased awareness of game development amoung FPC users, not trying to dismiss it from Delphi users. That would, of course be counter productive.


Ok, this turned into a mosnter post. I just want to clarify to everyone that I am not trying to be super-admin, nor do I want to be. I simply want PGD to be active to a specific level and I myself can't even make it so. I just don't want this site to die a slow death like all the other Pascal projects that do so because of lack of interest. It can be done, but we just need to take on new staff and do some things different.

WILL
09-07-2005, 09:45 AM
changing site feedback forums description from DGDev to PGD :wink:
I swear I must have looked at changing this so many times. :? How it's still DGDev I swear I have no idea. *shrug* Proof that I'm not perfect. :lol:

Paulius
09-07-2005, 10:38 AM
I hoped the wink at the end would make my post seem less angry, well Traveler did kind of allow me to write negative posts, so there :P

LP
09-07-2005, 06:23 PM
I think there's a great deal of people visiting PGD. As for myself: I check it twice a day.

Now that you talk about it, the news and almost anything on this site has emphasis on FreePascal and (sometimes) stuff related to Linux, etc. Any discussion related to Delphi ends with criticizing Borland and how bad they did (do) with Delphi, etc.

I still use Delphi 2005 (and plan on using it for next 1 - 2 years, no matter if Borland CEO withdraws or not :)) and I'm into Game Development using (only) Delphi. So what happened to old known Delphi community? Did it vanish?

There are still many wonderful things you can do in Delphi and still a lot of space for many technical articles, but what you can find *here* in Articles section talks basically about: 1) GLXtreem, 2) SDL and 3) Quake (??!!) -- somehow focusing on n00bz :( I know many PGD Staff ppl are in love with SDL + portable code, but keep in mind that making games is not just putting a bunch of sprites on the screen ;)

Damn, if you really lack of any technical Delphi-related info that could be interesting not only for beginners, but for people working with Delphi in general - I can always write an article or two ;)

BlueCat
09-07-2005, 07:59 PM
@WILL: What did you find of a joking nature in me saying that it's good to see BlueCat back? Enough boasting how good of an admin you are, better go and fix what needs fixing

See I've only posted twice and I'm already causing trouble :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

(Notice the extra smilies just so you know I'm joking)

You know, Eriken would have something funny to say at this point, if he were here.... :right: :? :left: :? :right: :scratch:

Crisp_N_Dry
09-07-2005, 09:00 PM
Lifepower - I'm still a massive advocate of Delphi. I am also an advocate of SDL, and when I can get my arse into gear and learn OpenGL I dare say that will become a major part of my programming agenda. FPC does seem interesting but I guess I'm set in my ways with Delphi. I have Delphi 7 adn 2005 but I'm still using Delphi 4. I jumped from Delphi 1 to Delphi 4 and have stayed there ever since. A transition to a new Delphi would be time consuming but to migrate to FPC for no good reason (Not good for me anyway, I'm sure the FPC guys all had very good reasons) seems a wasted effort. When I want to write multi format code I will endeavor to learn FPC but until then I see no point. GO Delphi!

Eriken
09-07-2005, 09:02 PM
See I've only posted twice and I'm already causing trouble
I can see why you miss the good old days, you wouldn't have needed to post twice to cause problems back then ;)
_____
Eriken

(I'm abit out of the loop too)

BlueCat
09-07-2005, 09:26 PM
See I've only posted twice and I'm already causing trouble
I can see why you miss the good old days, you wouldn't have needed to post twice to cause problems back then ;)
_____
Eriken

(I'm abit out of the loop too)

Eriken you old fruit!!! :cherry:

I knew you wouldn't be able to resist that :lol: :lol: :lol:

We should probably leave this thread alone and start a new one for missing Lions, Alimonsters, Momors, etc. :wink:

Traveler
09-07-2005, 09:42 PM
Oh man, I should've started this thread way sooner. See what good things are coming from it :D

I'm very pleased to see all you folks back!

And please, do keep the opinions coming!

WILL
10-07-2005, 12:19 AM
A transition to a new Delphi would be time consuming but to migrate to FPC for no good reason (Not good for me anyway, I'm sure the FPC guys all had very good reasons) seems a wasted effort. When I want to write multi format code I will endeavor to learn FPC but until then I see no point.

Not picking at your point, but this brings up a point of interest. Not all FPC users were direct from Delphi users. :) I'm sure alot of them were Turbo Pascal users though. :lol: Yep it's that old of a compiler. I'd challange to say that it's about as old as Delphi it's self.


Eriken! Good to see you back my old friend. :P

Now all we need is Alimonster to reappear. TheLion and Mormor have been here off and on, if not of late. Ali has never been here.

lief
11-07-2005, 12:06 AM
i'd say its a lot older than delphi...
i believe its what they coded in during the french revolution.

Robert Kosek
11-07-2005, 03:13 PM
I've reverted to lurking, as I've been a little busy, and still find time here and there to mess with Delphi and FPC. I still read the forum at least twice a week though.

I actually made a minor convert to Pascal lately and created with him a REALLY simple hack'n'slash RPG, though it's really limited. He's done pretty well, and I've been busy since then.

cairnswm
11-07-2005, 03:32 PM
(Back from 4 days away)

I am a Delphi Fan. I am not a FreePascal fan and I am the second most common poster on the boards. I have previously been critical of the switch from DGDev to PGD - I'm trying to point out that the regulars here are no pro-freepascal.

However - since switching to SDL (which in my mind is the best beginner DELPHI library) - I have been encouraged to start looking cross platform by the efforts of others on this board.

As can be seen from the replies on this post - we have a lot of lurkers - how do we make them post more?

Interestingly that its starting to look eliteist - maybe I should stop posting :evil: . I am the biggest supporter of Beginners - my GLXtreem articles were aimed at beginners - where other than my web page will you find more complete source for games? :?: :?: :?:

Robert Kosek
11-07-2005, 03:38 PM
I'd stop lurking if I had the time to work on a project and get a few screens out. You know that. I posted my stuff a while back when I was messing around with FPC and GL, and when I messed with a text style RPG.

I still use Delphi, and will continue to do so for some time. I was experimenting in FPC however, and seeing if I could switch over.

I don't think it's elitist, it's a great community!

technomage
11-07-2005, 06:52 PM
I agree we're not elitist here . :D

I think the merger with delphigamer has gone extemely well. Thanks for the efforts of the core PGD staff (WILL, savage, etc) we have a fansastic site for both begginers and the more "seasoned" members :D .

I also thing it's great to have options when it comes to choosing a pascal compiler. As savage will agree I'm a BIG delphi fan :D , that said I don't use Kylix for my cross platform work, I use Free Pascal, I think this is a great compiler and as far as I'm concerned is the best choise for cross platform development.

PS - It's good to see a nice lively thread, well done Traveler :D

WILL
12-07-2005, 12:31 AM
You know it has been quite the popular thread. In fact people are starting to post more. I'm personally glad to see this. Please keep up the good job guys. Great effort. ;)

I think that both beginner and experienced users here have a place to voice questions and the people to come and converse with. And the fact that beginners can get friendly advice is great too!

As for the whole Free Pascal and Delphi issue. From the time that I had created the Free Pascal forum my thinking was --well even before that!-- 'There is a ton of other Pascal compilers out there. Why do we only talk about Delphi??? C users talk about all different kinds of C compilers... Wouldn't it be cool if we talked about all these different Pascal compiers too?' and so my sort of 'mission' if you will, is to try to get notice to all these other great compilers too. Not just Delphi, which is a great and very well evolved compiler mind you.


Here they all are to the best of my knowlage:

:arrow: Free Pascal(opensource, best Delphi alternative yet, cross-platform)
:arrow: GNU Pascal(ok really just a frontend for gcc aka GNU C Compiler)
:arrow: PP Compiler(aka Palm and Pascal Compiler)
:arrow: Pocket Studio(for PalmOS, commercial)
:arrow: Chrome(really new for Visual studio or Linux command line compiler, .NET alternative, Mono capable, commercial)
:arrow: Virtual Pascal(recently canceled/abandoned)
:arrow: TMT Pascal(outdated, commcerial)
:arrow: HSPascal(Atari and Amiga platform with added PalmOS support by an ex-Turbo Pascal developer, commercial)
:arrow: Kylix(Delphi for Linux, commercial)
:arrow: MikroPascal(for PIC microcontrollers, commercial)

I promote Free Pascal not to replace Delphi, but to encourage more Free PAscqal users to make game OR to get mor Free PAscal users who make games, demos and other things of this nature to come here. For the longest time it's been only about Delphi on DGDev and DelphiGamer my intentions have been to push out in other directions not to drop Delphi by any means. This is my thinking on the issue.

lief
12-07-2005, 12:48 AM
I see. But seriously though, we need to narrow down the community to an elite 7 or 8 developers who don't have to ask questions on boring stuff like programming or game development. If can achieve this, we can just have an offtopic thread and it will always be active. It will take time and effort however. Everyone using Delphi 7, Asphyre & FMOD - JOIN WITH ME IN THE REVOLUTION! ANYONE?! hello?

Traveler
12-07-2005, 08:11 AM
We need to narrow down the community to an elite 7 or 8 developers who don't have to ask questions on boring stuff like programming or game development.
You mean you want a community of just 7 or 8 people? I think you need to reread what has been said in this thread, because that is definitely not what we're after.


You know it has been quite the popular thread. In fact people are starting to post more. I'm personally glad to see this. Please keep up the good job guys. Great effort.

That makes two of us. I'm very pleased to see things are brightening up. I'm also happy to know people still visit even though its not always visible to others.


Interestingly that its starting to look eliteist - maybe I should stop posting. I am the biggest supporter of Beginners - my GLXtreem articles were aimed at beginners - where other than my web page will you find more complete source for games?


I agree we're not elitist here.

I think the term elitist is been understand incorrectly.
You are absolutely right about your articles, cairnswm. And I don't think its the articles that are the problem. It's our posting. For quite some time now, posts appear to focus around Jedi-SDL, Lazarus or FPC.
While that isn't a problem to itself, as its a proper topic for a community like PGD, I do sense two problems are coming from it.

A) New members may think we don't do Delphi (anymore), or that it is of less interest to us.
B) Members, not that interested in the topics mentioned above are less inclined to post in those topics.

Add these to the fact that we appear to be very reserved when it comes to new threads (save newsposts) and you have I think in a nutshell our situation.

lief
12-07-2005, 10:06 PM
You mean you want a community of just 7 or 8 people? I think you need to reread what has been said in this thread, because that is definitely not what we're after.

*rolls eyes* yes mum! i was being cynically sarcastic... reread what has been said, and there seems to be a common vein of support for a well populated active forum on a variety of topics. I am in this Common Vein, I am just not qualified to answer a lot of the more package specific questions. :)

Robert Kosek
12-07-2005, 10:35 PM
Traveller, The Serious. :D

Who can say you guys don't do Delphi anymore? I mean, most posts discuss it and games don't they? It's the assumption that, unless we specify our compiler, it's Delphi... as that's what it usually is.

Lighten up there man!

Traveler
13-07-2005, 08:07 AM
i was being cynically sarcastic...
Yeah sorry, but your posts confuse me a lot sometimes. At one time you're writing solid posts, the next you're busy making a joke out of it. Its not always clear to me where the seriousness ends and the joke begins. :?


Traveller, The Serious
Regarding this thread, yes I am.


Who can say you guys don't do Delphi anymore?
I wasn't saying we dont do Delphi anymore, I was saying people may think we dont do Delphi anymore. With that i was actually referring to all the talk about crossplatform development, Lazarus and SDL.

In any case, I was trying to make clear what the problems were, so we could solve those. If you think my conclusions are incorrect, perhaps you can offer some of your own then?

lief
13-07-2005, 10:13 PM
traveller: i apologize (seriously), I do have that problem in talking to people as well. I am a serious person with a strange sense of humor. I appreciate that this is a problem that you are concerned about. I have offered my thoughts, and suggested solutions, and aside from reiterating those, it is my time to just read the rest of the thread.


wasn't saying we dont do Delphi anymore, I was saying people may think we dont do Delphi anymore. With that i was actually referring to all the talk about crossplatform development, Lazarus and SDL.

I do agree with this. This is what held me back from posting here for a long time, I thought it was more of a crossplatform / mac (ewww) / linux / free pascal forum.

Traveller, The Serious. :D

hehe.

Robert Kosek
14-07-2005, 03:41 PM
I've not had a single problem with Lief's posts, they're much like mine, so I don't mind. Dead serious one second, and slapstick the next! :D

Aye, he is indeed "Traveller, the Serious". I think he deserves a custom title for that, no? :)

What I meant was that: Almost everyone knows of DGDev and DelphiGamer's merge, and as Delphi is the "dominant" compiler, it would be assumed unless otherwise noted that the compiler spoken of was Delphi. (Whew, mouthfull) But seriously, crossplatform compilation is a big issue, though it's not the only one. I just think that if someone is serious and looks at the big picture, they'll not have any misconceptions.

*cough* You seem to have pulled me from my "hidey hole", and back into posting...

LP
14-07-2005, 04:12 PM
Actually, I think what you lack on the front page of PGD (news) is direct Delphi-related issues. There're many stuff related to .NET, then FreePascal / cross-platform and so on. I don't know if Delphi + Win32 (not .NET) is still very common (I still think it's great platform which will still continue to exist for many years) but this is surely difficult to see from the front page.

Also, additional suggestion for the site is to create categorized links section for many useful things - something similar to the one on Turbo. Some stuff might not be exactly in Pascal, but could be helpful as reference. For instance, few links about 3D math, some links about graphics effects, something for networking, etc. Right now the links section is more like a set of banners but I think well categorized list could be really helpful for people looking for specific info in particular.

Traveler
14-07-2005, 07:08 PM
traveller: i apologize (seriously)
Accepted, but really there's little need to offer apologies at this point. The way I see it, it was just a misunderstanding. :D

Robert, humour me and stop the nonsense about me being too serious.
And as for your reply, not everyone has withnessed the merger between DG and DGDev. People new to the Delphi scene, never even heard about DG or DGDev.


*cough* You seem to have pulled me from my "hidey hole", and back into posting...
Mission completed I'd say :)

Lifepower, thanks for your suggestions. I hope WILL's making notes :)

cairnswm
15-07-2005, 05:23 AM
Is there really that much Delphi related news about games? I've never felt that borland supported game dev with Delphi until the PGD contest where they gave us a really decent prize.

If there is too much FreePascal here for new people then maybe WILL and savage should start making a point of having a few news posts each week that say DELPHI in the title.

If you want nor game related delphi nes take a look at:
http://delphi.newswhat.com/geoxml/home

WILL
15-07-2005, 08:15 AM
Lifepower, thanks for your suggestions. I hope WILL's making notes :)
Indeed, I surely am. ;)


Actually, I think what you lack on the front page of PGD (news) is direct Delphi-related issues. There're many stuff related to .NET, then FreePascal / cross-platform and so on. I don't know if Delphi + Win32 (not .NET) is still very common (I still think it's great platform which will still continue to exist for many years) but this is surely difficult to see from the front page.

Well it's true that it's rather varried on that front page. But counting now there are about 6 Delphi exclusive or Delphi compatable tools/libraries posted news items. And about 9 non-Delphi related items. 6:9 isn't bad.

Breaking it down:

If you look at the news items you'll notice amoung them are Afterwarp's Asphyre component, Jaro's UnDelphiX, Borland's CEO, Omega and Vampyre Imaging Library. All Delphi compatable and some Delphi-exclusive libraries.

Adventure Fishing 2 was made using Delphi.

Ok so about half of the news is Delphi related. Thats not bad. Considering A) There really isn't that much Delphi news being created all the time. B) There are lots of other Pascal and game development things that have nothing to do with Delphi and C) I report what I find and think it news worthy and there hasnn't been that much Delphi specific stuff out there.

We only have myself and sometimes, due to other real life related time constraints, savage and Sascha posting news. Considering that I'm the only one regularly posting news this really only applies to me, but if we do not find it, we will not post it. I also post what I like as do most news reporters in a regualr news paper. If you want more news then we need more reporters don't you think?

Any volinteers? I'm serious becasue we are taking resumes soon.


Also, additional suggestion for the site is to create [b]categorized ] for many useful things - something similar to the one on Turbo. Some stuff might not be exactly in Pascal, but could be helpful as reference. For instance, few links about 3D math, some links about graphics effects, something for networking, etc. Right now the links section is more like a set of banners but I think well categorized list could be really helpful for people looking for specific info in particular.

I honestly think that the Library is being ignored for some odd reason. :? It's mostly filled with links to other sites, all very useful, that ontain all of this great information. Yes, it's articles only and if you look on the Links site you'll find either Game Developers or Tool/Library developers. I think for the most part it will cover it all(provided that the developers make tab banners for the page to be added). ie. Clootie, Sulaco, OpenGL, FMOD, etc...

In fact I just added about 3 or so Code Optimization articles locally to the Library and there are 2 more to come as soon as I can fix up the HTML on them. (Thanks to technomage. Sorry 'bout the wait, mate. ;))