Release frequently?

edited March 2012 in General discussions
iarwain, have you ever considered releasing orx a little more frequently?

I ask because it has been quite awhile now since 1.3rc0 was released. If someone arrived from other pages doing engine research, they might take a quick glance and miss all the new stuff in SVN.

There are a few nice new features and module functions in the SVN and it would be a shame for someone to miss them because they did their evaluation with the release version instead.

Just an idea/suggestion that more frequent maintenance releases might be helpful for getting even more new users.

Comments

  • edited March 2012
    heh, I've been working (slowly) on setting up an automated build system for Orx.

    I was planning on putting together a 'build' package today.. nothing as comprehensive as Iarwain's full releases, but at least covering visual studio (2008&10) and both 32 and 64bit Linux releases.

    Is there something particular you'd want from such a release, I can't cover all the bases as well as Iarwain, but I can try to make some sort of middle-ground option :)

    Edit: Uploading 150mb of zips now -- src, extern, tools, docs + vs2008 and vs2010 orx-dev-*. All for SVN version 2827.

    [strike]http://grey.orx-project.org/build/[/strike]

    http://bagofbacon.com/orx/build/ (I ran out of quota on the orx server, so I'll put them on my own in the meantime ^_^)

    I'll add linux shortly, and if I can get mingw behaving, I'll add that too once it's done :)
  • edited March 2012
    @acksys:

    Well, the reason I'm not doing more frequent releases is very simple: there's nothing automated in the package creation process and it takes me 6-8 hours to create all the packages for all the different platforms and I have close to no spare time at all lately with long work weeks and 2 baby/toddler.

    I was even considering not doing any new binary release at all but simply switching to a Mercurial repository (either bitbucket or googlecode) and people could download a source archive automatically from those repositories.

    On those considerations (it was posted in another thread of the forum), Grey offered to help and is trying to setup some automated build process to cover at least some of the popular platforms. That's where we are now. :)

    @Grey:

    Thanks for building those! I'll make sure tonight that you have enough room on your storage here. :)
  • edited March 2012
    Actually you now have 500MB of storage there. Let me know if you need more!
  • edited March 2012
    @Grey, let me know if I can help with that project. I have access to both the Win and Linux tools.
  • edited March 2012
    Iarwain: Thanks for the increased quota, I'll upload any new files there from now on :)

    Acksys: I've not yet done the linux builds, nor mingw builds, if you'd like to do either of those, that would save me the trouble.

    The actually -automated- system isn't running yet sadly, but I'm happy to do manual builds while I keep working on that.
  • edited March 2012
    Hopefully I can make an attempt at Linux tomorrow and get back to you.
  • edited March 2012
    Grey, I built and tested the Linux x86 packages: https://www.yousendit.com/download/M3BsUXVtcWZsMHpMYnNUQw

    This is my first time building Linux binaries for distribution, so hopefully I didn't screw it up to badly.

    Do you need any help with the automated build system? I can do Bash scripts if you need it. I have a linux web server available for use, too.
  • edited March 2012
    Heya Acksys,

    Everything in there looks fine to me! (I'll actually test it shortly too >.<) As for the automated system, I might take you up on that, but honestly it's not a difficult problem, just a matter of me actually putting 5 minutes aside to finish the job :D

    What svn version did you use to build by the way? That way I can put such info in the package name.

    Oh, also I --might-- need to know what version of gcc/g++ you used (assuming you didn't build with another compiler) I know there are some compatibility issues between certain versions.

    Otherwise, thanks for that! You've successfully helped me be lazy ;) my hero! :D
  • edited March 2012
    I synced SVN today, so I guess it would be rev 2830. gcc 4.6.1

    NP, whatever I can do to help advance Orx. You or iarwain can let me know if if I can do anything else to help.
  • edited March 2012
    Thanks to both of you for your work.

    As a small note, the 2830 is a bit of a transition version as, to be consistent with the Android version, I'm in the process of replacing all references to "iPhone" by "iOS", including the define __orxIOS__ and the iOS config section.

    However I haven't changed the physical paths of the files yet and will do so tonight.
  • jimjim
    edited March 2012
    Hey Gray, thanks man, thanks for the vs2008 binaries. I am very late to start ORX so thought it would be faster just to pick the binaries and start learning. My 2 months long exams finished yesterday and now I have plenty of time to learn ORX, can't wait.
    Thanks again :)
  • edited March 2012
    Glad you're done with your finals, jim! Really looking forward to seeing what you'll come up with orx. :)
  • jimjim
    edited March 2012
    First, I will spend some time learning ORX then I will try some prototyping after that I will work on a full game, as I am currently alone, I will have to do all by myself, but I will come up with something really interesting pretty soon. Wish me luck everybody :)
  • edited March 2012
    Best of luck, then! You already know it but if you have any questions, don't hesitate! :)
  • edited April 2012
    @Grey: An alternative for making an automatic build system: http://www.boost.org/boost-build2/

    I haven't really looked into the details, but it seems to support all the compilers we would need to use.
  • edited April 2012
    @acksys: At first glance that looks pretty good, I'll take another look when I get back from my meetings etc this afternoon. :)
  • jimjim
    edited July 2012
    Hey, anyone thought about this post? I think this post is forgotten, so I replied here to put it on top :)
  • edited July 2012
    Hmm, well Grey had the master plan, but we could go ahead and work on it if he doesn't have the time.

    I think all we would need is a batch file/script for each platform that would sync SVN nightly, build it, and upload it to a location accessible from the wiki.

    And three machines, physical or virtual, to do the builds: Windows, Linux, Mac OS X.

    Anything else?
  • edited July 2012
    Hey guys, sadly yes; crazy busy with new job etc :) don't wait for me, I've no idea when I'll be back here help out for any reasonable time. :(

    I do lurk though, so I might put in a good word once in a while ;) good luck!
  • jimjim
    edited July 2012
    That's a very good idea acksys, we need frequent release because new users directly go for downloads and they end up downloading a very old and outdated version :( So we need to release the binaries at least once in a month.
  • edited August 2012
    @grey Congrats on your success.

    @jim let me think about it a bit more. You need several systems dedicated for this to be automatic. If we do it manually at an interval e.g. one month as you suggested, it's easier since you don't need always-on systems dedicated to it.
  • edited August 2012
    Good luck with that but it sure would be great to have something that doesn't require 6h of man-work to make a release! :P
  • jimjim
    edited October 2012
    Is there no way to release just the source in a zip,with some additional tools like makefile/Visual studio project file to build on different platforms, the whole repo is very big around 600MB, downloading it, is not very easy option for some people including me.
  • edited October 2012
    An option that bitbucket offers, is to compress the current state of the repository. With that, you can get the sources in a zip/gzpi/bz2 file with a simple clic, at anytime.

    For that, simply go to http://code.orx-project.org/orx, click on download then on the branches tab and select the format you want for the default branch.

    Here's a quick link for bz2: http://code.orx-project.org/orx/get/default.tar.bz2

    As for regular releases, as mentioned here: https://forum.orx-project.org/discussion/5204, I'd like to setup buildbot to do all that for us.
    Unfortunately I don't have much spare time (and to be honest, I kinda loathe this kind of scripting) so any help with that would be greatly appreciated. :)
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