lets fix it

[Botsareus]

Don't add or remove any major things that affect bot survival.

Yea, that one bugs me loads too.

[Numsgil]

I generally don't.  99% of all changes I hve ever made are 100% backwards compatible.

[Botsareus]

Num, I will release what I got cooking to the darwinbots email adress If you promise to clean up the ftp with all the pointless releases...

But be wear: my stuff is still under fixage so if I find more I have to re email it to you. And I also have a mod over there with a new chart witch is kinda ugly so you might have to make it nicer or just go arround it.

[Griz]

If everyone thinks that the program shouldn't strive to follow real world laws, and that instead we should just make up stuff as we go, by all means, I'll change it back to however it was working before.

that's not the point.
of course we want to move that way.
but golly geewhiz ...
wouldn't it be nice to have a version that actuallty works first?

you're getting off on programming whatever you want ...
and that's great .... for you.
but the rest of us are stuck pulling out our hair just trying
to get a version to run without crashing every few minutes
for one reason or another.

you know ... R&D stands for research AND development ...
and I know the research portion of that is what's fun ...
having new ideas and stretching one's mind ...
but the other part of it is ...
the grunt work ...
getting down and wet and muddy digging in the trenches.
now I wish I knew enough to help do the shitty part of the job ...
take out the trash, do the dishes and laundry ...
take care of bidness ... but right now I don't.
maybe I can rectify that.
maybe bots and endy and some others as well ...
and with your & py's guidance ...
maybe some tutoring in debugging ...
you can point us to some of the grunt work that needs doing.
seems to me that would be benificial for one and all ...
and keep us interested ...
as at least then we might see some accomplishment ...
and feel as if we are part of the project ...
you know ...
do something besides spin our wheels.

maybe you could think on developing your team of developers ...
invest in us.
what think ye?

~griz~

[Numsgil]

The thing is I can never get it to crash the same as you guys an.  My sims always are nice and stable.  Then I release something all all you guys are like "WTF 20 cycles in?"

Which is where those error.sim files from 2.4 come in handy.

[shvarz]

No, my point is not in the names, but in the way they are maintained.  You are not planning on keeping 2.4 going in VB, right?  You are switching to C++.  So, that's a logical break right there.  2.37 is the last VB version, the next one with all the physics and new DNA structure is in C+.  How can you get confused?

The 2.37 is not going to need much maintenance as I said before.  Only bug fixes/GUI improvements.  There will be no new features to worry about.  Maybe PY could do that, since he is not too familiar with C+ anyway?  Maybe someone else will join, who knows VB and wants to give a hand...  I don't know....

I just don't want us to be in a situation where we have semi-finished 2.4 version as the last version of the program in VB.

[Numsgil]

Sounds good to me.

[Botsareus]

ok, ok clug up the server all you want.(any real reply on this matter of cluging the server will be acceptable; was this: "I don't care too much about Nomenclature. We can call whichever whatever we want." it?...) I will email my First Bot Evolution factory... soon... first, I will find my placement control.

[Griz]

Which is where those error.sim files from 2.4 come in handy

problem is ... on a runtime error ... mine 'crashes' and does not write the error.sim.
either that or it only writes the first time.
after crashes I have gone to get and zip it ...
only to find it has not been overwritten ... and is an old error.sim.
it has never written the runtime 6 error I usually get.

~griz~

[Numsgil]

The error.sim thing is new for 2.4...

Also, 2.4 will only create an error.sim if the simulation was actually running.  GUI errors do not produce it.

[Griz]

The error.sim thing is new for 2.4...

Also, 2.4 will only create an error.sim if the simulation was actually running.  GUI errors do not produce it.

yeah ... I only ever got one ... which I emailed to you.
that was the first time I ran 2.4 ... and before I made a new default.sim
to get it to work.

so once I have vb installed ...
I assume one can use it to debug the prog. true?
I'm just gathering all the info I can from you guyz before I head out to
the cabin for a week or two.

~griz~

[Numsgil]

Right, that's how I debug the program.

[Griz]

Right, that's how I debug the program.

ok ... so having no documentation, unless there is something included in the download ...
is it pretty straightforward?  any tricks/tips I need to know?

~griz~

[Numsgil]

Well, alot of it you just sort of pick up as you go.  The only thing to watch out for is overflows.  The program is merciless that way.  Things will overflow when you don't think they should.

[Griz]

I mean with the debugging ...
by 'debugging' do you mean ...
simply running the prog and then looking at the error signals/messages?
how does the debugging work ...
how are the error messages generated?

note: ... it's been 5 years since I've used it ...
and ii don't have it to look at right now ...
just flying blind here looking ahead to what I might expect to
find when I get set up to run it ...
'cause then I will be offline with no access to you guyz.

~griz~