Implementing new features for FlightGear: Difference between revisions

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Implementing new features for FlightGear (view source)

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We've been seeing an increasing number of discussions on the forum started by people who are obviously eager to become potential contributors, either by adding new features to FlightGear, or by improving other aspects of FlightGear as a whole (community, infrastructure, usability, end-user support, accessibility, funding etc). Unfortunately, this has caused some friction over time, because people were expecting their involvement to work differently, especially those primarily making suggestions and providing feedback through discussions are obviously getting fed up with the community of contributors not responding directly to such feedback.  
We've been seeing an increasing number of discussions on the forum started by people who are obviously eager to become potential contributors, either by adding new features to FlightGear, or by improving other aspects of FlightGear as a whole (community, infrastructure, usability, end-user support, accessibility, funding etc). Unfortunately, this has caused some friction over time, because people were expecting their involvement to work differently, especially those primarily making suggestions and providing feedback through discussions are obviously getting fed up with the community of contributors not responding directly to such feedback.  


Now, we do appreciate any community involvement obviously, but people who are serious about actually bringing certain changes to FlightGear will find that just making suggestions will typically not work too well, and that just participating in lengthy community discussions is usually fruitless. We've had some extremely heated discussions over the years, some debating interesting ideas - and many ending up being dozens of pages in size, containing hundreds of postings. Often, these contain lots of good ideas and suggestions, but sooner or later these suggestions become emotional and are no longer constructive - yet, we're dealing with them constantly, which is taking up resources, i.e. time and energy.
Now, we do appreciate any community involvement obviously, but people who are serious about actually bringing certain changes to FlightGear will find that just making suggestions will typically not work too well, and that just participating in lengthy community discussions is usually fruitless, too. Indeed, as contributors, we would also appreciate it if it would suffice to just make a suggestion and provide feedback. But that's not how things work unfortunately.
 
We've had some extremely heated discussions over the years, some debating really interesting ideas and features - and many ending up being dozens of pages in size, containing hundreds of postings. Nobody in their sane mind is going to dig out such old discussions and spend hours to fnid the valuable stuff. Often, even such heated discussions may still contain lots of good ideas and suggestions, but sooner or later these suggestions become emotional and are no longer constructive - yet, we're dealing with them constantly, which is taking up resources, i.e. time and energy. And even those among us who always remain levelheaded, may find their valuable postings remain unnoticed in such threads.
 
In an open source project like FlightGear, which is entirely volunteer driven, time is the most precious resource we have to contribute. It is like a "currency" for the project, and whenever something (or someone) is taking up lots of time without anything materializing, this is draining resources from other areas, no matter if it's end-user support or development in some shape or form.
In an open source project like FlightGear, which is entirely volunteer driven, time is the most precious resource we have to contribute. It is like a "currency" for the project, and whenever something (or someone) is taking up lots of time without anything materializing, this is draining resources from other areas, no matter if it's end-user support or development in some shape or form.


We are now trying to document how "bootstrapping" a feature or project works ''conceptually'', i.e. implementing new features for Flightgear - to provide a perspective that enables people to better understand how to bring changes to FlightGear without having to do all the work on their own. Note that this doesn't mean that this is the only way to accomplish something, but this is a tested and proven way - which we didn't come up with, but which is just a convention that happens to "just work", which is an important aspect for a non-organized project like FlightGear, where development itself also primarily "just happens".
We are now trying to document how "bootstrapping" a feature or project works ''conceptually'', i.e. implementing new features for Flightgear from a high-level standpoint- to provide a perspective that enables people to better understand how to bring changes to FlightGear without having to do all the work on their own, and without necessarily having been a part of the community for years (or even decades).  
 
Note that this doesn't mean that this is the only way to accomplish something, but this is a tested and proven way - which we didn't come up with, but which is just a convention that happens to "just work" for all contributors, which is an important aspect for a non-organized project like FlightGear, where development itself also primarily "just happens".


Currently, this article is entirely based on a write-up that Thorsten contributed based on having worked on a variety of novel, and unprecedented, FlightGear features over the years which initially also didn't receive much support at all, and which also caused lengthy discussions (or even flame wars) on the forum and the devel list, including features like [[Advanced weather]], [[Atmospheric light scattering]], [[Procedural Texturing]] and most recently the [[FlightGear Newsletter April 2014|EarthView]] orbital rendering engine.  
Currently, this article is entirely based on a write-up that Thorsten contributed based on having worked on a variety of novel, and unprecedented, FlightGear features over the years which initially also didn't receive much support at all, and which also caused lengthy discussions (or even flame wars) on the forum and the devel list, including features like [[Advanced weather]], [[Atmospheric light scattering]], [[Procedural Texturing]] and most recently the [[FlightGear Newsletter April 2014|EarthView]] orbital rendering engine.  
These are just a few examples to put some context around the advice given here. Also note that the people who contributed to this particular write-up are not core developers per se, we are also primarily middleware/base package contributors. And when we started out a few years ago (and several thousand postings back), we were also highly critical about [[How the FlightGear project works|the way the project works]], and all its shortcomings. And now, we're often the ones being "yelled" at on the forums when dealing with newcomers, even though that's exactly how we started out.  
 
These are just a few examples to put some context around the advice given here. Also note that the people who contributed to this particular write-up are not FlightGear core developers per se, we are also primarily middleware/base package contributors, i.e. contribute to those part of FlightGear that are typically considered very "accessible", as you don't need to be a programmer to make a meaningful contribution.  
 
And when we started out a few years ago (and several thousand postings back), we were also highly critical about [[How the FlightGear project works|the way the project works]], and all its shortcomings. And now, we're often the ones being "yelled" at on the forums when dealing with newcomers, even though that's exactly how we started out.  
Yet, fast forward 5+ years later, we are still trying to contribute in meaningful ways to the project, despite some (or even many) of these problems still persisting even today. So this is an attempt to provide a '''lessons learnt''' intro based on newcomers trying to become contributors, and trying to turn their ideas into features that actually end up in FlightGear, without having to be expert programmers necessarily, or even programmers at all.
Yet, fast forward 5+ years later, we are still trying to contribute in meaningful ways to the project, despite some (or even many) of these problems still persisting even today. So this is an attempt to provide a '''lessons learnt''' intro based on newcomers trying to become contributors, and trying to turn their ideas into features that actually end up in FlightGear, without having to be expert programmers necessarily, or even programmers at all.


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