Meeting 2017 02 25

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Meeting

  • 0600 hours PST to 0647 hours PST
  • Hosted on IRC - freenode.net #PCGen
  • Non-Quorum, no decisions required.

Attendance

  • Andrew Maitland - Chair & Content
  • Paul Grosse - PR
  • Doug Limmer - Data 2nd
  • David Bender - Observer

Present, but not responsive:

  • Zaister
  • lieter

Summary

  • Paul to write a post calling in for volunteers to swell the ranks.
  • No plans to attend GenCon for 2017
  • Documentation Engine being worked on. This will eventually replace the old system. Awaiting code to integrate.
  • Data & OS fixing bugs, but primarily waiting on the Formula System to begin conversion properly
  • Paul to reach out to Paul Lambert about a back up server as part of maintaining critical infrastructure
  • Eitan has been busy overwhelming the PR system with hundreds of PRs for Java fixes, and standardization
  • No code bugs in JIRA worked on, though Andrew suspects many are obsolete, or soon to be, once the new formula system is in place.
  • Looking to Tom for relaxing of gatekeeper process to ease the backlog of Code PRs so Stefan can assist
  • Arch is still working on some deep bugs gating full implementation of the formula system. No further word from Tom on ETA to completion.
  • Andrew explained that the JEP system will not have any automatic conversion to the replacement system. All conversions will be done manually.
  • Andrew further explained the reasoning why automatic conversion would be nigh impossible, and why even regex would be ill advised. All JEP systems need to be evaluated in context and converting accordingly to make use of the system correctly.
  • Andrew posted links to the formula system information page: http://wiki.pcgen.org/Formula_System_Conversion
  • Andrew posted links to the new syntax to be used exclusively with the new Formula System -- http://wiki.pcgen.org/Formula_Parser_Conversion_-_Data#Standards


Raw Log

  • 6:02 AM <[Chair]Andrew> Welcome to the PCGen Board of Director's Meeting for February 25th, 0600 hours PST.
  • 6:02 AM <[Chair]Andrew> Our Agenda for today:
  • 6:02 AM <[Chair]Andrew> 1) Team Reports
  • 6:02 AM <[Chair]Andrew> 2) Formula System Update
  • 6:03 AM <[Chair]Andrew> 3) Review Admin Disaster Plan - Avoid Service disruption
  • 6:03 AM <[Chair]Andrew> 4) Open Forum
  • 6:03 AM <[Chair]Andrew> Let's begin with team reports - Paul, care to start us off?
  • 6:04 AM <[OGL]Nylanfs> K, hasn't been much movement on the PR front other than helping some people on FB and twitter.
  • 6:05 AM <[OGL]Nylanfs> I need to write up a volunteer call for posting later today.
  • 6:05 AM <[OGL]Nylanfs> I think that's about it.
  • 6:05 AM <[Chair]Andrew> Q: Are there any plans for PCGen @ Gencon this year?
  • 6:06 AM <[OGL]Nylanfs> Not this year, I am going to be unable to make it and all the booth allotments have been done already.
  • 6:07 AM <[Chair]Andrew> Okay, thanks.
  • 6:08 AM <[Chair]Andrew> Content Report -
  • 6:08 AM <[Chair]Andrew> OS - Nothing Happening Here yet. Still waiting on Formula Implementation before alterations take place
  • 6:09 AM <[Chair]Andrew> DOC - Looking at the Hugo engine and integrating the new doc system into the release. Awaiting a code member to get involved so we can integrate properly.
  • 6:10 AM <[Chair]Andrew> DATA - As always, plenty of implementation and Bug fixes to go around. The remainder of bugs are contingent upon the formula system to get a proper fix.
  • 6:10 AM <[Chair]Andrew> Questions?
  • 6:11 AM <Distant_Scholar> Not from me.
  • 6:12 AM <[OGL]Nylanfs> None from me
  • 6:12 AM <[Chair]Andrew> Oh, in related news - Medieval System Designer has been in contact with me, and we are awaiting a final draft and a proper license approval agreement before any commitment to work on it begins. Though for proper implementation, this really NEEDS the formula system. (It's a very number intensive system).
  • 6:13 AM <[Chair]Andrew> And as an aside note, I was asked how I would implement a 2e D&D clone, so don't be surprised if one of those pops up in the wild soon... :P
  • 6:14 AM <[Chair]Andrew> Okay, since Admin, Code and Arch are not present, and no reports were submitted, I'll take a short stab for them...
  • 6:15 AM <[Chair]Andrew> Admin - Tentative talks about potential back up server (Nothing solid at the moment). Web - Our server had a recent update that was successful! Wordpress is being updated, though no major changes there. Releases have been going smoothly, though handled by proxy (Andrew).
  • 6:16 AM <[OGL]Nylanfs> We could contact Paul Lambert perhaps about website backup.
  • 6:18 AM <[Chair]Andrew> Can you reach out to him and cc me on that communique?
  • 6:18 AM <[OGL]Nylanfs> K
  • 6:18 AM <[Chair]Andrew> Thanks
  • 6:18 AM <[Chair]Andrew> Code - Eitan has been blasting literally hundreds of commits to improve the standards, and clean up the system. This even includes the releases. Besides a few hiccups the effort has been an overall success, though I'd ask Kar to give a comparison test to see how we look compared to the last time for a proper benchmark base line comparison. Especially before we switch to the formula system.
  • 6:19 AM <[Chair]Andrew> Otherwise, the JIRA for code bugs hasn't moved, but under the hood fixes are good. I fear a good majority of the bugs and requests are rather obsolete, but having a code monkey do a proper review would take a sizable chunk of time.
  • 6:20 AM <[Chair]Andrew> A suggestion was made to change how the gatekeepers handle merging, since Eitan has about 5 pages on GitHub worth of pending reviews, and having Stefan join in the review process would help ease the backlog.
  • 6:21 AM <[Chair]Andrew> Tom Parker was going to propose a standard on the _Dev list, but we are still awaiting that.
  • 6:21 AM <[OGL]Nylanfs> Well with Tom back some of that will help. :)
  • 6:22 AM <[Chair]Andrew> Arch - Tom is still taking the lead on the formula system implementation, though he's found some very nasty deep bugs that required some massive re-writing of how the code operates. This has consumed most of his free time. No clear ETA when these issues will be resolved.
  • 6:23 AM <[Chair]Andrew> The last major hurdle before full implementation thus far is the new Lookup feature. For a quick background:
  • 6:23 AM <[Chair]Andrew> Strength controls the Loadscore information, the loadscore information needs to be changed to the lookup table format which is an utmost basic issue but critical to making the transition work.
  • 6:25 AM <[Chair]Andrew> Once the loadscore table is working correctly, and a few other aspects patched, then content will begin a piece by piece transition. However, "simple" changes are deeply intertwined with other aspects in pcgen. Stats connect to saves, skills, and abilities, so it will be a process of organized chaos.
  • 6:26 AM <[Chair]Andrew> Any questions pertaining to the Admin, Code or Arch reports? (Arch encompassed bullet #2)
  • 6:26 AM <[Chair]Andrew> (Code encompassed bullet #3)
  • 6:27 AM <[OGL]Nylanfs> None from me
  • 6:27 AM <Distant_Scholar> Pardon my ignorance, but what is "Loadscore information"?
  • 6:27 AM <[Chair]Andrew> Strength controls how much weight you can carry
  • 6:27 AM <[Chair]Andrew> Loadscore is the alternative name for that
  • 6:28 AM <[Chair]Andrew> A table basically indicates what your max weight carrying capacity is, and then breaks that down into 3rds for the your Light Score, and Medium Score for your Rating
  • 6:28 AM <Distant_Scholar> And it needs to be changed into a lookup table format?
  • 6:28 AM <[Chair]Andrew> If you are light, no penalty, Medium you have an encumbrance penalty, Heavy the penalties are worse, overload, you're stuck...
  • 6:29 AM <[Chair]Andrew> Yes, since the system is currently a JEP lookup table.
  • 6:29 AM <Distant_Scholar> I guess I've had a spreadsheet formula for it for so long that I don't think of it as a table any more.
  • 6:30 AM <[Chair]Andrew> Yes, under the hood ALL numeric calculations are JEP. We can't have the two systems working together side-by-side.
  • 6:30 AM <[Chair]Andrew> Since Strength becomes Formula System, we need to utilize the formula system tools - Lookup / Table, Dynamic Scopes, MODIFY/MODIFYOTHER, INFO/INFOVARs, etc.
  • 6:31 AM <[Chair]Andrew> 90% of all data will be changed in some fashion once the conversion takes place.
  • 6:32 AM <Distant_Scholar> I've probably asked this before, but how much of that can be automated safely?
  • 6:32 AM <[Chair]Andrew> Not at all. There are no plans to automate any of this.
  • 6:33 AM <[Chair]Andrew> Because of the ramifications, the system has no easy conversion process. I will write out guidelines, but it isn't a simple change DESC to INFO process.
  • 6:34 AM <Distant_Scholar> I'm still hoping some regexp magic can handle the simple BONUS:VAR stuff, at least.
  • 6:34 AM <[Chair]Andrew> However, Tom did implement toggle switches to enable/disable specific tags to make conversion an easier process
  • 6:35 AM <[Chair]Andrew> BONUS:VAR|Foo|3 would become what precisely?
  • 6:35 AM <Distant_Scholar> I'm not too familiar with the system, but something like MODIFY:Foo|ADD|3, or whatever the tag is?
  • 6:36 AM <[Chair]Andrew> MODIFY:Foo|ADD|3 vs MODIFYOTHER:Scope|Foo|ADD|3 or should it be SET?
  • 6:36 AM <Distant_Scholar> Why would it be MODIFYOTHER or SET?
  • 6:36 AM <[Chair]Andrew> I'll say this, there is no regex magic, since each item will need to be evaluated in it's proper context
  • 6:36 AM <[Chair]Andrew> Is the var altering a Skill Value?
  • 6:37 AM <[Chair]Andrew> How about a combat value on a specific weapon when a tempbonus is applied?
  • 6:37 AM <[Chair]Andrew> Or the AC penalty on a specific piece of armor?
  • 6:38 AM <Distant_Scholar> Each one of those is a different syntax? I think I'll need a cheat sheet.
  • 6:38 AM <[Chair]Andrew> Like I said, there is no cut and dry conversion, because we need to evaluate the intent of the BONUS to ascertain it's actual function.
  • 6:38 AM <[Chair]Andrew> We've been very creative in make a global bonus work for things that should have been specific scope items for years.
  • 6:39 AM *** PapaDRB has joined #pcgen
  • 6:39 AM <[Chair]Andrew> Morning David
  • 6:39 AM <PapaDRB> Morning Andrew
  • 6:39 AM <Distant_Scholar> Hello, PapaDRB
  • 6:39 AM <PapaDRB> Just woke up, sorry I'm late
  • 6:39 AM <[Chair]Andrew> Any other questions?
  • 6:39 AM <[Chair]Andrew> No worries, glad you could make it.
  • 6:41 AM <[Chair]Andrew> Doug - You may want to review this: http://wiki.pcgen.org/Formula_System_Conversion
  • 6:42 AM <[Chair]Andrew> And I made a page that covers the specific tags: http://wiki.pcgen.org/Content_conversion_to_new_system
  • 6:43 AM <[Chair]Andrew> hm wrong page... one sec
  • 6:43 AM <[OGL]Nylanfs> Also the document rework is hosted here in case anyone wanted to take a look at it.
  • 6:43 AM <[Chair]Andrew> Here we are: http://wiki.pcgen.org/Formula_Parser_Conversion_-_Data
  • 6:43 AM <[OGL]Nylanfs> https://github.com/LiaungYip/pcgen-docs
  • 6:44 AM <[OGL]Nylanfs> And I need to get going to a game in time.
  • 6:44 AM <Distant_Scholar> That first page looks both new and useful.
  • 6:46 AM <[Chair]Andrew> Okay, unless any further questions, we can wrap it up...
  • 6:46 AM *** [OGL]Nylanfs has quit IRC: Quit: Page closed
  • 6:46 AM <Distant_Scholar> Not from me.
  • 6:47 AM <[Chair]Andrew> Thanks for coming everyone - *bangs gavel' meeting is adjourned.
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