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diff --git a/lectures/code_quality.org b/lectures/code_quality.org
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..5000d0d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/lectures/code_quality.org
@@ -0,0 +1,87 @@
+# -*- mode: org -*-
+#+TITLE: 389COM: Code Quality
+#+AUTHOR: Dr Carey Pridgeon, Dr Nazaraf Shah
+* setup :noexport:
+#+OPTIONS: reveal_center:t reveal_progress:t reveal_history:t reveal_control:t
+#+OPTIONS: reveal_mathjax:t reveal_rolling_links:t reveal_keyboard:t reveal_overview:t num:nil
+#+OPTIONS: reveal_width:1200 reveal_height:800
+#+OPTIONS: toc:1 num:nil H:2 ^:{}
+#+REVEAL_MARGIN: 0.2
+#+REVEAL_MIN_SCALE: 0.5
+#+REVEAL_MAX_SCALE: 2.5
+#+REVEAL_TRANS: none
+#+REVEAL_THEME: night
+#+REVEAL_HLEVEL: 999
+#+REVEAL_EXTRA_CSS: ../css/presentation.css
+#+REVEAL_ROOT: http://cdn.jsdelivr.net/reveal.js/3.0.0/
+#+STARTUP: showeverything
+# Licenced under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0
+# International by Dr Carey Pridgeon 2019
+* Why Code Quality Always Matters
+** Readability
+- Style guides exist for a reason.
+- Well written, non obscure code is more likely to be re-used by other
+ developers.
+- Compilers can turn any well structured code into a good program, so there
+ is *no reason at all* to make your code hard to read.
+- Potential employers are more likely to be impressed by well structured code.
+- Comments!!!!!
+- 'I can understand it so other people can too' has /never/ been a
+ valid viewpoint. It has always just irritated me.
+** Appropriate design choices
+- In open source coding, especially at the start of a project, there is no rush.
+- Choose the right Language.
+- Choose the right programming methodology /OOP/, /Procedural/, /Functional/.
+- It matters more that the chosen methodology matches the problem then whether
+ or not it is in vogue. Personally I don't like OOP, but I use it if it is
+ appropriate for a given task.
+- Have some design ideas, and make them visible to others in your repository,
+ write some User Stories, put these online in your repository too.
+** Documentation
+- This is probably the biggest problem in open source development.
+- Why is it worse for open source then it is for the commercial world?
+- Why should avoiding this problem be a priority for you?
+- Automatic Documentation is a thing, and has been for decades, so there is no
+ excuse. Nor if you use it, is there an excuse for using it badly.
+**
+- Wiki pages (gitlab/github et al provide these) are a good place to provide
+ documentation not suited to automatic generation.
+- Auto documenters collect up comments from your code, so using them will
+ encourage you to get into the habit of writing information rich comments.
+**
+- There are some good open source auto documenters available, I recommend you try [[http://www.stack.nl/~dimitri/doxygen/][Doxygen]]
+- Avoid static documentation formats (hand coded web pages), as these are far
+ too difficult to maintain.
+- The websites and materials used on this module, and in all my teaching, are
+ auto generated from plain text via org mode in emacs, even most of the
+ diagrams.
+** Testing
+- What do we mean by testing code.
+- When do you start testing.
+- What testing approaches are there?
+- Discussion point: Why is testing one of the highest paid positions in software
+ engineering?
+** Bug Tracking/Fixing
+- If you don't use an online git repository, your code will
+ essentially be invisible.
+- 'Many Eyes' Principle is only true in theory. In practice it's only true for
+ either very large or very popular projects.
+- All Bugs need to be reported in your online documentation. Both
+ gitlab/github both have 'issues' functionality to facilitate this.
+- All work to fix them, successful or not, must be reported in 'issues', because
+ of the potential employer visibility aspect.
+**
+- Bugs aren't really significant externally till you get to tentative release
+ level of development, although for shared development.
+- Non trivial bugs still go in issues.
+- For shared development, planning and timeline management should also
+ go online.
+- [[https://trello.com/][Trello]] is a good place to do this according to some of our past students.
+** Obligatory XKCD
+file:img/code_quality.png
+- Copyright: Randall Munroe - XKCD
+- Mirrored in my hosting to avoid bandwidth stealing
+** Licence for this work
+- Licenced under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0
+ International by Dr Carey Pridgeon 2016
+- (Licence does not cover linked images owned by other content creators)
diff --git a/lectures/emacs.html b/lectures/emacs.html
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+++ b/lectures/emacs.html
@@ -0,0 +1,359 @@
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+389COM: Code Quality
Dr Carey Pridgeon, Dr Nazaraf Shah
Created: 2019-10-09 Wed 10:14
+
+
+Table of Contents
+ +Why Code Quality Always Matters
+
+
+Readability
+-
+
- Style guides exist for a reason. +
- Well written, non obscure code is more likely to be re-used by other +developers. +
- Compilers can turn any well structured code into a good program, so there +is no reason at all to make your code hard to read. +
- Potential employers are more likely to be impressed by well structured code. +
- Comments!!!!! +
- 'I can understand it so other people can too' has never been a +valid viewpoint. It has always just irritated me. + +
Appropriate design choices
+-
+
- In open source coding, especially at the start of a project, there is no rush. +
- Choose the right Language. +
- Choose the right programming methodology OOP, Procedural, Functional. +
- It matters more that the chosen methodology matches the problem then whether +or not it is in vogue. Personally I don't like OOP, but I use it if it is +appropriate for a given task. +
- Have some design ideas, and make them visible to others in your repository, +write some User Stories, put these online in your repository too. + +
Documentation
+-
+
- This is probably the biggest problem in open source development. +
- Why is it worse for open source then it is for the commercial world? +
- Why should avoiding this problem be a priority for you? +
- Automatic Documentation is a thing, and has been for decades, so there is no +excuse. Nor if you use it, is there an excuse for using it badly. + +
-
+
- Wiki pages (gitlab/github et al provide these) are a good place to provide +documentation not suited to automatic generation. +
- Auto documenters collect up comments from your code, so using them will +encourage you to get into the habit of writing information rich comments. + +
-
+
- There are some good open source auto documenters available, I recommend you try Doxygen +
- Avoid static documentation formats (hand coded web pages), as these are far +too difficult to maintain. +
- The websites and materials used on this module, and in all my teaching, are +auto generated from plain text via org mode in emacs, even most of the +diagrams. + +
Testing
+-
+
- What do we mean by testing code. +
- When do you start testing. +
- What testing approaches are there? +
- Discussion point: Why is testing one of the highest paid positions in software +engineering? + +
Bug Tracking/Fixing
+-
+
- If you don't use an online git repository, your code will +essentially be invisible. +
- 'Many Eyes' Principle is only true in theory. In practice it's only true for +either very large or very popular projects. +
- All Bugs need to be reported in your online documentation. Both +gitlab/github both have 'issues' functionality to facilitate this. +
- All work to fix them, successful or not, must be reported in 'issues', because +of the potential employer visibility aspect. + +
-
+
- Bugs aren't really significant externally till you get to tentative release +level of development, although for shared development. +
- Non trivial bugs still go in issues. +
- For shared development, planning and timeline management should also +go online. +
- Trello is a good place to do this according to some of our past students. + +
Obligatory XKCD
+ +
+
+
+
-
+
- Copyright: Randall Munroe - XKCD +
- Mirrored in my hosting to avoid bandwidth stealing + +
Licence for this work
+-
+
- Licenced under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 +International by Dr Carey Pridgeon 2016 +
- (Licence does not cover linked images owned by other content creators) + +
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
diff --git a/lectures/emacs.html~ b/lectures/emacs.html~
new file mode 100644
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+++ b/lectures/emacs.html~
@@ -0,0 +1,359 @@
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+389COM: Emacs and Vi
Dr Carey Pridgeon, Dr Nazaraf Shah
Created: 2019-10-30 Wed 11:57
+
+
+Table of Contents
+
+
+
+What is Emacs?
+
+
+The basics
+-
+
- Emacs is not just a text editor, just like Vim is not just a text editor. +
- However, Emacs goes much further than Vim into not just a text editor +territory. +
- We lack time to list everything Emacs can do, suffice to say you could have +completed your entire degree using no other tool but emacs. +
- Or rather, using it as a frontend to access other tools you need. + +
Why don't we do this?
+-
+
- Emacs has, for some things, a near vertical learning curve if you're not +already needing the things you're trying to do. This makes teaching to our +first year students something we have been reluctant to do. +
- However in other universities they do exactly this. It is after all, free. +
- The Worksheet you have in this Module began its life as a tutorial for first +year students at Exeter University, although it has become a little more +complex since then. Not much though, I've even removed some elements. +
- Emacs is a wonderful and complex tool, but it has evolved free from commercial +constraints that say things like user interaction must be easy +from the start. + +
Why Use it?
+-
+
- Using Emacs isn't hard once you know what you're doing, but it takes a while +to learn, and you need a reason to make that effort when easier, albeit far +less capable tools exist. +
- Your main reason to learn it should be that if you intend to be software +developers, you should be using what is essentially the top item in the +developers toolkit. +
- By this I do not mean don't use Vim. +
- I do mean Don't use nano, but you should never use nano, just never. + +
What can Emacs do
+-
+
- Code editing (duh…).
+
-
+
- This is probably the thing I use emacs for the least nowadays, though it is +extraordinarily good at it. + +
+ - Document Production.
+
-
+
- Emacs contains functionality greater than any commercial word processor, but +not so easy to access. + +
+ - CLI.
+
-
+
- You can get a terminal within Emacs in a different buffer and use that to +compile your code while you are writing it. + +
+ - You can write code in a document, and Emacs will compile this code, then put +its output in your document. Populating tables, producing charts, whatever you +want. + +
-
+
- Other things are useful if you are more interested in relying heavily on +emacs. +
- Web Browsing. +
- Email Client (a few staff here use emacs for this). +
- Music/Media Player. +
- File Organiser. +
- Game Engine. +
- After this the list is vast, and increasingly specialised. Emacs is a long way +from being just a text editor. +
- This is why I wouldn't tell people to avoid Vim. You wouldn't use a mobile +home to go to a supermarket to do your weekly shop if you had a normal car. + +
How would it be useful to you now?
+-
+
- TeX. +
- A document formatting language, the first in fact, and by far the best. If +only because it has been improved for so many years, because it is free +software (not open source). +
- TeX, was originally created because Donald Knuth, writer of the hardest books +in computer science, The Art of Computer Science, disliked the document +formatting options available for his first book, so he wrote his own instead. + +
LaTeX and Academia
+-
+
- Tex proved so popular it was widely adopted in the academic world and became +LaTeX in the 1980's. +
- Almost all scientific documents are written in LaTeX now, those that aren't +are written in MsWord. +
- LaTeX separates content from formatting, unlike MS Word, which requires that +you put formatting in as you write. LaTeX inserts on document final +compilation. + +
Org Mode
+-
+
- LaTeX is great, and using it directly has plenty of advantages. Plus there are +lots of ways to do that. Sites like Sharelatex, tool like TexMaker all make +using LaTex fairly painless, but Emacs, through org mode, makes it as simple +as writing a plain text file, with a few simple formatting indicators. + +
+
+
+** slide title or section title, (depending on export type) +-- bullet point +*bolded text* +/italicized text/ ++
-
+
- Where emacs has the edge is in the potential export targets for documents +created in org mode (which is essentially plain text with a few special +characters and format instructions), there are quite a +few. + +
-
+
- Org mode was originally just meant for people to organise their work in emacs, +which is where the name came from, but it has long since stopped being just +that. There are now hundreds if not thousands of emacs and org-mode plugins +and modifications. We have our own custom emacs/org-mode setup on Nostromo +that we have released as an open source project. + +
Document generation Time Compilation
+-
+
- Using Babel and Org Mode emacs will execute code you've written while +compiling your document and insert the results into whatever format you +specify. +
- This could be an image, a graph (asymptote or gnuplot), or any one of a large +number of supported languages. +
- Word won't do this. Other LaTeX using editors can, but not as simply. For example: + +
+
+
+
+
-
+
- Without the babel instruction block, here's the code Org-mode executed to +generate the image. + +
+
+
+import graph; +import settings; +defaultpen(2); +outformat="png"; +draw((0,50)--(50,0),white); +0)--(50,0),white); +draw((0,50)--(25,0),white); +draw((0,50)--(0,0),white); +draw((0,50)--(-50,0),white); +draw((0,50)--(-25,0),white); ++
Alternatives
+-
+
- There are alternatives, such as Pandoc, which can export from plain +text to many of the same export targets, or Markdown, of which +Pandoc is an advanced version. +
- Both of these are even simpler than *org Mode to use, as you don't need to +learn Emacs first. +
- Org mode has more support and capabilities, but the relative complexity of +Emacs, while it makes it useful, causes it to be viewed as less desirable by +some, in spite of it being less complex than most modern Integrated +Development Environments. +
- When used with libraries such as Org-Reveal, as it is now for these slides, it +produces results faster than many other methods once you understand it. +
- All materials for this module have been created using Emacs. + +
Vi (Vim)
+-
+
- Much lighter text editor. +
- Still, if you're smart, primarily controlled by keypress combinations. +
- GUI's are available (Gvim and others, but they slow you down). +
- Better suited to use over an ssh, or other network connection. +
- Has full syntax highlighting. +
- Some scripting support. +
- Extensible though plugins. + +
Vim-Pandoc
+-
+
- You can, with a little setup, use Pandoc with Vim via Vim-Pandoc. It doesn't +seem as yet to be supplied as standard with any Linux distributions, although +this may change. +
- Advantages
+
-
+
- Live Preview +
- Easy Bibliography creation + +
+ - Disadvantages
+
-
+
- Lacks the comprehensive featureset and plugin support of Org-Mode (which you might not use). + +
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
diff --git a/lectures/emacs.org b/lectures/emacs.org
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..9cf522a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/lectures/emacs.org
@@ -0,0 +1,180 @@
+# -*- mode: org -*-
+#+TITLE: 389COM: Emacs and Vi
+#+AUTHOR: Dr Carey Pridgeon, Dr Nazaraf Shah
+* setup :noexport:
+#+OPTIONS: reveal_center:t reveal_progress:t reveal_history:t reveal_control:t
+#+OPTIONS: reveal_mathjax:t reveal_rolling_links:t reveal_keyboard:t reveal_overview:t num:nil
+#+OPTIONS: reveal_width:1200 reveal_height:800
+#+OPTIONS: toc:1 num:nil H:2 ^:{}
+#+REVEAL_MARGIN: 0.2
+#+REVEAL_MIN_SCALE: 0.5
+#+REVEAL_MAX_SCALE: 2.5
+#+REVEAL_TRANS: none
+#+REVEAL_THEME: night
+#+REVEAL_HLEVEL: 999
+#+REVEAL_EXTRA_CSS: ../css/presentation.css
+#+REVEAL_ROOT: http://cdn.jsdelivr.net/reveal.js/3.0.0/
+#+STARTUP: showeverything
+# Licenced under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0
+# International by Dr Carey Pridgeon 2019
+
+* What is Emacs?
+** The basics
+- *Emacs* is not just a text editor, just like *Vim* is not just a text editor.
+- However, *Emacs* goes /much/ further than *Vim* into /not just a text editor/
+ territory.
+- We lack time to list everything Emacs can do, suffice to say you could have
+ completed your entire degree using no other tool but emacs.
+- Or rather, using it as a frontend to access other tools you need.
+** Why don't we do this?
+- Emacs has, for some things, a near vertical learning curve if you're not
+ already needing the things you're trying to do. This makes teaching to our
+ first year students something we have been reluctant to do.
+- However in other universities they do /exactly/ this. It is after all, free.
+- The Worksheet you have in this Module began its life as a tutorial for first
+ year students at Exeter University, although it has become a little more
+ complex since then. Not much though, I've even removed some elements.
+- Emacs is a wonderful and complex tool, but it has evolved free from commercial
+ constraints that say things like /user interaction must be easy
+ from the start/.
+** Why Use it?
+- Using Emacs isn't hard once you know what you're doing, but it takes a while
+ to learn, and you need a reason to make that effort when easier, albeit far
+ less capable tools exist.
+- Your main reason to learn it should be that if you intend to be software
+ developers, you should be using what is essentially the top item in the
+ developers toolkit.
+- By this I do not mean /don't use Vim/.
+- I do mean /Don't use nano/, but you should never use nano, just /never/.
+** What can Emacs do
+- Code editing (duh...).
+ - This is probably the thing I use emacs for the least nowadays, though it is
+ extraordinarily good at it.
+- Document Production.
+ - Emacs contains functionality greater than any commercial word processor, but
+ not so easy to access.
+- CLI.
+ - You can get a terminal within Emacs in a different buffer and use that to
+ compile your code while you are writing it.
+- You can write code in a document, and Emacs will compile this code, then put
+ its output in your document. Populating tables, producing charts, whatever you
+ want.
+**
+- Other things are useful if you are more interested in relying heavily on
+ emacs.
+- Web Browsing.
+- Email Client (a few staff here use emacs for this).
+- Music/Media Player.
+- File Organiser.
+- Game Engine.
+- After this the list is vast, and increasingly specialised. Emacs is a long way
+ from being /just a text editor/.
+- This is why I wouldn't tell people to avoid Vim. You wouldn't use a mobile
+ home to go to a supermarket to do your weekly shop if you had a normal car.
+** How would it be useful to you now?
+- [[https://www.latex-project.org/][TeX]].
+- A document formatting language, the first in fact, and by far the best. If
+ only because it has been improved for so many years, because it is free
+ software (not open source).
+- TeX, was originally created because Donald Knuth, writer of the hardest books
+ in computer science, The Art of Computer Science, disliked the document
+ formatting options available for his first book, so he wrote his own instead.
+** LaTeX and Academia
+- Tex proved so popular it was widely adopted in the academic world and became
+ *LaTeX* in the 1980's.
+- Almost all scientific documents are written in LaTeX now, those that aren't
+ are written in MsWord.
+- LaTeX separates content from formatting, unlike MS Word, which requires that
+ you put formatting in as you write. LaTeX inserts on document final
+ compilation.
+** Org Mode
+- LaTeX is great, and using it directly has plenty of advantages. Plus there are
+ lots of ways to do that. Sites like [[https://www.sharelatex.com/][Sharelatex]], tool like [[http://www.xm1math.net/texmaker/][TexMaker]] all make
+ using LaTex fairly painless, but Emacs, through org mode, makes it as simple
+ as writing a plain text file, with a few simple formatting indicators.
+#+begin_src bash
+ ** slide title or section title, (depending on export type)
+ -- bullet point
+ *bolded text*
+ /italicized text/
+#+end_src
+- Where emacs has the edge is in the potential export targets for documents
+ created in *org mode* (which is essentially plain text with a few special
+ characters and format instructions), there are quite a
+ few.
+**
+- Org mode was originally just meant for people to organise their work in emacs,
+ which is where the name came from, but it has long since stopped being just
+ that. There are now hundreds if not thousands of emacs and org-mode plugins
+ and modifications. We have our own custom emacs/org-mode setup on Nostromo
+ that we have released as an open source project.
+** Document generation Time Compilation
+- Using Babel and Org Mode emacs will execute code you've written while
+ compiling your document and insert the results into whatever format you
+ specify.
+- This could be an image, a graph (asymptote or gnuplot), or any one of a large
+ number of supported languages.
+- Word won't do this. Other LaTeX using editors can, but not as simply. For example:
+#+begin_src asymptote :file img/demo2.png
+import graph;
+import settings;
+defaultpen(2);
+outformat="png";
+draw((0,50)--(50,0),white);
+draw((0,50)--(25,0),white);
+draw((0,50)--(0,0),white);
+draw((0,50)--(-50,0),white);
+draw((0,50)--(-25,0),white);
+#+end_src
+**
+- Without the babel instruction block, here's the code *Org-mode* executed to
+ generate the image.
+#+begin_src bash
+import graph;
+import settings;
+defaultpen(2);
+outformat="png";
+draw((0,50)--(50,0),white);
+0)--(50,0),white);
+draw((0,50)--(25,0),white);
+draw((0,50)--(0,0),white);
+draw((0,50)--(-50,0),white);
+draw((0,50)--(-25,0),white);
+#+end_src
+** Alternatives
+- There are alternatives, such as *Pandoc*, which can export from plain
+ text to many of the same export targets, or *Markdown*, of which
+ Pandoc is an advanced version.
+- Both of these are even simpler than *org Mode to use, as you don't need to
+ learn Emacs first.
+- Org mode has more support and capabilities, but the relative complexity of
+ Emacs, while it makes it useful, causes it to be viewed as less desirable by
+ some, in spite of it being less complex than most modern Integrated
+ Development Environments.
+- When used with libraries such as Org-Reveal, as it is now for these slides, it
+ produces results faster than many other methods once you understand it.
+- All materials for this module have been created using Emacs.
+** Vi (Vim)
+- Much lighter text editor.
+- Still, if you're smart, primarily controlled by keypress combinations.
+- GUI's are available (Gvim and others, but they slow you down).
+- Better suited to use over an ssh, or other network connection.
+- Has full syntax highlighting.
+- Some scripting support.
+- Extensible though plugins.
+** Vim-Pandoc
+- You can, with a little setup, use Pandoc with Vim via [[https://github.com/vim-pandoc/vim-pandoc][Vim-Pandoc]]. It doesn't
+ seem as yet to be supplied as standard with any Linux distributions, although
+ this may change.
+- *Advantages*
+ - Live Preview
+ - Easy Bibliography creation
+- *Disadvantages*
+ - Lacks the comprehensive featureset and plugin support of Org-Mode (which you might not use).
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
diff --git a/lectures/emacs.org~ b/lectures/emacs.org~
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7f85bbf
--- /dev/null
+++ b/lectures/emacs.org~
@@ -0,0 +1,180 @@
+# -*- mode: org -*-
+#+TITLE: 389COM: Emacs and Vi
+#+AUTHOR: Dr Carey Pridgeon, Dr Nazaraf Shah
+* setup :noexport:
+#+OPTIONS: reveal_center:t reveal_progress:t reveal_history:t reveal_control:t
+#+OPTIONS: reveal_mathjax:t reveal_rolling_links:t reveal_keyboard:t reveal_overview:t num:nil
+#+OPTIONS: reveal_width:1200 reveal_height:800
+#+OPTIONS: toc:1 num:nil H:2 ^:{}
+#+REVEAL_MARGIN: 0.2
+#+REVEAL_MIN_SCALE: 0.5
+#+REVEAL_MAX_SCALE: 2.5
+#+REVEAL_TRANS: none
+#+REVEAL_THEME: night
+#+REVEAL_HLEVEL: 999
+#+REVEAL_EXTRA_CSS: ../css/presentation.css
+#+REVEAL_ROOT: http://cdn.jsdelivr.net/reveal.js/3.0.0/
+#+STARTUP: showeverything
+# Licenced under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0
+# International by Dr Carey Pridgeon 2019
+
+* What is Emacs?
+** The basics
+- *Emacs* is not just a text editor, just like *Vim* is not just a text editor.
+- However, *Emacs* goes /much/ further than *Vim* into /not just a text editor/
+ territory.
+- We lack time to list everything Emacs can do, suffice to say you could have
+ completed your entire degree using no other tool but emacs.
+- Or rather, using it as a frontend to access other tools you need.
+** Why don't we do this?
+- Emacs has, for some things, a near vertical learning curve if you're not
+ already needing the things you're trying to do. This makes teaching to our
+ first year students something we have been reluctant to do.
+- However in other universities they do /exactly/ this. It is after all, free.
+- The Worksheet you have in this Module began its life as a tutorial for first
+ year students at Exeter University, although it has become a little more
+ complex since then. Not much though, I've even removed some elements.
+- Emacs is a wonderful and complex tool, but it has evolved free from commercial
+ constraints that say things like /user interaction must be easy
+ from the start/.
+** Why Use it?
+- Using Emacs isn't hard once you know what you're doing, but it takes a while
+ to learn, and you need a reason to make that effort when easier, albeit far
+ less capable tools exist.
+- Your main reason to learn it should be that if you intend to be software
+ developers, you should be using what is essentially the top item in the
+ developers toolkit.
+- By this I do not mean /don't use Vim/.
+- I do mean /Don't use nano/, but you should never use nano, just /never/.
+** What can Emacs do
+- Code editing (duh...).
+ - This is probably the thing I use emacs for the least nowadays, though it is
+ extraordinarily good at it.
+- Document Production.
+ - Emacs contains functionality greater than any commercial word processor, but
+ not so easy to access.
+- CLI.
+ - You can get a terminal within Emacs in a different buffer and use that to
+ compile your code while you are writing it.
+- You can write code in a document, and Emacs will compile this code, then put
+ its output in your document. Populating tables, producing charts, whatever you
+ want.
+**
+- Other things are useful if you are more interested in relying heavily on
+ emacs.
+- Web Browsing.
+- Email Client (a few staff here use emacs for this).
+- Music/Media Player.
+- File Organiser.
+- Game Engine.
+- After this the list is vast, and increasingly specialised. Emacs is a long way
+ from being /just a text editor/.
+- This is why I wouldn't tell people to avoid Vim. You wouldn't use a mobile
+ home to go to a supermarket to do your weekly shop if you had a normal car.
+** How would it be useful to you now?
+- [[https://www.latex-project.org/][TeX]].
+- A document formatting language, the first in fact, and by far the best. If
+ only because it has been improved for so many years, because it is free
+ software (not open source).
+- TeX, was originally created because Donald Knuth, writer of the hardest books
+ in computer science, The Art of Computer Science, disliked the document
+ formatting options available for his first book, so he wrote his own instead.
+** LaTeX and Academia
+- Tex proved so popular it was widely adopted in the academic world and became
+ *LaTeX* in the 1980's.
+- Almost all scientific documents are written in LaTeX now, those that aren't
+ are written in MsWord.
+- LaTeX separates content from formatting, unlike MS Word, which requires that
+ you put formatting in as you write. LaTeX inserts on document final
+ compilation.
+** Org Mode - 1
+- LaTeX is great, and using it directly has plenty of advantages. Plus there are
+ lots of ways to do that. Sites like [[https://www.sharelatex.com/][Sharelatex]], tool like [[http://www.xm1math.net/texmaker/][TexMaker]] all make
+ using LaTex fairly painless, but Emacs, through org mode, makes it as simple
+ as writing a plain text file, with a few simple formatting indicators.
+#+begin_src bash
+ ** slide title or section title, (depending on export type)
+ -- bullet point
+ *bolded text*
+ /italicized text/
+#+end_src
+- Where emacs has the edge is in the potential export targets for documents
+ created in *org mode* (which is essentially plain text with a few special
+ characters and format instructions), there are quite a
+ few.
+**
+- Org mode was originally just meant for people to organise their work in emacs,
+ which is where the name came from, but it has long since stopped being just
+ that. There are now hundreds if not thousands of emacs and org-mode plugins
+ and modifications. We have our own custom emacs/org-mode setup on Nostromo
+ that we have released as an open source project.
+** Document generation Time Compilation
+- Using Babel and Org Mode emacs will execute code you've written while
+ compiling your document and insert the results into whatever format you
+ specify.
+- This could be an image, a graph (asymptote or gnuplot), or any one of a large
+ number of supported languages.
+- Word won't do this. Other LaTeX using editors can, but not as simply. For example:
+#+begin_src asymptote :file img/demo2.png
+import graph;
+import settings;
+defaultpen(2);
+outformat="png";
+draw((0,50)--(50,0),white);
+draw((0,50)--(25,0),white);
+draw((0,50)--(0,0),white);
+draw((0,50)--(-50,0),white);
+draw((0,50)--(-25,0),white);
+#+end_src
+**
+- Without the babel instruction block, here's the code *Org-mode* executed to
+ generate the image.
+#+begin_src bash
+import graph;
+import settings;
+defaultpen(2);
+outformat="png";
+draw((0,50)--(50,0),white);
+0)--(50,0),white);
+draw((0,50)--(25,0),white);
+draw((0,50)--(0,0),white);
+draw((0,50)--(-50,0),white);
+draw((0,50)--(-25,0),white);
+#+end_src
+** Alternatives
+- There are alternatives, such as *Pandoc*, which can export from plain
+ text to many of the same export targets, or *Markdown*, of which
+ Pandoc is an advanced version.
+- Both of these are even simpler than *org Mode to use, as you don't need to
+ learn Emacs first.
+- Org mode has more support and capabilities, but the relative complexity of
+ Emacs, while it makes it useful, causes it to be viewed as less desirable by
+ some, in spite of it being less complex than most modern Integrated
+ Development Environments.
+- When used with libraries such as Org-Reveal, as it is now for these slides, it
+ produces results faster than many other methods once you understand it.
+- All materials for this module have been created using Emacs.
+** Vi (Vim)
+- Much lighter text editor.
+- Still, if you're smart, primarily controlled by keypress combinations.
+- GUI's are available (Gvim and others, but they slow you down).
+- Better suited to use over an ssh, or other network connection.
+- Has full syntax highlighting.
+- Some scripting support.
+- Extensible though plugins.
+** Vim-Pandoc
+- You can, with a little setup, use Pandoc with Vim via [[https://github.com/vim-pandoc/vim-pandoc][Vim-Pandoc]]. It doesn't
+ seem as yet to be supplied as standard with any Linux distributions, although
+ this may change.
+- *Advantages*
+ - Live Preview
+ - Easy Bibliography creation
+- *Disadvantages*
+ - Lacks the comprehensive featureset and plugin support of Org-Mode (which you might not use).
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
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+389COM: Emacs and Vi
Dr Carey Pridgeon, Dr Nazaraf Shah
Created: 2019-10-30 Wed 11:56
+
+
+Table of Contents
+
+
+
+What is Emacs?
+
+
+The basics
+-
+
- Emacs is not just a text editor, just like Vim is not just a text editor. +
- However, Emacs goes much further than Vim into not just a text editor +territory. +
- We lack time to list everything Emacs can do, suffice to say you could have +completed your entire degree using no other tool but emacs. +
- Or rather, using it as a frontend to access other tools you need. + +
Why don't we do this?
+-
+
- Emacs has, for some things, a near vertical learning curve if you're not +already needing the things you're trying to do. This makes teaching to our +first year students something we have been reluctant to do. +
- However in other universities they do exactly this. It is after all, free. +
- The Worksheet you have in this Module began its life as a tutorial for first +year students at Exeter University, although it has become a little more +complex since then. Not much though, I've even removed some elements. +
- Emacs is a wonderful and complex tool, but it has evolved free from commercial +constraints that say things like user interaction must be easy +from the start. + +
Why Use it?
+-
+
- Using Emacs isn't hard once you know what you're doing, but it takes a while +to learn, and you need a reason to make that effort when easier, albeit far +less capable tools exist. +
- Your main reason to learn it should be that if you intend to be software +developers, you should be using what is essentially the top item in the +developers toolkit. +
- By this I do not mean don't use Vim. +
- I do mean Don't use nano, but you should never use nano, just never. + +
What can Emacs do
+-
+
- Code editing (duh…).
+
-
+
- This is probably the thing I use emacs for the least nowadays, though it is +extraordinarily good at it. + +
+ - Document Production.
+
-
+
- Emacs contains functionality greater than any commercial word processor, but +not so easy to access. + +
+ - CLI.
+
-
+
- You can get a terminal within Emacs in a different buffer and use that to +compile your code while you are writing it. + +
+ - You can write code in a document, and Emacs will compile this code, then put +its output in your document. Populating tables, producing charts, whatever you +want. + +
-
+
- Other things are useful if you are more interested in relying heavily on +emacs. +
- Web Browsing. +
- Email Client (a few staff here use emacs for this). +
- Music/Media Player. +
- File Organiser. +
- Game Engine. +
- After this the list is vast, and increasingly specialised. Emacs is a long way +from being just a text editor. +
- This is why I wouldn't tell people to avoid Vim. You wouldn't use a mobile +home to go to a supermarket to do your weekly shop if you had a normal car. + +
How would it be useful to you now?
+-
+
- TeX. +
- A document formatting language, the first in fact, and by far the best. If +only because it has been improved for so many years, because it is free +software (not open source). +
- TeX, was originally created because Donald Knuth, writer of the hardest books +in computer science, The Art of Computer Science, disliked the document +formatting options available for his first book, so he wrote his own instead. + +
LaTeX and Academia
+-
+
- Tex proved so popular it was widely adopted in the academic world and became +LaTeX in the 1980's. +
- Almost all scientific documents are written in LaTeX now, those that aren't +are written in MsWord. +
- LaTeX separates content from formatting, unlike MS Word, which requires that +you put formatting in as you write. LaTeX inserts on document final +compilation. + +
Org Mode - 1
+-
+
- LaTeX is great, and using it directly has plenty of advantages. Plus there are +lots of ways to do that. Sites like Sharelatex, tool like TexMaker all make +using LaTex fairly painless, but Emacs, through org mode, makes it as simple +as writing a plain text file, with a few simple formatting indicators. + +
+
+
+** slide title or section title, (depending on export type) +-- bullet point +*bolded text* +/italicized text/ ++
-
+
- Where emacs has the edge is in the potential export targets for documents +created in org mode (which is essentially plain text with a few special +characters and format instructions), there are quite a +few. + +
-
+
- Org mode was originally just meant for people to organise their work in emacs, +which is where the name came from, but it has long since stopped being just +that. There are now hundreds if not thousands of emacs and org-mode plugins +and modifications. We have our own custom emacs/org-mode setup on Nostromo +that we have released as an open source project. + +
Document generation Time Compilation
+-
+
- Using Babel and Org Mode emacs will execute code you've written while +compiling your document and insert the results into whatever format you +specify. +
- This could be an image, a graph (asymptote or gnuplot), or any one of a large +number of supported languages. +
- Word won't do this. Other LaTeX using editors can, but not as simply. For example: + +
+
+
+
+
-
+
- Without the babel instruction block, here's the code Org-mode executed to +generate the image. + +
+
+
+import graph; +import settings; +defaultpen(2); +outformat="png"; +draw((0,50)--(50,0),white); +0)--(50,0),white); +draw((0,50)--(25,0),white); +draw((0,50)--(0,0),white); +draw((0,50)--(-50,0),white); +draw((0,50)--(-25,0),white); ++
Alternatives
+-
+
- There are alternatives, such as Pandoc, which can export from plain +text to many of the same export targets, or Markdown, of which +Pandoc is an advanced version. +
- Both of these are even simpler than *org Mode to use, as you don't need to +learn Emacs first. +
- Org mode has more support and capabilities, but the relative complexity of +Emacs, while it makes it useful, causes it to be viewed as less desirable by +some, in spite of it being less complex than most modern Integrated +Development Environments. +
- When used with libraries such as Org-Reveal, as it is now for these slides, it +produces results faster than many other methods once you understand it. +
- All materials for this module have been created using Emacs. + +
Vi (Vim)
+-
+
- Much lighter text editor. +
- Still, if you're smart, primarily controlled by keypress combinations. +
- GUI's are available (Gvim and others, but they slow you down). +
- Better suited to use over an ssh, or other network connection. +
- Has full syntax highlighting. +
- Some scripting support. +
- Extensible though plugins. + +
Vim-Pandoc
+-
+
- You can, with a little setup, use Pandoc with Vim via Vim-Pandoc. It doesn't +seem as yet to be supplied as standard with any Linux distributions, although +this may change. +
- Advantages
+
-
+
- Live Preview +
- Easy Bibliography creation + +
+ - Disadvantages
+
-
+
- Lacks the comprehensive featureset and plugin support of Org-Mode (which you might not use). + +
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
diff --git a/lectures/games.org b/lectures/games.org
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..641531f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/lectures/games.org
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+# -*- mode: org -*-
+#+TITLE: 389COM: Games and Open Source
+#+AUTHOR: Dr Carey Pridgeon, DR Nazaraf Shah
+* setup :noexport:
+#+OPTIONS: reveal_center:t reveal_progress:t reveal_history:t reveal_control:t
+#+OPTIONS: reveal_mathjax:t reveal_rolling_links:t reveal_keyboard:t reveal_overview:t num:nil
+#+OPTIONS: reveal_width:1200 reveal_height:800
+#+OPTIONS: toc:1 num:nil H:2 ^:{}
+#+REVEAL_MARGIN: 0.2
+#+REVEAL_MIN_SCALE: 0.5
+#+REVEAL_MAX_SCALE: 2.5
+#+REVEAL_TRANS: none
+#+REVEAL_THEME: night
+#+REVEAL_HLEVEL: 999
+#+REVEAL_EXTRA_CSS: ../css/presentation.css
+#+REVEAL_ROOT: http://cdn.jsdelivr.net/reveal.js/3.0.0/
+#+STARTUP: showeverything
+# Licenced under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0
+# International by Dr Carey Pridgeon 2019
+
+* Games
+** State of the onion
+- Tthere are currently 1,048,980 projects on Github locatable with the search tag
+ 'game' (in 2017 there were 503,637, in 2016 there were 354,421).
+- This indicaticates open source developers enjoy writing games, and this number
+ is increasing each year.
+- There are still no major AAA quality revenue generating Open Source games to
+ compete with the likes of EA or Blizzard
+- We will try to examine why this is the case by looking at the history of
+ computer games development.
+** Potted history of Games development
+- During the 1980's and early nineties, the emergence of home computers meant
+ that thousands of people could develop games themselves.
+- Many fortunes were made, and many iconic games series were born. Most people,
+ like myself, just used game programming as a way to learn how to code that
+ resulted in something more interesting than text rolling up the screen.
+- The perception that being a programmer means being wealthy stems from this
+ era, although even then it was only rarely true. Most games produced, even
+ during this supposed golden age, were absolute garbage.
+- The idea that the source code for these games could be revealed, or given away
+ had simply not occurred to any commercial games developers at this time.
+** Open Source and Games
+- Version one of Nethack was released by Mike Stephenson on July 28, 1987. a
+ Rogue-like Dungeon crawler that is extremely hard, and still under active
+ development.
+- This was never a commercial game, so it likely never occurred to Mike that he
+ /shouldn't/ share the code.
+** pic
+[[file:img/nethack.png]]
+**
+- Free software was in its infancy, but lots of people shared code routinely,
+ just not in an organised way.
+- This behaviour was common, with all sorts of code and not everyone
+ approved. It led to the now legendary [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Letter_to_Hobbyists][Open Letter to Hobbyists]] from Bill Gates
+ in 1976.
+- This itself is somewhat ironic, since there is some doubt whether Microsoft
+ stole from Apple in the early days on their company's development of an
+ Operating System with a Graphical User Interface.
+- The timing and similarity of design certainly is suspicious.
+
+**
+- Nethack has been very influential in the three decades it has existed. I've
+ tried several times to get good at it, but I'm just not.
+- It has also always been free, with contributors gaining reputation and
+ employment based on the quality of their work, not making money from Nethack
+ itself.
+- No commercial game has enjoyed such longevity, or attained a comparable level
+ of code quality.
+- Nor has any Open Source game, although classes of them have.
+**
+- Id software have released the source code for all their games once they have
+ moved on. Source code only, but not the resources.
+- Attempts have been made to duplicate commercial games using all new code.
+ sometimes these have been stamped on hard.
+- Diablo is an example of a game that has recently been recreated completely as
+ an Open Source Project. Unlike other occasions in the past which I will
+ discuss shortly, Blizzard don't mind this, as to use the recreation, you need
+ either to own, or buy the full game.
+- Basically, it earns them money and they don't have to do any work. The new
+ version works on a Nintendo Switch.
+**
+- Simcity has been the inspiration for several open source games (linCity, OpenCity).
+- Freecraft, a Warcraft 2 clone was killed by Blizzard in June 2003 for
+ trademark infringement.
+- Blizzard also killed an attempt at an alternative Open Source Battlenet
+ service called bnetd by threatening to sue anyone involved.
+- This /would/ have impacted their revenue stream at the time, whereas the Open
+ Source rebuild mention above enhances it.
+** Cast off games
+- Some software houses have released entire formally commercial games as open
+ source.
+- Laudable, because it does give new games developers an opportunity to legally
+ view commercial game developers code, but the reality is that these are games
+ that have run their commercial course and retain no opportunity for someone to
+ make a living from them.
+- In fact, if anyone did manage to find a way to make money, it's likely the
+ copyright holders would step in and demand a major cut anyway.
+** Clones
+- Some very old games, some which made their millions in the eighties have been
+ cloned (duplicated in their entirety). Manic Miner, Chuckie Egg, Space
+ Invaders, Missile Command. Familiar names to me, positively archeological to
+ most of you.
+- However the problem remains that while these old games remain entertaining
+ when given a makeover, they're not going to make anyone a living now.
+**
+- Recreating classic games is a good way to cut your game development teeth,
+ since people know what to expect, and can therefore appreciate a good
+ rendition.
+- There is *NO SUCH THING* as Abandonware. If you sell your version of an old
+ game and it makes money, be aware of this. Someone, might come calling, asking
+ for compensation.
+** Examining the problem
+- So why hasn't anyone managed to create a commercially viable Open Source game?
+ At least not one capable of competing with the big number games.
+- People have managed to use open source tools to make closed source games, so
+ the tools exist for a totally free project, the limitation is not software based.
+- The traditional games industry often views attempts at interoperability with their
+ products as promoting piracy.
+**
+- Current AAA games cost multiple millions and several years to develop.
+- Minecraft, a program initially written by one man, became a worldwide
+ sensation, and was bought by Microsoft for Billions.
+- The idea that succesful games must inevitably cost millions to develop is
+ clearly flawed.
+- Mobile games are now dominating the games industry, and AAA developers don't
+ seem to be near mastering that.
+** The Traditional games industry
+- Warning, vast oversimplifications follow.
+- Since it's emergence in the 1970's, the traditional games industry has grown
+ more complex and centralised.
+- The AAA industry has gained, through acquisition, most of the most popular
+ franchises.
+- As each iteration of mainstream games appears, changes have been less
+ significant, and innovation/risk taking has been less appealing to them.
+**
+- Gameplay innovation has been replaced by graphical ones, and even that is
+ beginning to stagnate.
+- The prime example of this is in FPS and Sports games. Year on Year they change
+ less and less.
+- When they first appeared each release brought revelations in gameplay.
+**
+- Microtransactions and in game stores have been borrowed from mobile
+ and web based games and put in games that previously had, and needed
+ none, to further increase revenue.
+- They have not thus far seen Open Source as a valid avenue, since any such
+ game, if true Open Source, would easily slip from their control if
+ mis-managed.
+** The Console Market
+- As it stands today, the Console market is not available to Open Source games.
+- Console games also tend to be the primary focus of releases, with PC releases
+ being ports. This may be changing, I don't buy any new games that were on a
+ console first, they tend to suck.
+- Hardware is not the issue, at present Console manufacturers are actively
+ hostile to the Open Source world. This is possibly due to a lack of perceived
+ revenue stream.
+** Platforms
+- With the emergence of platforms, not a new thing Steam has been around for
+ years, but Stadia is taking it to a new level, and there's the Apple platform.
+- Open Source might find itself locked out of gaming in the future, unless
+ someone finds a way in. There probably will be one, but it will need to be one
+ with a profit motive.
+** Mods - History
+- Mods for commercial games have existed since Id software actively promoted
+ community contributions to their FPS game Doom in the nineties.
+- Not at first however, initially they were against it. [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Romero][John Romero]]
+ seems to have been the driving force in changing their minds.
+**
+- Mods have led to careers in gaming they may still, but it seems the field is a
+ bit crowded.
+- Id sought to hire many early community developers, and there are examples of
+ mods becoming full games. (Counterstrike, Desert Combat, Team Fortress).
+- [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Polge][Steve Polge]] created an AI mod for Quake [[http://easttown.co.uk/quake/reaper.html][Reaper Bot]] in 1997 that essentially
+ began the rise of AI NPCs in games that we see everywhere today.
+- Mods were however predominantly 'free' products that enhanced non
+ free products.
+** Reaper Bot
+[[file:img/reaper_bot.png]]
+**
+- There have been, probably still are attempts to monetize modding, but these
+ seem to be mostly aimed at producing a new revenue stream for AAA games companies,
+ so not really relevant.
+- In general I would say todays games market modding should be avoided
+ in favour of working on your own unique IP.
+** Kickstarter
+- Lots of games, have been funded through Kickstarter.
+- Kickstarter game projects reward contributors with, among other things, early
+ game access, a say in game development, and extra features, either exclusive,
+ or just earlier than non contributors.
+- How would this work if all the code, and game assets, were free to anyone all the way along?
+- The advantage of a succesful Kickstarter campaign would be an initial cash lump sum.
+- It seems to me that Kickstarter favours the closed source model.
+** Patreon
+- Contributors to Patreon projects generally expect to be funding something
+ which has reguler output.
+- I initially encountered it on Youtube, though I have since learned that many
+ freelance creators have successfully used it.
+- There would be no initial cash lump sum.
+- Patreon Does seem to favour a more open model, since no-one gets exclusive
+ content, but they do often get a say in subjects covered.
+** Game Funding alternatives
+- One Time Purchase.
+- Since an open source game couldn't use DRM (even if that did work), the piracy
+ endemic in the One Time Purchase model world would kill any potential revenue
+ stream.
+**
+- Episodic purchase (expansions/DLC).
+- This model shares the same weakness as the One Time Purchase model.
+- It's probably not relevant, because the DLC could just be released as a new
+ main game build.
+- Subscription.
+- Usually associated with a persistant online world, so not universally
+ relevant.
+- Would definitely require seed funding, since subscriptions couldn't start
+ till the game reached initial release.
+**
+- Sponsorship
+- Usually in the game development world this involves a loss of creative
+ control.
+- However it is the most used method of Open Source funding, and in this area,
+ loss of creative control is /not/ common.
+- A game using this approach would sell itself to sponsors as a 'value adding
+ service'.
+- Email, web browsers and social networking have been used in this regard.
+- But there would always be conditions.
+** Should you target Windows?
+- Short answer, probably not at first.
+- Windows has been the dominant operating system for 20+ years.
+- DirectX was a genius move, and cemented Windows as the best place
+ for companies to develop games for most of that time.
+- This was a deliberate move by Microsoft, their dominance of the gaming world
+ was no happy accident, it was a deliberate and expensive push into the field.
+** Why Not Linux
+- Structurally, there is no significant reason Linux could not run
+ games as well as Windows.
+- Linux was not initially focussed on gaming. It still has not
+ focussed well in this area.
+- Market share is king, It wasn't worth developing AAA games for Linux first.
+**
+- Graphics cards manufacturers have not concentrated on optimising
+ their products for Linux performance, so Linux falls even further behind.
+- Unless something really significant occurs, this problem isn't likely to go
+ away.
+** Shifting Tides
+- The Operating system landscape is changing, Mobile OS have taken
+ off.
+- Now there's the Switch.I've read lots of articles declaring it dead on
+ arrival, and yet I keep seeing people buying and using it. My son uses his a
+ lot.
+- Means of exchanging payment for gaming products that consumers are
+ willing to accept are changing too.
+
+** Obligatory XKCD
+[[file:img/ultimate_game.png]]
+- Copyright: Randall Munroe - XKCD
+- Mirrored in my hosting to avoid bandwidth stealing
+** Licence for this work
+- Licenced under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0
+ International by Dr Carey Pridgeon 2016
+- (Licence does not cover linked images owned by other content creators)
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+389COM: Games and Open Source
Dr Carey Pridgeon, DR Nazaraf Shah
Created: 2019-09-03 Tue 13:02
+
+
+Table of Contents
+
+
+-
+
- Games +
Games
+
+
+State of the onion
+-
+
- Tthere are currently 1,048,980 projects on Github locatable with the search tag +'game' (in 2017 there were 503,637, in 2016 there were 354,421). +
- This indicaticates open source developers enjoy writing games, and this number +is increasing each year. +
- There are still no major AAA quality revenue generating Open Source games to +compete with the likes of EA or Blizzard +
- We will try to examine why this is the case by looking at the history of +computer games development. + +
Potted history of Games development
+-
+
- During the 1980's and early nineties, the emergence of home computers meant +that thousands of people could develop games themselves. +
- Many fortunes were made, and many iconic games series were born. Most people, +like myself, just used game programming as a way to learn how to code that +resulted in something more interesting than text rolling up the screen. +
- The perception that being a programmer means being wealthy stems from this +era, although even then it was only rarely true. Most games produced, even +during this supposed golden age, were absolute garbage. +
- The idea that the source code for these games could be revealed, or given away +had simply not occurred to any commercial games developers at this time. + +
Open Source and Games
+-
+
- Version one of Nethack was released by Mike Stephenson on July 28, 1987. a +Rogue-like Dungeon crawler that is extremely hard, and still under active +development. +
- This was never a commercial game, so it likely never occurred to Mike that he +shouldn't share the code. + +
pic
+ +
+
+
+
-
+
- Free software was in its infancy, but lots of people shared code routinely, +just not in an organised way. +
- This behaviour was common, with all sorts of code and not everyone +approved. It led to the now legendary Open Letter to Hobbyists from Bill Gates +in 1976. +
- This itself is somewhat ironic, since there is some doubt whether Microsoft +stole from Apple in the early days on their company's development of an +Operating System with a Graphical User Interface. +
- The timing and similarity of design certainly is suspicious. + +
-
+
- Nethack has been very influential in the three decades it has existed. I've +tried several times to get good at it, but I'm just not. +
- It has also always been free, with contributors gaining reputation and +employment based on the quality of their work, not making money from Nethack +itself. +
- No commercial game has enjoyed such longevity, or attained a comparable level +of code quality. +
- Nor has any Open Source game, although classes of them have. + +
-
+
- Id software have released the source code for all their games once they have +moved on. Source code only, but not the resources. +
- Attempts have been made to duplicate commercial games using all new code. +sometimes these have been stamped on hard. +
- Diablo is an example of a game that has recently been recreated completely as +an Open Source Project. Unlike other occasions in the past which I will +discuss shortly, Blizzard don't mind this, as to use the recreation, you need +either to own, or buy the full game. +
- Basically, it earns them money and they don't have to do any work. The new +version works on a Nintendo Switch. + +
-
+
- Simcity has been the inspiration for several open source games (linCity, OpenCity). +
- Freecraft, a Warcraft 2 clone was killed by Blizzard in June 2003 for +trademark infringement. +
- Blizzard also killed an attempt at an alternative Open Source Battlenet +service called bnetd by threatening to sue anyone involved. +
- This would have impacted their revenue stream at the time, whereas the Open +Source rebuild mention above enhances it. + +
Cast off games
+-
+
- Some software houses have released entire formally commercial games as open +source. +
- Laudable, because it does give new games developers an opportunity to legally +view commercial game developers code, but the reality is that these are games +that have run their commercial course and retain no opportunity for someone to +make a living from them. +
- In fact, if anyone did manage to find a way to make money, it's likely the +copyright holders would step in and demand a major cut anyway. + +
Clones
+-
+
- Some very old games, some which made their millions in the eighties have been +cloned (duplicated in their entirety). Manic Miner, Chuckie Egg, Space +Invaders, Missile Command. Familiar names to me, positively archeological to +most of you. +
- However the problem remains that while these old games remain entertaining +when given a makeover, they're not going to make anyone a living now. + +
-
+
- Recreating classic games is a good way to cut your game development teeth, +since people know what to expect, and can therefore appreciate a good +rendition. +
- There is NO SUCH THING as Abandonware. If you sell your version of an old +game and it makes money, be aware of this. Someone, might come calling, asking +for compensation. + +
Examining the problem
+-
+
- So why hasn't anyone managed to create a commercially viable Open Source game? +At least not one capable of competing with the big number games. +
- People have managed to use open source tools to make closed source games, so +the tools exist for a totally free project, the limitation is not software based. +
- The traditional games industry often views attempts at interoperability with their +products as promoting piracy. + +
-
+
- Current AAA games cost multiple millions and several years to develop. +
- Minecraft, a program initially written by one man, became a worldwide +sensation, and was bought by Microsoft for Billions. +
- The idea that succesful games must inevitably cost millions to develop is +clearly flawed. +
- Mobile games are now dominating the games industry, and AAA developers don't +seem to be near mastering that. + +
The Traditional games industry
+-
+
- Warning, vast oversimplifications follow. +
- Since it's emergence in the 1970's, the traditional games industry has grown +more complex and centralised. +
- The AAA industry has gained, through acquisition, most of the most popular +franchises. +
- As each iteration of mainstream games appears, changes have been less +significant, and innovation/risk taking has been less appealing to them. + +
-
+
- Gameplay innovation has been replaced by graphical ones, and even that is +beginning to stagnate. +
- The prime example of this is in FPS and Sports games. Year on Year they change +less and less. +
- When they first appeared each release brought revelations in gameplay. + +
-
+
- Microtransactions and in game stores have been borrowed from mobile +and web based games and put in games that previously had, and needed +none, to further increase revenue. +
- They have not thus far seen Open Source as a valid avenue, since any such +game, if true Open Source, would easily slip from their control if +mis-managed. + +
The Console Market
+-
+
- As it stands today, the Console market is not available to Open Source games. +
- Console games also tend to be the primary focus of releases, with PC releases +being ports. This may be changing, I don't buy any new games that were on a +console first, they tend to suck. +
- Hardware is not the issue, at present Console manufacturers are actively +hostile to the Open Source world. This is possibly due to a lack of perceived +revenue stream. + +
Platforms
+-
+
- With the emergence of platforms, not a new thing Steam has been around for +years, but Stadia is taking it to a new level, and there's the Apple platform. +
- Open Source might find itself locked out of gaming in the future, unless +someone finds a way in. There probably will be one, but it will need to be one +with a profit motive. + +
Mods - History
+-
+
- Mods for commercial games have existed since Id software actively promoted +community contributions to their FPS game Doom in the nineties. +
- Not at first however, initially they were against it. John Romero +seems to have been the driving force in changing their minds. + +
-
+
- Mods have led to careers in gaming they may still, but it seems the field is a +bit crowded. +
- Id sought to hire many early community developers, and there are examples of +mods becoming full games. (Counterstrike, Desert Combat, Team Fortress). +
- Steve Polge created an AI mod for Quake Reaper Bot in 1997 that essentially +began the rise of AI NPCs in games that we see everywhere today. +
- Mods were however predominantly 'free' products that enhanced non +free products. + +
Reaper Bot
+ +
+
+
+
-
+
- There have been, probably still are attempts to monetize modding, but these +seem to be mostly aimed at producing a new revenue stream for AAA games companies, +so not really relevant. +
- In general I would say todays games market modding should be avoided +in favour of working on your own unique IP. + +
Kickstarter
+-
+
- Lots of games, have been funded through Kickstarter. +
- Kickstarter game projects reward contributors with, among other things, early +game access, a say in game development, and extra features, either exclusive, +or just earlier than non contributors. +
- How would this work if all the code, and game assets, were free to anyone all the way along? +
- The advantage of a succesful Kickstarter campaign would be an initial cash lump sum. +
- It seems to me that Kickstarter favours the closed source model. + +
Patreon
+-
+
- Contributors to Patreon projects generally expect to be funding something +which has reguler output. +
- I initially encountered it on Youtube, though I have since learned that many +freelance creators have successfully used it. +
- There would be no initial cash lump sum. +
- Patreon Does seem to favour a more open model, since no-one gets exclusive +content, but they do often get a say in subjects covered. + +
Game Funding alternatives
+-
+
- One Time Purchase. +
- Since an open source game couldn't use DRM (even if that did work), the piracy +endemic in the One Time Purchase model world would kill any potential revenue +stream. + +
-
+
- Episodic purchase (expansions/DLC). +
- This model shares the same weakness as the One Time Purchase model. +
- It's probably not relevant, because the DLC could just be released as a new +main game build. +
- Subscription. +
- Usually associated with a persistant online world, so not universally +relevant. +
- Would definitely require seed funding, since subscriptions couldn't start +till the game reached initial release. + +
-
+
- Sponsorship +
- Usually in the game development world this involves a loss of creative +control. +
- However it is the most used method of Open Source funding, and in this area, +loss of creative control is not common. +
- A game using this approach would sell itself to sponsors as a 'value adding +service'. +
- Email, web browsers and social networking have been used in this regard. +
- But there would always be conditions. + +
Should you target Windows?
+-
+
- Short answer, probably not at first. +
- Windows has been the dominant operating system for 20+ years. +
- DirectX was a genius move, and cemented Windows as the best place +for companies to develop games for most of that time. +
- This was a deliberate move by Microsoft, their dominance of the gaming world +was no happy accident, it was a deliberate and expensive push into the field. + +
Why Not Linux
+-
+
- Structurally, there is no significant reason Linux could not run +games as well as Windows. +
- Linux was not initially focussed on gaming. It still has not +focussed well in this area. +
- Market share is king, It wasn't worth developing AAA games for Linux first. + +
-
+
- Graphics cards manufacturers have not concentrated on optimising +their products for Linux performance, so Linux falls even further behind. +
- Unless something really significant occurs, this problem isn't likely to go +away. + +
Shifting Tides
+-
+
- The Operating system landscape is changing, Mobile OS have taken +off. +
- Now there's the Switch.I've read lots of articles declaring it dead on +arrival, and yet I keep seeing people buying and using it. My son uses his a +lot. +
- Means of exchanging payment for gaming products that consumers are +willing to accept are changing too. + +
Obligatory XKCD
+ +
+
+
+
-
+
- Copyright: Randall Munroe - XKCD +
- Mirrored in my hosting to avoid bandwidth stealing + +
Licence for this work
+-
+
- Licenced under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 +International by Dr Carey Pridgeon 2016 +
- (Licence does not cover linked images owned by other content creators) + +
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
diff --git a/lectures/games2.org b/lectures/games2.org
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..141858b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/lectures/games2.org
@@ -0,0 +1,412 @@
+# -*- mode: org -*-
+#+TITLE: 389COM: Games and Open Source
+#+AUTHOR: Dr Carey Pridgeon, DR Nazaraf Shah
+* setup :noexport:
+#+OPTIONS: reveal_center:t reveal_progress:t reveal_history:t reveal_control:t
+#+OPTIONS: reveal_mathjax:t reveal_rolling_links:t reveal_keyboard:t reveal_overview:t num:nil
+#+OPTIONS: reveal_width:1200 reveal_height:800
+#+OPTIONS: toc:1 num:nil H:2 ^:{}
+#+REVEAL_MARGIN: 0.2
+#+REVEAL_MIN_SCALE: 0.5
+#+REVEAL_MAX_SCALE: 2.5
+#+REVEAL_TRANS: none
+#+REVEAL_THEME: night
+#+REVEAL_HLEVEL: 999
+#+REVEAL_EXTRA_CSS: ../css/presentation.css
+#+REVEAL_ROOT: http://cdn.jsdelivr.net/reveal.js/3.0.0/
+#+STARTUP: showeverything
+# Licenced under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0
+# International by Dr Carey Pridgeon 2019
+
+* Games
+** State of the onion
+- In 2017 there were 1,001,073 projects on Github locatable with the search tag
+ 'game' (in 2017 there were 503,637, in 2016 there were 354,421).
+- In spite of this clear indication that increasing numbers of open source
+ developers enjoy writing games, there are still no major AAA quality revenue
+ generating Open Source games to compete with the likes of EA or Blizzard
+- We will try to examine why this is the case by looking at the history of
+ computer games development.
+** Potted history of Games development
+- During the 1980's and early nineties, the emergence of home computers meant
+ that thousands of people could develop games themselves.
+- Many fortunes were made, and many iconic games series were born. Most people,
+ like myself, just used game programming as a way to learn how to code that
+ resulted in something more interesting than text rolling up the screen.
+- The perception that being a programmer means being wealthy stems from this
+ era, although even then it was only rarely true. Most games produced, even
+ during this supposed golden age, were absolute garbage.
+- The idea that the source code for these games could be revealed, or given away
+ had simply not occurred to any commercial games developers at this time.
+** Open Source and Games - 1
+- Version one of Nethack was released by Mike Stephenson on July 28, 1987. a
+ Rogue-like Dungeon crawler that is extremely hard, and still under active
+ development.
+- This was never a commercial game, so it likely never occurred to Mike that he
+ /shouldn't/ share the code.
+** pic
+[[file:img/nethack.png]]
+**
+- Free software was in its infancy, but lots of people shared code routinely,
+ just not in an organised way.
+- This behaviour was common, with all sorts of code and not everyone
+ approved. It led to the now legendary [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Letter_to_Hobbyists][Open Letter to Hobbyists]] from Bill Gates
+ in 1976.
+- This itself is somewhat ironic, since there is some doubt whether Microsoft
+ stole from Apple in the early days on their company's development of an
+ Operating System with a Graphical User Interface.
+- The timing and similarity of design certainly is suspicious.
+
+** Open Source and Games - 2
+- Nethack has been very influential in the three decades it has existed. I've
+ tried several times to get good at it, but I'm just not.
+- It has also always been free, with contributors gaining reputation and
+ employment based on the quality of their work, not making money from Nethack
+ itself.
+- No commercial game has enjoyed such longevity, or attained a comparable level
+ of code quality.
+- Nor has any Open Source game, although classes of them have.
+** Open Source and Games - 3
+- Id software have released the source code for all their games once they have
+ moved on. Source code only, but not the resources.
+- Attempts have been made to duplicate commercial games using all new code.
+ sometimes these have been stamped on hard.
+- Diablo is an example of a game that has recently been recreated completely as
+ an Open Source Project. Unlike other occasions in the past which I will
+ discuss shortly, Blizzard don't mind this, as to use the recreation, you need
+ either to own, or buy the full game.
+- Basically, it earns them money and they don't have to do any work. The new
+ version works on a Nintendo Switch.
+** - Open Source and Games - 4
+- Simcity has been the inspiration for several open source games (linCity, OpenCity).
+- Freecraft, a Warcraft 2 clone was killed by Blizzard in June 2003 for
+ trademark infringement.
+- Blizzard also killed an attempt at an alternative Open Source Battlenet
+ service called bnetd by threatening to sue anyone involved.
+- This /would/ have impacted their revenue stream at the time, whereas the Open
+ Source rebuild mention above enhances it.
+** Cast off games
+- Some software houses have released entire formally commercial games as open
+ source.
+- Laudable, because it does give new games developers an opportunity to legally
+ view commercial game developers code, but the reality is that these are games
+ that have run their commercial course and retain no opportunity for someone to
+ make a living from them.
+- In fact, if anyone did manage to find a way to make money, it's likely the
+ copyright holders would step in and demand a major cut anyway.
+** Clones
+- Some very old games, some which made their millions in the eighties have been
+ cloned (duplicated in their entirety). Manic Miner, Chuckie Egg, Space
+ Invaders, Missile Command.
+- However the problem remains that while entertaining, these are not going to
+ make anyone a living now.
+- Recreating classic games is a good way to cut your game development teeth,
+ since people know what to expect, and can therefore appreciate a good
+ rendition.
+- It's important that the games be old enough to not be currently on sale, nor
+ should you sell them, since old games are almost always still owned by
+ someone.
+- There is *NO SUCH THING* as Abandonware.
+** Examining the problem
+- So why has no-one ever managed to create a commercially viable Open Source game?
+- People have managed to use open source tools to make closed source games, so
+ the tools exist for a totally free project, the limitation is not software based.
+- The traditional games industry often views attempts at interoperability with their
+ products as promoting piracy.
+**
+- Current AAA games cost multiple millions and several years to develop.
+- Minecraft, a program initially written by one man, became a worldwide
+ sensation, and was bought by Microsoft for Billions.
+- The idea that succesful games must inevitably cost millions to develop is
+ clearly flawed.
+- Mobile games are now dominating the games industry, and AAA developers don't
+ seem to be near mastering that.
+** The Traditional games industry
+- Warning, vast oversimplifications follow.
+- Since it's emergence in the 1970's, the traditional games industry has grown
+ more complex and centralised.
+- The AAA industry has gained, through acquisition, most of the most popular
+ franchises.
+- As each iteration of mainstream games appears, changes have been less
+ significant, and innovation/risk taking has been less appealing to them.
+- Gameplay innovation has been replaced by graphical ones, and even that is
+ beginning to stagnate.
+- The prime example of this is in FPS and Sports games. Year on Year they change
+ less and less.
+- When they first appeared each release brought revelations in gameplay.
+**
+- Microtransactions and in game stores have been borrowed from mobile
+ and web based games and put in games that previously had, and needed
+ none, to further increase revenue.
+- They have not thus far seen Open Source as a valid avenue, since any such
+ game, if true Open Source, would easily slip from their control if
+ mis-managed.
+** The Console Market
+- As it stands today, the Console market is not available to Open Source games.
+- Console games also tend to be the primary focus of releases, with PC releases
+ being ports. This may be changing, I don't buy any new games that were on a
+ console first, they tend to suck.
+- Hardware is not the issue, at present Console manufacturers are actively
+ hostile to the Open Source world. This is possibly due to a lack of perceived
+ revenue stream.
+** Mods - History
+- Mods for commercial games have existed since Id software actively promoted
+ community contributions to their FPS game Doom in the nineties.
+- Not at first however, initially they were against it. [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Romero][John Romero]]
+ seems to have been the driving force in changing their minds.
+**
+- Mods have led to careers in gaming they may still, but it seems the field is a
+ bit crowded.
+- Id sought to hire many early community developers, and there are examples of
+ mods becoming full games. (Counterstrike, Desert Combat, Team Fortress).
+- [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Polge][Steve Polge]] created an AI mod for Quake [[http://easttown.co.uk/quake/reaper.html][Reaper Bot]] in 1997 that essentially
+ began the rise of AI NPCs in games that we see everywhere today.
+- Mods were however predominantly 'free' products that enhanced non
+ free products.
+**
+- There have been, probably still are attempts to monetize modding, but these
+ seem to be mostly aimed at producing a new revenue stream for AAA games companies,
+ so not really relevant.
+- In general I would say todays games market modding should be avoided
+ in favour of working on your own unique IP.
+** Kickstarter
+- Lots of games, have been funded through Kickstarter.
+- Kickstarter game projects reward contributors with, among other things, early
+ game access, a say in game development, and extra features, either exclusive,
+ or just earlier than non contributors.
+- How would this work if all the code, and game assets, were free to anyone all the way along?
+- The advantage of a succesful Kickstarter campaign would be an initial cash lump sum.
+- It seems to me that Kickstarter favours the closed source model.
+** Patreon
+- Contributers to Patreon projects generally expect to be funding something
+ which has reguler output.
+- I initially encountered it on Youtube, though I have since learned that many
+ freelance creators have successfully used it.
+- There would be no initial cash lump sum.
+- Patreon Does seem to favour a more open model, since no-one gets exclusive
+ content, but they do often get a say in subjects covered.
+** Game Funding alternatives
+- One Time Purchase.
+- Since an open source game couldn't use DRM (even if that did work), the piracy
+ endemic in the One Time Purchase model world would kill any potential revenue
+ stream.
+**
+- Episodic purchase (expansions/DLC).
+- This model shares the same weakness as the One Time Purchase model.
+- It's probably not relevant, because the DLC could just be released as a new
+ main game build.
+- Subscription.
+- Usually associated with a persistant online world, so not universally
+ relevant.
+- Would definitely require seed funding, since subscriptions couldn't start
+ till the game reached initial release.
+**
+- Sponsorship
+- Usually in the game development world this involves a loss of creative
+ control.
+- However it is the most used method of Open Source funding, and in this area,
+ loss of creative control is /not/ common.
+- A game using this approach would sell itself to sponsors as a 'value adding
+ service'.
+- Email, web browsers and social networking have been used in this regard.
+- But there would always be conditions.
+** Should you target Windows?
+- Short answer, probably not at first.
+- Windows has been the dominant operating system for 20+ years.
+- DirectX was a genius move, and cemented Windows as the best place
+ for companies to develop games for most of that time.
+- This was a deliberate move by Microsoft, their dominance of the gaming world
+ was no happy accident, it was a deliberate and expensive push into the field.
+** Why Not Linux
+- Structurally, there is no significant reason Linux could not run
+ games as well as Windows.
+- Linux was not initially focussed on gaming. It still has not
+ focussed well in this area.
+- Market share is king, It wasn't worth developing AAA games for Linux first.
+**
+- Graphics cards manufacturers have not concentrated on optimising
+ their products for Linux performance, so Linux falls even further behind.
+- Unless something really significant occurs, this problem isn't likely to go
+ away.
+** Shifting Tides
+- The Operating system landscape is changing, Mobile OS have taken
+ off.
+- Now there's the Switch.I've read lots of articles declaring it dead on
+ arrival, and yet I keep seeing people buying and using it.
+- Means of exchanging payment for gaming products that consumers are
+ willing to accept are changing too.
+** Writing - 1
+- We're going to depart from software for a little bit here, but it is
+ necessary.
+- Publishing is a market which has undergone and survived many technological
+ changes.
+- Magazines were initially threatened by the web, but now many have embraced it.
+- The end of the printed word (the paperless office) has been much spoken of,
+ yet print co-exists with digital works, and this will likely continue.
+** Writing - 2
+- The following (except for the statistics) is based around the short video
+ presentation by Piers Blofeld of Sheil Land Associates titled *Seven reasons
+ why you shouldn't self publish* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGXEpMIfUZ4][youtube link]]
+- Chosen because I see many parallels between a potential market for sale of
+ Open Source games and self publishing of literature. It definitely needs to
+ be watched.
+** Writing - 3
+- Nearly 460,000 titles were self-published globally in 2013 [[http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/da1b382e-c8ea-1q1e4-bc64-00144feab7de.html][source]].
+- In 2012, half of the self published authors made less than $500 [[https://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/may/24/self-published-author-earnings][source]].
+- Many reasons for their failing probably relate well to the Open Source world.
+- Ebooks are popular, and sell really well, as this graphic shows, but the
+ market is so saturated the per author earnings remain far too low.
+** pic
+[[http://authorearnings.com/report/february-2016-author-earnings-report/][Image Credit]]
+[[file:img/unit-sales-trend-20160110.png]]
+** Writing - 4
+- Most self published books fail, just as most Open Source Projects (98%) fail,
+ and for many of the same reasons.
+- Product Quality - With the primary and critical difference that a
+ book released with an ISBN number cannot be updated after release
+- Lack of testing - Too many self publishing writers don't get other people to
+ read their work, or don't listen to feedback.
+** Writing - 5
+- The literature marketing process (as any marketing process) is complicated, so
+ any time you spend trying to prepare your book for the market place will take
+ time away from improving your product.
+- There is frustration with the 'traditional' publishing world, because it is
+ hard to get into, so some people resent its gatekeeping role.
+- Amazon particularly have made it easy for writers to get their work published
+ electronically, so it is increasingly fashionable to do this.
+** Writing - 6
+- The self publishing market lacks oversight. You can go from writing to
+ published in a few days. This make the use of the term 'publication' a little
+ vague. It seems to me little more than a technological gloss on photocopying
+ your book.
+- This in effect means you can put your work into a global slush pile without
+ any checks and hope it might stand out.
+** Writing - 7
+- Sometimes your work /just isn't good enough/, or just /not yet/. So you can damage
+ any potential reputation you might gain by self publishing a sub par book.
+- Having an experienced Agent tell you your book isn't good enough may
+ not be nice, but it may still be needed.
+** Relating this to software - 1
+- This also why Open Source can work so well, you are open to constructive
+ advice on your product.
+- Sometimes getting an email telling you that one of your functions
+ isn't working. can help. If they tell you it's rubbish and suggest
+ a fix, that can be awesome, say thanks, start a dialog.
+** Relating this to software - 2
+- You need to be open to this sort of thing if you want to be a success in the
+ Open Source world, Similarly, if you find that you have something to say about
+ someone else's product, tell them, but do it nicely, in a useful
+ way.
+- The kind of thinking Self publishers are tending towards now harmed the Free
+ Software Foundation in its early days, eventually bringing the Open Source
+ movement into existence out of pure necessity.
+** Relating this to software - 3
+- This is where self publishing, as it is now is most similar to the early days
+ of Free Software development, unstructured, open to abuse and full of
+ misinformation.
+- The problems faced by content producers are identical in both fields in all
+ respects other than we are trying to sell a product that is 'Free' in a closed
+ source dominated market.
+** Farmers Markets - 1
+- On the face of it, nothing like software engineering.
+- Farmers markets provide an avenue for artisans or small farmers to:
+ - Sell products direct to consumers.
+ - Gain future direct customers through direct repeat purchases.
+ - Meet other small producers.
+- The key point here is that it is an opportunity for communities to develop,
+ and for products to evolve as a result of those communities.
+** Farmers Markets - 2
+- The Artisan food market is taking off again, people are becoming less satisfied
+ with shelves full of identical, low quality products that use the names
+ formally associated with higher quality.
+- [[http://www.stichelton.co.uk/][Stichelton Dairy]] is a prime example of meeting this need. Most Stilton is made
+ counter to the original recipe, making the Stilton name no longer really
+ applicable, but it has been adopted to refer to the new recipes, so they can,
+ and do, control it.
+** Farmers Markets - 3
+- Stichleton is actually /real/ Stilton, but due to Joe Schneider's use of raw
+ milk he can't call it Stilton. That Trademark is now too strictly controlled
+ by large commercial interests who have legally defined what can be called
+ Stilton now, and it doesn't include raw milk any more, even though originally
+ it did.
+- Joe is in fact similer to an open source developer, since there was no
+ recipe for him to work from, so he had to recreate the original Stilton recipe
+ by experimentation.
+** Farmers Markets - 4
+- Artisan food makers have many of the same issues as Open Source
+ Developers. They are competing in a niche market, often against overwhelming
+ commercial competition. They also need to group together to be effective.
+- The main difference currently is that Open Source is not usually sold,
+ although this document and its companion lecture/discussion lecture is about
+ how to change that.
+** Access to products - 1
+- Traditional games have plenty of sales avenues to choose from, such as Steam,
+ GOG.com, or Mobile/OS App and Console Stores, Amazon and in normal shops.
+- At present Open Source games are released in the same way as most other types
+ of Open Source software.
+** Access to products - 2
+- This means there is no easy way to promote them as things to exchange money
+ for.
+- You could of course put an open source product for sale on your own site, but
+ without community to address criticism or consumer concerns, success would be
+ hard.
+** Changing software landscape - 1
+- In the last decade the hardware side of computer science has changed
+ fundamentally.
+- Mobile Computing
+- Better Internet availability.
+- IOT is a thing now.
+** Changing software landscape - 2
+- Games have started to change, with smaller devs having great access to the
+ mobile market.
+- The closed source model still dominates the commercial games landscape, in
+ spite of the increasing importance of Open Source in other software markets.
+- Smaller devs/modellers/designers increasingly find that there is a direct way
+ to make money from their work independant of big industry.
+- Can Open Source solve all these problems? Almost certainly not.
+** How could it be done? - 1
+- Initially, no open source game could have millions for development.
+- If you can't afford to pay someone up front, then they would need a financial
+ reward from the outcome of their work.
+- This is analogous to Startups with no seed capital.
+** How could it be done? - 2
+- If it were to be a job, people would need a source of income from somewhere.
+- Games are complex, a place to initially meet and plan would be required. Many
+ globally distributed Open Source organisations exist, we are working with two
+ of them, so that can be managed.
+** How could it be done? - 3
+- The fantasy of Startups with lots of money in a fancy building would need to
+ be dropped.
+- Small teams of hackers with minimal budgets, working from home or from office
+ cafe's to a common goal would need to replace it (in fact this is how Apple
+ started, only without the office cafe part as far as I know).
+- Eric Raymond was the spokesperson for Open Source, promoting it. Open Source
+ Games would need their equivalent, or many such people.
+** The main issues
+- The gaming public perception of Open Source games as games that are always
+ free of financial cost for the end user would need to change.
+- Piracy at least would be an irrelevance, piracy as it now exists cannot occur
+ with Open Source.
+- New models for game delivery, and the concept of games as product would need
+ to be re-evaluated.
+** Online Platform - 1
+- A platform with a public front for browsing of products, such as the one
+ provided by Steam could help.
+- But people would want some element of ownership in the project too.
+** Online Platform - 2
+- What features might an online presence for commercial Open Source Development
+ need? These are my thoughts.
+ - Project Forums, instantiating a form of social network.
+ - A donation based contribution system for interested parties (for non complete
+ games).
+ - Project Hosting (probably in partnership with someone like Gitlab or Github).
+ - Firm community oversight by volunteers.
+ - a formal payment scheme for completed games suited to the medium.
+** Obligatory XKCD
+[[file:img/ultimate_game.png]]
+- Copyright: Randall Munroe - XKCD
+- Mirrored in my hosting to avoid bandwidth stealing
+** Licence for this work
+- Licenced under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0
+ International by Dr Carey Pridgeon 2016
+- (Licence does not cover linked images owned by other content creators)
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+# -*- mode: org -*-
+#+TITLE: 389COM: Module Introduction
+#+AUTHOR: Dr Carey Pridgeon, DR Nazaraf Shah
+* setup :noexport:
+#+OPTIONS: reveal_center:t reveal_progress:t reveal_history:t reveal_control:t
+#+OPTIONS: reveal_mathjax:t reveal_rolling_links:t reveal_keyboard:t reveal_overview:t num:nil
+#+OPTIONS: reveal_width:1200 reveal_height:800
+#+OPTIONS: toc:1 num:nil H:2 ^:{}
+#+REVEAL_MARGIN: 0.2
+#+REVEAL_MIN_SCALE: 0.5
+#+REVEAL_MAX_SCALE: 2.5
+#+REVEAL_TRANS: none
+#+REVEAL_THEME: night
+#+REVEAL_HLEVEL: 999
+#+REVEAL_EXTRA_CSS: ../css/presentation.css
+#+REVEAL_ROOT: http://cdn.jsdelivr.net/reveal.js/3.0.0/
+#+STARTUP: showeverything
+* Lecture One
+** Module Content
+- This Module teaches you how the Open Source World works.
+- We do this not via lectures alone, but through several interactive methods
+- 1: Worksheets where you get to practice doing things which are either used or
+ required knowledge in the Open Source community.
+- 2: Direct interaction with Mozilla, a widely known Open Source Company.
+** Lectures
+- The Lectures themselves will cover a variety of topics related to open source
+ and programming in general. As a rule each will have an accompanying worksheet,
+ though this may not always be the case.
+ - Nor would it be required for you to wait for the lecture to begin the
+ worksheet.
+** Worksheet Completion
+- Every year we advise people to begin the worksheets when they start the
+ module.
+- Every year some students leave the worksheets til the final week.
+- These are, without fail, the students who either end up failing or getting
+ really low grades.
+- Don't be this student, we usually don't have time to help someone who is stuck
+ on something they should have finished in the first half of the module. Things
+ get busy.
+- Last year 1 in ten students failed on the first attempt, each because they
+ left the worksheets till too late and didn't think the portfolio mattered.
+** Assessment
+- The assessment scheme has been split into two parts.
+ - Medium Difficulty (Low to Medium Grade 0-69)
+ - Hard Difficulty (High Grade 70-100)
+- This is so everyone can participate with the Mozilla contribution portion
+ without having to be great at programming.
+** Mozilla
+- The Mozilla foundation began when Netscape decided to release the source code
+ of their browser in 1998. It took a while for the Foundation to get going, but
+ you can read up on the history yourself.
+- [[https://mozilla.org/]]
+- Much of this module revolves around independant work. Nazaraf and I are here
+ for the most part to support you while you figure things out for yourself, and
+ with each others help.
+** Constant Change
+- Every year, because the Open Source world is moving so fast, we find our
+ materials have been outdated in some way in the time between being written and
+ you using them, in spite of being re-written each year.
+- This is unavoidable. I do my best to minimise the impact of changes, but it's
+ impossible for me to find them all.
+- Sometimes major changes have occurred to Mozilla's systems in the last few
+ weeks before the module began. They are a commercial Open Source company, we
+ are having to work around this.
+** Portfolio - Medium Difficulty
+- Worksheets, an essay, and whatever you can of submissions to Mozilla. To
+ barely pass You could get away with not submitting anything to Mozilla, but
+ taking this route would mean two things.
+- 1: You get almost nothing of use from this module in terms of either grade,
+ extra knowledge or things to go on your CV.
+- 2: You are extreme risk of having to retake if you misjudge what is needed for
+ any of the components you submit.
+- Submissions to Mozilla will be in the form of online documentation
+ checking/fixes and reviews.
+- These have to be done according to Mozilla's own high standards, and
+ *absolutely* cannot be rushed at the last minute.
+** Portfolio - Hard Difficulty
+- This is the ideal target for students with programming ability.
+- Thus far, unless you've had a placement year, all the code you've worked on
+ has been what are called /toy/ projects.
+- In this module you get the opportunity to work on a live codebase. The code
+ you submit to Mozilla, if accepted, will be deployed in the next release of
+ Firefox.
+- Thus, however small your contribution, it is still part of a live Open Source
+ product in use worldwide by millions of people.
+- You still need to complete the Worksheets and Essay, if you are going to take
+ the programming route you will need these out of the way as soon as possible.
+** Benefits
+- CV
+ - Everything you complete and submit to Mozilla can be put on your CV.
+ - Some past students have gained jobs based directly on things they learned on
+ this module.
+** Questions asked every year
+- How many bugs (software fixes) or documentation fixes should I do)
+- The answer for documentation is simple. Documentation isn't as difficult, so
+ the more you do, the better your grade.
+- With software fixes the question is harder to answer. In the past A student
+ has achieved a really high grade with just one fix.
+- However that was a *really* complicated one which required that he work with
+ several engineers at Mozilla, and me over the course of the module to
+ complete.
+- My usual advice is, as many as you can, because each bug fix is marked on its
+ own merits.
+- There are set elements of the marking scheme for bugfixing, I'll discuss those
+ when I go through the scheme itself.
+** So, What *IS* Open Source
+- Way back in the 1970's, when I was trying desperately to avoid wearing flared
+ jeans, and occasionally visiting my local powerstation to play with their
+ computer, some guys in America were getting fed up with the way big companies
+ were behaving, always keeping the source code of software to themselves.
+- You only really need to know about Richard Stallman
+ [[file:img/stallman.jpg]]
+- He objected to this and created the Free Software Foundation to combat the problem.
+- You're already rather experienced in using the products of the Free Software
+ Foundation, it's just you may not know it.
+** Some Products of FSF
+- GCC GNU Compiler Collection - C, C++, Objective-C, Objective-C++, Fortran, Ada, D, Go, and BRIG.
+- Emacs Code and Text Editor - The Multitool of the development world, and what
+ all the materials of this module are written in.
+- GDB GNU DeBugging Suite.
+- GProf GNU Program Profiler.
+- Splint - GNU code standards correctness checker, or as I call it, the Stallman Auto
+ Criticiser. Impossible to please.
+** Downside of the FSF
+- Stallman, and therefore his organisation, believe all software should be
+ free. Not always literally free, but the licences they have, which we will
+ cover soon, do their best to enforce this free of physical cost aspect,
+ lending the lie to his protest that he only means 'Free as in Freedom, Not
+ Free as in Beer'.
+- The FSF are, by design, hostile to business, but from the outset, not all
+ software developers who wanted to share code were of the same mind.
+- This led to the creation of the *Open Source Initiative*, and it is the OSI's
+ philosophy that we follow on this module.
+**
+- Put basically, *free coders gotta eat too*. There are now plenty of examples
+ of successful companies which started out using free/Open Source Software and
+ are now multi million or billion dollar businesses.
+- It's less common for individual programmers to become wealthy in the Open
+ Source world, because it isn't the same as the closed source world, but since
+ all or most your work is visible to everyone, its potentially more stable as a
+ career path.
+- I say most because even Mozilla has to keep certain parts of their operation
+ secret. This is however far better than closed source companies who routinely
+ keep everything to themselves.
+** How will this Module Work
+- Each week for the early part of the module we will have one lecture a week and
+ the rest of the time will be spent doing worksheets or your portfolio.
+- While feedback and help is always available, there is also a component of each
+ aspect of the portfolio which involves a marked feedback session.
+- The mark is always a set amount, all you need is to meet the requirements to
+ have the feedback, complete it, and you get the grade.
+- Later in the module we won't have lectures as you will be too busy on your
+ portfolios, and we will be busy supporting you. I will be able to revisit
+ points from lectures if you want.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+** Obligatory XKCD
+[[file:img/open_source.png]]
+- Copyright: Randall Munroe - XKCD
+- /Mirrored on my hosting to avoid bandwidth stealing/
+** Licence for this work
+- Licenced under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0
+ International by Dr Carey Pridgeon 2019
+- (Licence does not cover linked images owned by other content creators)
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+389COM: Games and Open Source
Dr Carey Pridgeon, DR Nazaraf Shah
Created: 2019-08-20 Tue 13:34
+
+
+Table of Contents
+
+
+-
+
- Games +
Games
+
+
+State of the onion
+-
+
- In 2017 there were 1,001,073 projects on Github locatable with the search tag +'game' (in 2017 there were 503,637, in 2016 there were 354,421). +
- In spite of this clear indication that increasing numbers of open source +developers enjoy writing games, there are still no major AAA quality revenue +generating Open Source games to compete with the likes of EA or Blizzard +
- We will try to examine why this is the case by looking at the history of +computer games development. + +
Potted history of Games development
+-
+
- During the 1980's and early nineties, the emergence of home computers meant +that thousands of people could develop games themselves. +
- Many fortunes were made, and many iconic games series were born. Most people, +like myself, just used game programming as a way to learn how to code that +resulted in something more interesting than text rolling up the screen. +
- The perception that being a programmer means being wealthy stems from this +era, although even then it was only rarely true. Most games produced, even +during this supposed golden age, were absolute garbage. +
- The idea that the source code for these games could be revealed, or given away +had simply not occurred to any commercial games developers at this time. + +
Open Source and Games - 1
+-
+
- Version one of Nethack was released by Mike Stephenson on July 28, 1987. a +Rogue-like Dungeon crawler that is extremely hard, and still under active +development. +
- This was never a commercial game, so it likely never occurred to Mike that he +shouldn't share the code. + +
pic
+ +
+
+
+
-
+
- Free software was in its infancy, but lots of people shared code routinely, +just not in an organised way. +
- This behaviour was common, with all sorts of code and not everyone +approved. It led to the now legendary Open Letter to Hobbyists from Bill Gates +in 1976. +
- This itself is somewhat ironic, since there is some doubt whether Microsoft +stole from Apple in the early days on their company's development of an +Operating System with a Graphical User Interface. +
- The timing and similarity of design certainly is suspicious. + +
Open Source and Games - 2
+-
+
- Nethack has been very influential in the three decades it has existed. I've +tried several times to get good at it, but I'm just not. +
- It has also always been free, with contributors gaining reputation and +employment based on the quality of their work, not making money from Nethack +itself. +
- No commercial game has enjoyed such longevity, or attained a comparable level +of code quality. +
- Nor has any Open Source game, although classes of them have. + +
Open Source and Games - 3
+-
+
- Id software have released the source code for all their games once they have +moved on. Source code only, but not the resources. +
- Attempts have been made to duplicate commercial games using all new code. +sometimes these have been stamped on hard. +
- Diablo is an example of a game that has recently been recreated completely as +an Open Source Project. Unlike other occasions in the past which I will +discuss shortly, Blizzard don't mind this, as to use the recreation, you need +either to own, or buy the full game. +
- Basically, it earns them money and they don't have to do any work. The new +version works on a Nintendo Switch. + +
- Open Source and Games - 4
+-
+
- Simcity has been the inspiration for several open source games (linCity, OpenCity). +
- Freecraft, a Warcraft 2 clone was killed by Blizzard in June 2003 for +trademark infringement. +
- Blizzard also killed an attempt at an alternative Open Source Battlenet +service called bnetd by threatening to sue anyone involved. +
- This would have impacted their revenue stream at the time, whereas the Open +Source rebuild mention above enhances it. + +
Cast off games
+-
+
- Some software houses have released entire formally commercial games as open +source. +
- Laudable, because it does give new games developers an opportunity to legally +view commercial game developers code, but the reality is that these are games +that have run their commercial course and retain no opportunity for someone to +make a living from them. +
- In fact, if anyone did manage to find a way to make money, it's likely the +copyright holders would step in and demand a major cut anyway. + +
Clones
+-
+
- Some very old games, some which made their millions in the eighties have been +cloned (duplicated in their entirety). Manic Miner, Chuckie Egg, Space +Invaders, Missile Command. +
- However the problem remains that while entertaining, these are not going to +make anyone a living now. +
- Recreating classic games is a good way to cut your game development teeth, +since people know what to expect, and can therefore appreciate a good +rendition. +
- It's important that the games be old enough to not be currently on sale, nor +should you sell them, since old games are almost always still owned by +someone. +
- There is NO SUCH THING as Abandonware. + +
Examining the problem
+-
+
- So why has no-one ever managed to create a commercially viable Open Source game? +
- People have managed to use open source tools to make closed source games, so +the tools exist for a totally free project, the limitation is not software based. +
- The traditional games industry often views attempts at interoperability with their +products as promoting piracy. + +
-
+
- Current AAA games cost multiple millions and several years to develop. +
- Minecraft, a program initially written by one man, became a worldwide +sensation, and was bought by Microsoft for Billions. +
- The idea that succesful games must inevitably cost millions to develop is +clearly flawed. +
- Mobile games are now dominating the games industry, and AAA developers don't +seem to be near mastering that. + +
The Traditional games industry
+-
+
- Warning, vast oversimplifications follow. +
- Since it's emergence in the 1970's, the traditional games industry has grown +more complex and centralised. +
- The AAA industry has gained, through acquisition, most of the most popular +franchises. +
- As each iteration of mainstream games appears, changes have been less +significant, and innovation/risk taking has been less appealing to them. +
- Gameplay innovation has been replaced by graphical ones, and even that is +beginning to stagnate. +
- The prime example of this is in FPS and Sports games. Year on Year they change +less and less. +
- When they first appeared each release brought revelations in gameplay. + +
-
+
- Microtransactions and in game stores have been borrowed from mobile +and web based games and put in games that previously had, and needed +none, to further increase revenue. +
- They have not thus far seen Open Source as a valid avenue, since any such +game, if true Open Source, would easily slip from their control if +mis-managed. + +
The Console Market
+-
+
- As it stands today, the Console market is not available to Open Source games. +
- Console games also tend to be the primary focus of releases, with PC releases +being ports. This may be changing, I don't buy any new games that were on a +console first, they tend to suck. +
- Hardware is not the issue, at present Console manufacturers are actively +hostile to the Open Source world. This is possibly due to a lack of perceived +revenue stream. + +
Mods - History
+-
+
- Mods for commercial games have existed since Id software actively promoted +community contributions to their FPS game Doom in the nineties. +
- Not at first however, initially they were against it. John Romero +seems to have been the driving force in changing their minds. + +
+** +
+-
+
- Mods have led to careers in gaming they may still, but it seems the field is a +bit crowded. +
- Id sought to hire many early community developers, and there are examples of +mods becoming full games. (Counterstrike, Desert Combat, Team Fortress). +
- Steve Polge created an AI mod for Quake Reaper Bot in 1997 that essentially +began the rise of AI NPCs in games that we see everywhere today. +
- Mods were however predominantly 'free' products that enhanced non +free products. + +
+** +
+-
+
- There have been, probably still are attempts to monetize modding, but these +seem to be mostly aimed at producing a new revenue stream for AAA games companies, +so not really relevant. +
- In general I would say todays games market modding should be avoided +in favour of working on your own unique IP. + +
Kickstarter
+-
+
- Lots of games, have been funded through Kickstarter. +
- Kickstarter game projects reward contributors with, among other things, early +game access, a say in game development, and extra features, either exclusive, +or just earlier than non contributors. +
- How would this work if all the code, and game assets, were free to anyone all the way along? +
- The advantage of a succesful Kickstarter campaign would be an initial cash lump sum. +
- It seems to me that Kickstarter favours the closed source model. + +
Patreon
+-
+
- Contributers to Patreon projects generally expect to be funding something +which has reguler output. +
- I initially encountered it on Youtube, though I have since learned that many +freelance creators have successfully used it. +
- There would be no initial cash lump sum. +
- Patreon Does seem to favour a more open model, since no-one gets exclusive +content, but they do often get a say in subjects covered. + +
Game Funding alternatives
+-
+
- One Time Purchase. +
- Since an open source game couldn't use DRM (even if that did work), the piracy +endemic in the One Time Purchase model world would kill any potential revenue +stream. + +
-
+
- Episodic purchase (expansions/DLC). +
- This model shares the same weakness as the One Time Purchase model. +
- It's probably not relevant, because the DLC could just be released as a new +main game build. +
- Subscription. +
- Usually associated with a persistant online world, so not universally +relevant. +
- Would definitely require seed funding, since subscriptions couldn't start +till the game reached initial release. + +
-
+
- Sponsorship +
- Usually in the game development world this involves a loss of creative +control. +
- However it is the most used method of Open Source funding, and in this area, +loss of creative control is not common. +
- A game using this approach would sell itself to sponsors as a 'value adding +service'. +
- Email, web browsers and social networking have been used in this regard. +
- But there would always be conditions. + +
Should you target Windows?
+-
+
- Short answer, probably not at first. +
- Windows has been the dominant operating system for 20+ years. +
- DirectX was a genius move, and cemented Windows as the best place +for companies to develop games for most of that time. +
- This was a deliberate move by Microsoft, their dominance of the gaming world +was no happy accident, it was a deliberate and expensive push into the field. + +
Why Not Linux
+-
+
- Structurally, there is no significant reason Linux could not run +games as well as Windows. +
- Linux was not initially focussed on gaming. It still has not +focussed well in this area. +
- Market share is king, It wasn't worth developing AAA games for Linux first. + +
-
+
- Graphics cards manufacturers have not concentrated on optimising +their products for Linux performance, so Linux falls even further behind. +
- Unless something really significant occurs, this problem isn't likely to go +away. + +
Shifting Tides
+-
+
- The Operating system landscape is changing, Mobile OS have taken +off. +
- Now there's the Switch.I've read lots of articles declaring it dead on +arrival, and yet I keep seeing people buying and using it. +
- Means of exchanging payment for gaming products that consumers are +willing to accept are changing too. + +
Writing - 1
+-
+
- We're going to depart from software for a little bit here, but it is +necessary. +
- Publishing is a market which has undergone and survived many technological +changes. +
- Magazines were initially threatened by the web, but now many have embraced it. +
- The end of the printed word (the paperless office) has been much spoken of, +yet print co-exists with digital works, and this will likely continue. + +
Writing - 2
+-
+
- The following (except for the statistics) is based around the short video +presentation by Piers Blofeld of Sheil Land Associates titled Seven reasons +why you shouldn't self publish youtube link +
- Chosen because I see many parallels between a potential market for sale of +Open Source games and self publishing of literature. It definitely needs to +be watched. + +
Writing - 3
+-
+
- Nearly 460,000 titles were self-published globally in 2013 source. +
- In 2012, half of the self published authors made less than $500 source. +
- Many reasons for their failing probably relate well to the Open Source world. +
- Ebooks are popular, and sell really well, as this graphic shows, but the +market is so saturated the per author earnings remain far too low. + +
pic
+
+Image Credit
+
+
Writing - 4
+-
+
- Most self published books fail, just as most Open Source Projects (98%) fail, +and for many of the same reasons. +
- Product Quality - With the primary and critical difference that a +book released with an ISBN number cannot be updated after release +
- Lack of testing - Too many self publishing writers don't get other people to +read their work, or don't listen to feedback. + +
Writing - 5
+-
+
- The literature marketing process (as any marketing process) is complicated, so +any time you spend trying to prepare your book for the market place will take +time away from improving your product. +
- There is frustration with the 'traditional' publishing world, because it is +hard to get into, so some people resent its gatekeeping role. +
- Amazon particularly have made it easy for writers to get their work published +electronically, so it is increasingly fashionable to do this. + +
Writing - 6
+-
+
- The self publishing market lacks oversight. You can go from writing to +published in a few days. This make the use of the term 'publication' a little +vague. It seems to me little more than a technological gloss on photocopying +your book. +
- This in effect means you can put your work into a global slush pile without +any checks and hope it might stand out. + +
Writing - 7
+-
+
- Sometimes your work just isn't good enough, or just not yet. So you can damage +any potential reputation you might gain by self publishing a sub par book. +
- Having an experienced Agent tell you your book isn't good enough may +not be nice, but it may still be needed. + +
Relating this to software - 1
+-
+
- This also why Open Source can work so well, you are open to constructive +advice on your product. +
- Sometimes getting an email telling you that one of your functions +isn't working. can help. If they tell you it's rubbish and suggest +a fix, that can be awesome, say thanks, start a dialog. + +
Relating this to software - 2
+-
+
- You need to be open to this sort of thing if you want to be a success in the +Open Source world, Similarly, if you find that you have something to say about +someone else's product, tell them, but do it nicely, in a useful +way. +
- The kind of thinking Self publishers are tending towards now harmed the Free +Software Foundation in its early days, eventually bringing the Open Source +movement into existence out of pure necessity. + +
Relating this to software - 3
+-
+
- This is where self publishing, as it is now is most similar to the early days +of Free Software development, unstructured, open to abuse and full of +misinformation. +
- The problems faced by content producers are identical in both fields in all +respects other than we are trying to sell a product that is 'Free' in a closed +source dominated market. + +
Farmers Markets - 1
+-
+
- On the face of it, nothing like software engineering. +
- Farmers markets provide an avenue for artisans or small farmers to:
+
-
+
- Sell products direct to consumers. +
- Gain future direct customers through direct repeat purchases. +
- Meet other small producers. + +
+ - The key point here is that it is an opportunity for communities to develop, +and for products to evolve as a result of those communities. + +
Farmers Markets - 2
+-
+
- The Artisan food market is taking off again, people are becoming less satisfied +with shelves full of identical, low quality products that use the names +formally associated with higher quality. +
- Stichelton Dairy is a prime example of meeting this need. Most Stilton is made +counter to the original recipe, making the Stilton name no longer really +applicable, but it has been adopted to refer to the new recipes, so they can, +and do, control it. + +
Farmers Markets - 3
+-
+
- Stichleton is actually real Stilton, but due to Joe Schneider's use of raw +milk he can't call it Stilton. That Trademark is now too strictly controlled +by large commercial interests who have legally defined what can be called +Stilton now, and it doesn't include raw milk any more, even though originally +it did. +
- Joe is in fact similer to an open source developer, since there was no +recipe for him to work from, so he had to recreate the original Stilton recipe +by experimentation. + +
Farmers Markets - 4
+-
+
- Artisan food makers have many of the same issues as Open Source +Developers. They are competing in a niche market, often against overwhelming +commercial competition. They also need to group together to be effective. +
- The main difference currently is that Open Source is not usually sold, +although this document and its companion lecture/discussion lecture is about +how to change that. + +
Access to products - 1
+-
+
- Traditional games have plenty of sales avenues to choose from, such as Steam, +GOG.com, or Mobile/OS App and Console Stores, Amazon and in normal shops. +
- At present Open Source games are released in the same way as most other types +of Open Source software. + +
Access to products - 2
+-
+
- This means there is no easy way to promote them as things to exchange money +for. +
- You could of course put an open source product for sale on your own site, but +without community to address criticism or consumer concerns, success would be +hard. + +
Changing software landscape - 1
+-
+
- In the last decade the hardware side of computer science has changed +fundamentally. +
- Mobile Computing +
- Better Internet availability. +
- IOT is a thing now. + +
Changing software landscape - 2
+-
+
- Games have started to change, with smaller devs having great access to the +mobile market. +
- The closed source model still dominates the commercial games landscape, in +spite of the increasing importance of Open Source in other software markets. +
- Smaller devs/modellers/designers increasingly find that there is a direct way +to make money from their work independant of big industry. +
- Can Open Source solve all these problems? Almost certainly not. + +
How could it be done? - 1
+-
+
- Initially, no open source game could have millions for development. +
- If you can't afford to pay someone up front, then they would need a financial +reward from the outcome of their work. +
- This is analogous to Startups with no seed capital. + +
How could it be done? - 2
+-
+
- If it were to be a job, people would need a source of income from somewhere. +
- Games are complex, a place to initially meet and plan would be required. Many +globally distributed Open Source organisations exist, we are working with two +of them, so that can be managed. + +
How could it be done? - 3
+-
+
- The fantasy of Startups with lots of money in a fancy building would need to +be dropped. +
- Small teams of hackers with minimal budgets, working from home or from office +cafe's to a common goal would need to replace it (in fact this is how Apple +started, only without the office cafe part as far as I know). +
- Eric Raymond was the spokesperson for Open Source, promoting it. Open Source +Games would need their equivalent, or many such people. + +
The main issues
+-
+
- The gaming public perception of Open Source games as games that are always +free of financial cost for the end user would need to change. +
- Piracy at least would be an irrelevance, piracy as it now exists cannot occur +with Open Source. +
- New models for game delivery, and the concept of games as product would need +to be re-evaluated. + +
Online Platform - 1
+-
+
- A platform with a public front for browsing of products, such as the one +provided by Steam could help. +
- But people would want some element of ownership in the project too. + +
Online Platform - 2
+-
+
- What features might an online presence for commercial Open Source Development
+need? These are my thoughts.
+
-
+
- Project Forums, instantiating a form of social network. +
- A donation based contribution system for interested parties (for non complete +games). +
- Project Hosting (probably in partnership with someone like Gitlab or Github). +
- Firm community oversight by volunteers. +
- a formal payment scheme for completed games suited to the medium. + +
+
+
Obligatory XKCD
+ +
+
+
+
-
+
- Copyright: Randall Munroe - XKCD +
- Mirrored in my hosting to avoid bandwidth stealing + +
Licence for this work
+-
+
- Licenced under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 +International by Dr Carey Pridgeon 2016 +
- (Licence does not cover linked images owned by other content creators) + +
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
diff --git a/lectures/licences_and_copyright.org b/lectures/licences_and_copyright.org
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..83bea68
--- /dev/null
+++ b/lectures/licences_and_copyright.org
@@ -0,0 +1,186 @@
+#+TITLE: 389COM: Copyright
+#+AUTHOR: Dr Carey Pridgeon, DR Nazaraf Shah
+# -*- mode: org -*-
+* setup :noexport:
+#+OPTIONS: reveal_center:t reveal_progress:t reveal_history:t reveal_control:t
+#+OPTIONS: reveal_mathjax:t reveal_rolling_links:t reveal_keyboard:t reveal_overview:t num:nil
+#+OPTIONS: reveal_width:1200 reveal_height:800
+#+OPTIONS: toc:1 num:nil H:2 ^:{}
+#+REVEAL_MARGIN: 0.2
+#+REVEAL_MIN_SCALE: 0.5
+#+REVEAL_MAX_SCALE: 2.5
+#+REVEAL_TRANS: none
+#+REVEAL_THEME: night
+#+REVEAL_HLEVEL: 999
+#+REVEAL_EXTRA_CSS: ../css/presentation.css
+#+REVEAL_ROOT: http://cdn.jsdelivr.net/reveal.js/3.0.0/
+#+STARTUP: showeverything
+* Licences and Copyright
+** What are Licences
+- Licences grant you rights to use software you have obtained which someone else
+ has produced.
+- There are multiple kinds of licence. For brevity on this module we will only
+ be concerning ourselves with three types.
+- These are:
+- Commercial
+- Free Software.
+- Open Source.
+
+** Commercial
+ - These are likely to be the ones you are most familer with.
+ - They come with games or software you buy, and dictate what you are allowed
+ to do with your purchase.
+ - No-one /ever/ reads them.
+ - For most people, commercial licences only cover the compiled version of the
+ product, not the source code from which it was created.
+**
+- Typical restrictions:
+ - Limitations on how many users the software can have.
+ - Install count limits.
+ - Upgrade limits before new purchase is required.
+- Some level of support sometimes specified, though often this is minimal unless
+ extra money is paid.
+** Free Software
+- For everyone it covers the source code only, not the compiled software, or the
+ resources (sound, graphice, logos).
+- These are often available free, but resources are not available for reuse in
+ new projects, as you have not been granted permission to do
+ so by the license.
+- Most of the time the compiled version is made available for convenience, and
+ because these days most users of computers don't know how to compile software,
+ but the compiled version is provided as is, with no warranty or support.
+**
+- To be a *proper* Free Software Licence, it must be approved by the Free
+ Software Foundation.
+- The main Free Software License we will concern ourselves with on the course is
+ the GPL and its derivatives.
+- LGPL - disowned by the FSF as being to permissive.
+- Affero GPL - An attempt by the FSF to further lock down the GPL which has
+ failed due to lack of adoption, and in some cases, outright banning by some
+ organisations.
+** Open Source
+- Formed as a breakaway group from the Free Software Foundation in 1998 by Bruce
+ Perens in response to the FSFs continued resistance to engage with commercial
+ interests, which he saw as counter to the needs of both software developers
+ and those businesses.
+- Like Free Software Licences, the Open Source Licence only covers source code,
+ not compiled software (binaries) or resources of any kind.
+- To be an official Open Source licence, a licence must be approved by the
+ OSI. Unlike the FSF, the OSI has no products of its own, acting only as a
+ regulatory and approval body for the Open Source movement.
+** Crossover
+- Some licences are approved by both organisations.
+- The GPL is not approved by the OSI, as it does not meet with their definition
+ of freedom, being viewed by some as too restrictive, since the FSF have long
+ sought to prevent businesses taking control of Free Software.
+- In many ways their view can be seen as valid, but it simply isn't the case
+ that *all* software either can, or should, be completely free.
+**
+- We don't live in a world where such things are possible, or possibly even
+ desirable, yet.
+- But we are slowly moving that way in some areas.
+- If you create some software, you can select a licence for it, or even more
+ than one licence, releasing for example, a commercial and Open Source version
+ simultaneously. Several companies have had great success with this approach.
+- As the original creator you can also change the license whenever you want. If
+ you have received the software you can only do this if the licence terms
+ permit it. This is called *sublicencing*.
+
+
+** What is Copyright
+- Copyright is legal right that protects the use of your work once your idea has
+ been physically expressed.
+- Valid in the country of origin or certain economically co-operating
+ countries.
+- Worldwide Copyrights can be obtained.
+- Copyright is automatic, and can be expressly abandoned.
+- Copyright can expire (70 years after authors death in the US and EU,
+ 95 if author is unknown), but cannot be /assumed/ to have been
+ abandoned.
+** How Does it Work? - 1
+- Rights to use Copyrighted work can be granted with or without
+ payment a fee by the Copyright Holder.
+- The rights to use Copyrighted work can be expressly denied, or
+ withdrawn by the Copyright Holder.
+- Code that lacks a Copyright notice can not be used for 95 years, so
+ in our terms, never.
+- Copyright ownership can be transferred.
+** How Does it Work? - 2
+- Copyright cannot be arbitrarily assigned to works you did not
+ create, or assigned to works that have fallen out of copyright.
+- Copyrighted names can be co-opted (eg, Linux, which was 'stolen' in this way
+ in 1996 [[http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/2559][link]]), but are usually returnable with enough evidence and work.
+** Copyrighting Options
+- Creative Commons: code, literature, music, hardware.
+- CopyLeft: Free Software Foundation (software primarily)
+- Open Source: Software/Documentation/Hardware.
+- Commercial: Access granted via a fee or under strict non profit conditions.
+- You can create your own Copyright notice.
+- Within those options there is a *huge* range of choices.
+** TradeMarks - 1
+- A symbol or name associated with a given product.
+- A mark should be unique enough that it won't confuse consumers with a similar
+ brand.
+ - Names: Champagne, Oreo, Smarties
+ - Symbols: Nike Swoosh, FireFox Logo, FSF Logo, Coke Swirl.
+- Unlike Copyright, Marks must be protected/defended or they can be lost
+ (Cheddar, Hoover, Aspirin), a process also known as becoming Generic, after
+ which the name can be used by any similar product, or will more usually be
+ used to refer to a general class of product.
+** TradeMarks - 2
+- Trademarks can also become effectively, as well as legally, generic, rendering
+ the Trademarks recovery impossible.
+ - /Can you Hoover that up/, /would you like an Aspirin/ or somesuch.
+- Owning a Mark for a product does not prevent someone producing the
+ same thing and using a different Mark for it, you need Copyright to
+ control that.
+** TradeMarks - 3
+- A Trademark gives you a /Brand/, Copyright protects the products of
+ that brand.
+- Some Marks predate trademark laws, so can be widely used to identify
+ a process or class of product (Sabatier knives, Damascus steel).
+** Open Source Relevance
+- Marks are as important in the free/open source world as in the
+ commercial.
+- Possibly less at risk of becoming generic, because there is no
+ profit motive to re-use them.
+- Free and Open Source licences, do not transfer Marks.
+- Like Copyrights, Marks can be transferred/sold.
+** Patents - What they protect
+- Patents control an idea expressed in a design (usually)
+- Holding a Patent means you can prevent someone else using your
+ idea/design in their own product.
+- Patents are usually made available for a fee, but the can be
+ licensed for a minimal fee, or none at all.
+** Free Patents
+- Patents can be dedicated (released to the public domain), which means the
+ owner allows free access to the technology it covers.
+- Patent licensing abuse is rampant in the US.
+- Patent Trolls are a thing.
+- There is a Patent covering the World Wide Web (That thing Facebook/Instagram
+ are on), which was initially conceived/created by [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Berners-Lee][Tim Berners-Lee]]
+** Trademark Mistakes - 1
+- In 1996, Linux itself had its Trademark stolen by William R. Della Croce of
+ Boston (who had hoped by registering it, to make a lot of money by claiming
+ ownership of Linux), and it took a year to get it back.
+- What happened to Linux occurred mostly because the developers weren't paying
+ attention to the Trademark issue. Since then they have been a lot more
+ careful.
+** Trademark Mistakes - 2
+- They weren't alone in being so lax, since in 1999, Microsoft forgot to pay
+ their domain renewal, causing virtually their entire online presence to
+ vanish. They've done that more than once too.
+- So long as you don’t forget that you need to register your trademarks once
+ your project moves beyond being being a small project with just a few users,
+ you should be ok.
+- It isn't free to register them though, so make sure it's worth the cost. A
+ faily simple metric is that if your project is generating a revenue stream,
+ it's worth it, if not, it isn't.
+** Obligatory XKCD
+[[file:img/steal_this_comic.png]]
+- Copyright: Randall Munroe - XKCD
+- Mirrored in my hosting to avoid bandwidth stealing
+** Licence for this work
+- Licenced under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0
+ International by Dr Carey Pridgeon 2016
+- (Licence does not cover linked images owned by other content creators)
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+389COM: Copyright
Dr Carey Pridgeon, DR Nazaraf Shah
Created: 2019-08-20 Tue 13:34
+
+
+Table of Contents
+
+
+
+Licences and Copyright
+
+
+What are Licences
+-
+
- Licences grant you rights to use software you have obtained which someone else +has produced. +
- There are multiple kinds of licence. For brevity on this module we will only +be concerning ourselves with three types. +
- These are: +
- Commercial +
- Free Software. +
- Open Source. + +
Commercial
+-
+
- These are likely to be the ones you are most familer with. +
- They come with games or software you buy, and dictate what you are allowed +to do with your purchase. +
- No-one ever reads them. +
- For most people, commercial licences only cover the compiled version of the +product, not the source code from which it was created. + +
-
+
- Typical restrictions:
+
-
+
- Limitations on how many users the software can have. +
- Install count limits. +
- Upgrade limits before new purchase is required. + +
+ - Some level of support sometimes specified, though often this is minimal unless +extra money is paid. + +
Free Software
+-
+
- For everyone it covers the source code only, not the compiled software, or the +resources (sound, graphice, logos). +
- These are often available free, but resources are not available for reuse in +new projects, as you have not been granted permission to do +so by the license. +
- Most of the time the compiled version is made available for convenience, and +because these days most users of computers don't know how to compile software, +but the compiled version is provided as is, with no warranty or support. + +
-
+
- To be a proper Free Software Licence, it must be approved by the Free +Software Foundation. +
- The main Free Software License we will concern ourselves with on the course is +the GPL and its derivatives. +
- LGPL - disowned by the FSF as being to permissive. +
- Affero GPL - An attempt by the FSF to further lock down the GPL which has +failed due to lack of adoption, and in some cases, outright banning by some +organisations. + +
Open Source
+-
+
- Formed as a breakaway group from the Free Software Foundation in 1998 by Bruce +Perens in response to the FSFs continued resistance to engage with commercial +interests, which he saw as counter to the needs of both software developers +and those businesses. +
- Like Free Software Licences, the Open Source Licence only covers source code, +not compiled software (binaries) or resources of any kind. +
- To be an official Open Source licence, a licence must be approved by the +OSI. Unlike the FSF, the OSI has no products of its own, acting only as a +regulatory and approval body for the Open Source movement. + +
Crossover
+-
+
- Some licences are approved by both organisations. +
- The GPL is not approved by the OSI, as it does not meet with their definition +of freedom, being viewed by some as too restrictive, since the FSF have long +sought to prevent businesses taking control of Free Software. +
- In many ways their view can be seen as valid, but it simply isn't the case +that all software either can, or should, be completely free. + +
-
+
- We don't live in a world where such things are possible, or possibly even +desirable, yet. +
- But we are slowly moving that way in some areas. +
- If you create some software, you can select a licence for it, or even more +than one licence, releasing for example, a commercial and Open Source version +simultaneously. Several companies have had great success with this approach. +
- As the original creator you can also change the license whenever you want. If +you have received the software you can only do this if the licence terms +permit it. This is called sublicencing. + +
What is Copyright
+-
+
- Copyright is legal right that protects the use of your work once your idea has +been physically expressed. +
- Valid in the country of origin or certain economically co-operating +countries. +
- Worldwide Copyrights can be obtained. +
- Copyright is automatic, and can be expressly abandoned. +
- Copyright can expire (70 years after authors death in the US and EU, +95 if author is unknown), but cannot be assumed to have been +abandoned. + +
How Does it Work? - 1
+-
+
- Rights to use Copyrighted work can be granted with or without +payment a fee by the Copyright Holder. +
- The rights to use Copyrighted work can be expressly denied, or +withdrawn by the Copyright Holder. +
- Code that lacks a Copyright notice can not be used for 95 years, so +in our terms, never. +
- Copyright ownership can be transferred. + +
How Does it Work? - 2
+-
+
- Copyright cannot be arbitrarily assigned to works you did not +create, or assigned to works that have fallen out of copyright. +
- Copyrighted names can be co-opted (eg, Linux, which was 'stolen' in this way +in 1996 link), but are usually returnable with enough evidence and work. + +
Copyrighting Options
+-
+
- Creative Commons: code, literature, music, hardware. +
- CopyLeft: Free Software Foundation (software primarily) +
- Open Source: Software/Documentation/Hardware. +
- Commercial: Access granted via a fee or under strict non profit conditions. +
- You can create your own Copyright notice. +
- Within those options there is a huge range of choices. + +
TradeMarks - 1
+-
+
- A symbol or name associated with a given product. +
- A mark should be unique enough that it won't confuse consumers with a similar
+brand.
+
-
+
- Names: Champagne, Oreo, Smarties +
- Symbols: Nike Swoosh, FireFox Logo, FSF Logo, Coke Swirl. + +
+ - Unlike Copyright, Marks must be protected/defended or they can be lost +(Cheddar, Hoover, Aspirin), a process also known as becoming Generic, after +which the name can be used by any similar product, or will more usually be +used to refer to a general class of product. + +
TradeMarks - 2
+-
+
- Trademarks can also become effectively, as well as legally, generic, rendering
+the Trademarks recovery impossible.
+
-
+
- Can you Hoover that up, would you like an Aspirin or somesuch. + +
+ - Owning a Mark for a product does not prevent someone producing the +same thing and using a different Mark for it, you need Copyright to +control that. + +
TradeMarks - 3
+-
+
- A Trademark gives you a Brand, Copyright protects the products of +that brand. +
- Some Marks predate trademark laws, so can be widely used to identify +a process or class of product (Sabatier knives, Damascus steel). + +
Open Source Relevance
+-
+
- Marks are as important in the free/open source world as in the +commercial. +
- Possibly less at risk of becoming generic, because there is no +profit motive to re-use them. +
- Free and Open Source licences, do not transfer Marks. +
- Like Copyrights, Marks can be transferred/sold. + +
Patents - What they protect
+-
+
- Patents control an idea expressed in a design (usually) +
- Holding a Patent means you can prevent someone else using your +idea/design in their own product. +
- Patents are usually made available for a fee, but the can be +licensed for a minimal fee, or none at all. + +
Free Patents
+-
+
- Patents can be dedicated (released to the public domain), which means the +owner allows free access to the technology it covers. +
- Patent licensing abuse is rampant in the US. +
- Patent Trolls are a thing. +
- There is a Patent covering the World Wide Web (That thing Facebook/Instagram +are on), which was initially conceived/created by Tim Berners-Lee + +
Trademark Mistakes - 1
+-
+
- In 1996, Linux itself had its Trademark stolen by William R. Della Croce of +Boston (who had hoped by registering it, to make a lot of money by claiming +ownership of Linux), and it took a year to get it back. +
- What happened to Linux occurred mostly because the developers weren't paying +attention to the Trademark issue. Since then they have been a lot more +careful. + +
Trademark Mistakes - 2
+-
+
- They weren't alone in being so lax, since in 1999, Microsoft forgot to pay +their domain renewal, causing virtually their entire online presence to +vanish. They've done that more than once too. +
- So long as you don’t forget that you need to register your trademarks once +your project moves beyond being being a small project with just a few users, +you should be ok. +
- It isn't free to register them though, so make sure it's worth the cost. A +faily simple metric is that if your project is generating a revenue stream, +it's worth it, if not, it isn't. + +
Obligatory XKCD
+ +
+
+
+
-
+
- Copyright: Randall Munroe - XKCD +
- Mirrored in my hosting to avoid bandwidth stealing + +
Licence for this work
+-
+
- Licenced under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 +International by Dr Carey Pridgeon 2016 +
- (Licence does not cover linked images owned by other content creators) + +
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
diff --git a/lectures/module_introduction.org b/lectures/module_introduction.org
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..3067f31
--- /dev/null
+++ b/lectures/module_introduction.org
@@ -0,0 +1,169 @@
+# -*- mode: org -*-
+#+TITLE: 389COM: Module Introduction
+#+AUTHOR: Dr Carey Pridgeon, DR Nazaraf Shah
+* setup :noexport:
+#+OPTIONS: reveal_center:t reveal_progress:t reveal_history:t reveal_control:t
+#+OPTIONS: reveal_mathjax:t reveal_rolling_links:t reveal_keyboard:t reveal_overview:t num:nil
+#+OPTIONS: reveal_width:1200 reveal_height:800
+#+OPTIONS: toc:1 num:nil H:2 ^:{}
+#+REVEAL_MARGIN: 0.2
+#+REVEAL_MIN_SCALE: 0.5
+#+REVEAL_MAX_SCALE: 2.5
+#+REVEAL_TRANS: none
+#+REVEAL_THEME: night
+#+REVEAL_HLEVEL: 999
+#+REVEAL_EXTRA_CSS: ../css/presentation.css
+#+REVEAL_ROOT: http://cdn.jsdelivr.net/reveal.js/3.0.0/
+#+STARTUP: showeverything
+* Lecture One
+** Module Content
+- This Module teaches you how the Open Source World works.
+- We do this not via lectures alone, but through several interactive methods
+- 1: Worksheets where you get to practice doing things which are either used or
+ required knowledge in the Open Source community.
+- 2: Direct interaction with Mozilla, a widely known Open Source Company.
+** Lectures
+- The Lectures themselves will cover a variety of topics related to open source
+ and programming in general. As a rule each will have an accompanying worksheet,
+ though this may not always be the case.
+ - Nor would it be required for you to wait for the lecture to begin the
+ worksheet.
+** Worksheet Completion
+- Every year we advise people to begin the worksheets when they start the
+ module.
+- Every year some students leave the worksheets til the final week.
+- These are, without fail, the students who either end up failing or getting
+ really low grades.
+- Don't be this student, we usually don't have time to help someone who is stuck
+ on something they should have finished in the first half of the module. Things
+ get busy.
+- Last year 1 in ten students failed on the first attempt, each because they
+ left the worksheets till too late and didn't think the portfolio mattered.
+** Assessment
+- The assessment scheme has been split into two parts.
+ - Medium Difficulty (Low to Medium Grade 0-69)
+ - Hard Difficulty (High Grade 70-100)
+- This is so everyone can participate with the Mozilla contribution portion
+ without having to be great at programming.
+** Mozilla
+- The Mozilla foundation began when Netscape decided to release the source code
+ of their browser in 1998. It took a while for the Foundation to get going, but
+ you can read up on the history yourself.
+- [[https://mozilla.org/]]
+- Much of this module revolves around independant work. Nazaraf and I are here
+ for the most part to support you while you figure things out for yourself, and
+ with each others help.
+** Constant Change
+- Every year, because the Open Source world is moving so fast, we find our
+ materials have been outdated in some way in the time between being written and
+ you using them, in spite of being re-written each year.
+- This is unavoidable. I do my best to minimise the impact of changes, but it's
+ impossible for me to find them all.
+- Sometimes major changes have occurred to Mozilla's systems in the last few
+ weeks before the module began. They are a commercial Open Source company, we
+ are having to work around this.
+** Portfolio - Medium Difficulty
+- Worksheets, an essay, and whatever you can of submissions to Mozilla. To
+ barely pass You could get away with not submitting anything to Mozilla, but
+ taking this route would mean two things.
+- 1: You get almost nothing of use from this module in terms of either grade,
+ extra knowledge or things to go on your CV.
+- 2: You are extreme risk of having to retake if you misjudge what is needed for
+ any of the components you submit.
+- Submissions to Mozilla will be in the form of online documentation
+ checking/fixes and reviews.
+- These have to be done according to Mozilla's own high standards, and
+ *absolutely* cannot be rushed at the last minute.
+** Portfolio - Hard Difficulty
+- This is the ideal target for students with programming ability.
+- Thus far, unless you've had a placement year, all the code you've worked on
+ has been what are called /toy/ projects.
+- In this module you get the opportunity to work on a live codebase. The code
+ you submit to Mozilla, if accepted, will be deployed in the next release of
+ Firefox.
+- Thus, however small your contribution, it is still part of a live Open Source
+ product in use worldwide by millions of people.
+- You still need to complete the Worksheets and Essay, if you are going to take
+ the programming route you will need these out of the way as soon as possible.
+** Benefits
+- CV
+ - Everything you complete and submit to Mozilla can be put on your CV.
+ - Some past students have gained jobs based directly on things they learned on
+ this module.
+** Questions asked every year
+- How many bugs (software fixes) or documentation fixes should I do)
+- The answer for documentation is simple. Documentation isn't as difficult, so
+ the more you do, the better your grade.
+- With software fixes the question is harder to answer. In the past A student
+ has achieved a really high grade with just one fix.
+- However that was a *really* complicated one which required that he work with
+ several engineers at Mozilla, and me over the course of the module to
+ complete.
+- My usual advice is, as many as you can, because each bug fix is marked on its
+ own merits.
+- There are set elements of the marking scheme for bugfixing, I'll discuss those
+ when I go through the scheme itself.
+** So, What *IS* Open Source
+- Way back in the 1970's, when I was trying desperately to avoid wearing flared
+ jeans, and occasionally visiting my local powerstation to play with their
+ computer, some guys in America were getting fed up with the way big companies
+ were behaving, always keeping the source code of software to themselves.
+- You only really need to know about Richard Stallman
+ [[file:img/stallman.jpg]]
+- He objected to this and created the Free Software Foundation to combat the problem.
+- You're already rather experienced in using the products of the Free Software
+ Foundation, it's just you may not know it.
+** Some Products of FSF
+- GCC GNU Compiler Collection - C, C++, Objective-C, Objective-C++, Fortran, Ada, D, Go, and BRIG.
+- Emacs Code and Text Editor - The Multitool of the development world, and what
+ all the materials of this module are written in.
+- GDB GNU DeBugging Suite.
+- GProf GNU Program Profiler.
+- Splint - GNU code standards correctness checker, or as I call it, the Stallman Auto
+ Criticiser. Impossible to please.
+** Downside of the FSF
+- Stallman, and therefore his organisation, believe all software should be
+ free. Not always literally free, but the licences they have, which we will
+ cover soon, do their best to enforce this free of physical cost aspect,
+ lending the lie to his protest that he only means 'Free as in Freedom, Not
+ Free as in Beer'.
+- The FSF are, by design, hostile to business, but from the outset, not all
+ software developers who wanted to share code were of the same mind.
+- This led to the creation of the *Open Source Initiative*, and it is the OSI's
+ philosophy that we follow on this module.
+**
+- Put basically, *free coders gotta eat too*. There are now plenty of examples
+ of successful companies which started out using free/Open Source Software and
+ are now multi million or billion dollar businesses.
+- It's less common for individual programmers to become wealthy in the Open
+ Source world, because it isn't the same as the closed source world, but since
+ all or most your work is visible to everyone, its potentially more stable as a
+ career path.
+- I say most because even Mozilla has to keep certain parts of their operation
+ secret. This is however far better than closed source companies who routinely
+ keep everything to themselves.
+** How will this Module Work
+- Each week for the early part of the module we will have one lecture a week and
+ the rest of the time will be spent doing worksheets or your portfolio.
+- While feedback and help is always available, there is also a component of each
+ aspect of the portfolio which involves a marked feedback session.
+- The mark is always a set amount, all you need is to meet the requirements to
+ have the feedback, complete it, and you get the grade.
+- Later in the module we won't have lectures as you will be too busy on your
+ portfolios, and we will be busy supporting you. I will be able to revisit
+ points from lectures if you want.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+** Obligatory XKCD
+[[file:img/open_source.png]]
+- Copyright: Randall Munroe - XKCD
+- /Mirrored on my hosting to avoid bandwidth stealing/
+** Licence for this work
+- Licenced under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0
+ International by Dr Carey Pridgeon 2019
+- (Licence does not cover linked images owned by other content creators)
diff --git a/lectures/mozilla_intro.html b/lectures/mozilla_intro.html
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c98b47e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/lectures/mozilla_intro.html
@@ -0,0 +1,194 @@
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+389COM: Module Introduction
Dr Carey Pridgeon, DR Nazaraf Shah
Created: 2019-09-16 Mon 10:16
+
+
+Table of Contents
+
+
+-
+
- Lecture One +
Lecture One
+
+
+Module Content
+-
+
- This Module teaches you how the Open Source World works. +
- We do this not via lectures alone, but through several interactive methods +
- 1: Worksheets where you get to practice doing things which are either used or +required knowledge in the Open Source community. +
- 2: Direct interaction with Mozilla, a widely known Open Source Company. + +
Lectures
+-
+
- The Lectures themselves will cover a variety of topics related to open source
+and programming in general. As a rule each will have an accompanying worksheet,
+though this may not always be the case.
+
-
+
- Nor would it be required for you to wait for the lecture to begin the +worksheet. + +
+
+
Worksheet Completion
+-
+
- Every year we advise people to begin the worksheets when they start the +module. +
- Every year some students leave the worksheets til the final week. +
- These are, without fail, the students who either end up failing or getting +really low grades. +
- Don't be this student, we usually don't have time to help someone who is stuck +on something they should have finished in the first half of the module. Things +get busy. +
- Last year 1 in ten students failed on the first attempt, each because they +left the worksheets till too late and didn't think the portfolio mattered. + +
Assessment
+-
+
- The assessment scheme has been split into two parts.
+
-
+
- Medium Difficulty (Low to Medium Grade 0-69) +
- Hard Difficulty (High Grade 70-100) + +
+ - This is so everyone can participate with the Mozilla contribution portion +without having to be great at programming. + +
Mozilla
+-
+
- The Mozilla foundation began when Netscape decided to release the source code +of their browser in 1998. It took a while for the Foundation to get going, but +you can read up on the history yourself. +
- https://mozilla.org/ +
- Much of this module revolves around independant work. Nazaraf and I are here +for the most part to support you while you figure things out for yourself, and +with each others help. + +
Constant Change
+-
+
- Every year, because the Open Source world is moving so fast, we find our +materials have been outdated in some way in the time between being written and +you using them, in spite of being re-written each year. +
- This is unavoidable. I do my best to minimise the impact of changes, but it's +impossible for me to find them all. +
- Sometimes major changes have occurred to Mozilla's systems in the last few +weeks before the module began. They are a commercial Open Source company, we +are having to work around this. + +
Portfolio - Medium Difficulty
+-
+
- Worksheets, an essay, and whatever you can of submissions to Mozilla. To +barely pass You could get away with not submitting anything to Mozilla, but +taking this route would mean two things. +
- 1: You get almost nothing of use from this module in terms of either grade, +extra knowledge or things to go on your CV. +
- 2: You are extreme risk of having to retake if you misjudge what is needed for +any of the components you submit. +
- Submissions to Mozilla will be in the form of online documentation +checking/fixes and reviews. +
- These have to be done according to Mozilla's own high standards, and +absolutely cannot be rushed at the last minute. + +
Portfolio - Hard Difficulty
+-
+
- This is the ideal target for students with programming ability. +
- Thus far, unless you've had a placement year, all the code you've worked on +has been what are called toy projects. +
- In this module you get the opportunity to work on a live codebase. The code +you submit to Mozilla, if accepted, will be deployed in the next release of +Firefox. +
- Thus, however small your contribution, it is still part of a live Open Source +product in use worldwide by millions of people. +
- You still need to complete the Worksheets and Essay, if you are going to take +the programming route you will need these out of the way as soon as possible. + +
Benefits
+-
+
- CV
+
-
+
- Everything you complete and submit to Mozilla can be put on your CV. +
- Some past students have gained jobs based directly on things they learned on +this module. + +
+
+
Questions asked every year
+-
+
- How many bugs (software fixes) or documentation fixes should I do) +
- The answer for documentation is simple. Documentation isn't as difficult, so +the more you do, the better your grade. +
- With software fixes the question is harder to answer. In the past A student +has achieved a really high grade with just one fix. +
- However that was a really complicated one which required that he work with +several engineers at Mozilla, and me over the course of the module to +complete. +
- My usual advice is, as many as you can, because each bug fix is marked on its +own merits. +
- There are set elements of the marking scheme for bugfixing, I'll discuss those +when I go through the scheme itself. + +
So, What IS Open Source
+-
+
- Way back in the 1970's, when I was trying desperately to avoid wearing flared +jeans, and occasionally visiting my local powerstation to play with their +computer, some guys in America were getting fed up with the way big companies +were behaving, always keeping the source code of software to themselves. +
- You only really need to know about Richard Stallman
+
+ - He objected to this and created the Free Software Foundation to combat the problem. +
- You're already rather experienced in using the products of the Free Software +Foundation, it's just you may not know it. + +
Some Products of FSF
+-
+
- GCC GNU Compiler Collection - C, C++, Objective-C, Objective-C++, Fortran, Ada, D, Go, and BRIG. +
- Emacs Code and Text Editor - The Multitool of the development world, and what +all the materials of this module are written in. +
- GDB GNU DeBugging Suite. +
- GProf GNU Program Profiler. +
- Splint - GNU code standards correctness checker, or as I call it, the Stallman Auto +Criticiser. Impossible to please. + +
Downside of the FSF
+-
+
- Stallman, and therefore his organisation, believe all software should be +free. Not always literally free, but the licences they have, which we will +cover soon, do their best to enforce this free of physical cost aspect, +lending the lie to his protest that he only means 'Free as in Freedom, Not +Free as in Beer'. +
- The FSF are, by design, hostile to business, but from the outset, not all +software developers who wanted to share code were of the same mind. +
- This led to the creation of the Open Source Initiative, and it is the OSI's +philosophy that we follow on this module. + +
-
+
- Put basically, free coders gotta eat too. There are now plenty of examples +of successful companies which started out using free/Open Source Software and +are now multi million or billion dollar businesses. +
- It's less common for individual programmers to become wealthy in the Open +Source world, because it isn't the same as the closed source world, but since +all or most your work is visible to everyone, its potentially more stable as a +career path. +
- I say most because even Mozilla has to keep certain parts of their operation +secret. This is however far better than closed source companies who routinely +keep everything to themselves. + +
How will this Module Work
+-
+
- Each week for the early part of the module we will have one lecture a week and +the rest of the time will be spent doing worksheets or your portfolio. +
- While feedback and help is always available, there is also a component of each +aspect of the portfolio which involves a marked feedback session. +
- The mark is always a set amount, all you need is to meet the requirements to +have the feedback, complete it, and you get the grade. +
- Later in the module we won't have lectures as you will be too busy on your +portfolios, and we will be busy supporting you. I will be able to revisit +points from lectures if you want. + +
Obligatory XKCD
+ +
+
+
+
-
+
- Copyright: Randall Munroe - XKCD +
- Mirrored on my hosting to avoid bandwidth stealing + +
Licence for this work
+-
+
- Licenced under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 +International by Dr Carey Pridgeon 2019 +
- (Licence does not cover linked images owned by other content creators) + +
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
diff --git a/lectures/mozilla_intro.org b/lectures/mozilla_intro.org
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..87bd166
--- /dev/null
+++ b/lectures/mozilla_intro.org
@@ -0,0 +1,76 @@
+#+TITLE: 389COM: Copyright
+#+AUTHOR: Dr Carey Pridgeon, DR Nazaraf Shah
+# -*- mode: org -*-
+* setup :noexport:
+#+OPTIONS: reveal_center:t reveal_progress:t reveal_history:t reveal_control:t
+#+OPTIONS: reveal_mathjax:t reveal_rolling_links:t reveal_keyboard:t reveal_overview:t num:nil
+#+OPTIONS: reveal_width:1200 reveal_height:800
+#+OPTIONS: toc:1 num:nil H:2 ^:{}
+#+REVEAL_MARGIN: 0.2
+#+REVEAL_MIN_SCALE: 0.5
+#+REVEAL_MAX_SCALE: 2.5
+#+REVEAL_TRANS: none
+#+REVEAL_THEME: night
+#+REVEAL_HLEVEL: 999
+#+REVEAL_EXTRA_CSS: ../css/presentation.css
+#+REVEAL_ROOT: http://cdn.jsdelivr.net/reveal.js/3.0.0/
+#+STARTUP: showeverything
+* Mozilla
+** The Mozilla foundation
+- As mentioned in the first lecture, founded when Netscape released the
+ source code of their browser. There is a documentary related to this on the
+ Moodle page.
+- Since the, the Mozilla Foundation have been committed to promoting Open Source
+ Software development and actively involve themselves with students who are
+ interested in learning more.
+- This is why I created this module.
+**
+- You can leave this module having done one of two things"
+ - 1: Completed the minimum possible of the portfolio in order to pass.
+ - 2: Achieved as much as possible, getting valuable work you can put on your CV
+ along the way.
+- Module staff will help you either way. The latter is preferable in terms of
+ your own future development, but I've been running this module long enough to
+ learn that some people want to pass with as little work as possible.
+- The assignment scheme has been designed with this in mind.
+- It still isn't easy, and it means if you take the simpler route, there is no chance
+ you can get a higher grade, and this is made clear, so we don't have to
+ explain it again. But it's easier than the one with a greater educational payoff.
+** Mozilla Assignment Walkthrough
+- Not a slide.
+** Why Mozilla
+- I went to university with one of the people who is now a senior developer at
+ Mozilla, so I have contacts there through him.
+- Their attitude towards encouraging new developers to write Open Source
+ Software while also seeking to earn money matches my own philosophy.
+- Which is - You may not get paid for all the code you write, but the more
+ quality code you release with your name attached, the more likely it is you
+ will gain highly paid employment.
+- Closed source companies do not release your source code, so your skills are
+ invisible to potential employers, leaving only interview skills as your means
+ to impress them.
+**
+- A decent portfolio online is far better, most, if not all employers taking on
+ developers now look online for evidence of your abilities. Not having an
+ online coding portfolio now is highly unwise.
+- It is also rather likely someone at a company you are planning to work for
+ would be an Open Source Developer themselves, as it has become increasingly
+ popular.
+- Gone are the days of bearded weirdos sat in basements surrounded by pizza
+ boxes. Now it's a way to keep a CV fresh, and meet likeminded people.
+- in other words it's what the modern professional does.
+**
+- This, for some reason doesn't seem to be what the Free Software Foundation
+ wanted, since their rather outdated stance is hostile to coperation with
+ commercial interests.
+- This is why Linux, while GPL 2 licensed at the Kernel level, is fundamentally
+ Open Source and is heavily funded by many corporations, is a huge success.
+- Even Microsoft have finally switched from trying to shut it down to supporting
+ it.
+- Whereas Hurd, the FSFs attempt at an operating system which would /in theory/
+ be far superior to Linux, rejected this approach, was mishandled by Stallman
+ telling the developers who weren't being paid what they could and could not
+ do, and thus has never been finished.
+- Mozilla has always relied on financing by major commercial sponsors. First
+ AOL, then Google.
+
diff --git a/lectures/open_source_developer.html b/lectures/open_source_developer.html
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..12f9bf2
--- /dev/null
+++ b/lectures/open_source_developer.html
@@ -0,0 +1,304 @@
+
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diff --git a/lectures/open_source_developer.org b/lectures/open_source_developer.org
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..cccd2b3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/lectures/open_source_developer.org
@@ -0,0 +1,131 @@
+# -*- mode: org -*-
+#+TITLE: 389COM: Becoming an Open Source Developer
+#+AUTHOR: Dr Carey Pridgeon, DR Nazaraf Shah
+* setup :noexport:
+#+OPTIONS: reveal_center:t reveal_progress:t reveal_history:t reveal_control:t
+#+OPTIONS: reveal_mathjax:t reveal_rolling_links:t reveal_keyboard:t reveal_overview:t num:nil
+#+OPTIONS: reveal_width:1200 reveal_height:800
+#+OPTIONS: toc:1 num:nil H:2 ^:{}
+#+REVEAL_MARGIN: 0.2
+#+REVEAL_MIN_SCALE: 0.5
+#+REVEAL_MAX_SCALE: 2.5
+#+REVEAL_TRANS: none
+#+REVEAL_THEME: night
+#+REVEAL_HLEVEL: 999
+#+REVEAL_EXTRA_CSS: ../css/presentation.css
+#+REVEAL_ROOT: http://cdn.jsdelivr.net/reveal.js/3.0.0/
+#+STARTUP: showeverything
+# Licenced under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0
+# International by Dr Carey Pridgeon 2016
+
+* Becoming an Open Source Developer
+** Required Skill level
+- None.
+- All you need is interest in a particular subject.
+- As you're not being paid, there are no deadlines to meet other than the ones
+ you set yourself.
+- If you have agreed to be part of a team who are also working in their free
+ time, deadlines might be set, but this is a different matter.
+- As such this is a great way to learn something new. A language, or a
+ particular tool, or a library you've not previously found time for.
+- I used Open Source to learn basic OpenGL, then Parallel and Distributed
+ Computing, none of which I'd learned as an undergraduate.
+- I also learned several new languages, and enough of *.NET* to know I hated it,
+ nasty slow thing that it is.
+** Immediate benefits
+- Also none.
+- You get the experience of course, and your online portfolio increases, which
+ makes you even more visible to potential employers, but you won't be writing
+ code and rolling in coin.
+- However.
+ - Every Open Source developer I know has ended up working in a far better
+ position than it's likely they would have obtained had they not been either
+ producing their own code or contributing to other Open Source projects.
+ - The latter is often better, as there are usually pre-existing communities.
+** What could I do?
+- So long as you can code, design, or otherwise create something which other
+ people can recreate from a design, template or some form of source you
+ produce, it can be Open Source.
+- There are, as well as software projects:
+- Computers.
+- Cars.
+- Satellites.
+- Airplanes.
+- House building plans.
+- Music.
+- And almost anything you can think of.
+** Long Game vs Short Game
+- Why write code or do something you won't get paid for? After all, that effort
+ could be put into getting promotions, getting more pay.
+- Companies can have bad periods. When they do, people lose their jobs.
+- Specialise too much on your job and you could find yourself unable to find
+ work with the same pay elsewhere.
+- By all means go for promotions, but look at the history of your industry,
+ investigate its booms and *huge* crashes.
+**
+- Specialising, while required for promotion is also /extremely/
+ dangerous.
+- Never let your portfolio go stale, even if your position /appears/ to be rock
+ solid.
+- There is also the possibility you might feel the need for a radical career
+ change. I did, plenty of others do. Like me many of those people were prepared
+ for the change, so it was easy to achieve. If you're not it may be impossible,
+ or you might have to wait years.
+** Advantage After Graduating
+- Jobs all need experience.
+- You can't get experience without a job.
+- A Good Open Source Product can give you that same experience, if your project
+ is complex enough (it might take several iterations to achieve this).
+- You get to control /everything/ in your product.
+- It doesn't matter if you fail to achieve your ultimate goal, the code is still
+ there to be read.
+** How To Go About It
+- You start by choosing something you're interested in and starting a project
+ which involves it.
+- To start with it can be a lone project, but it needn't be, let's look at a
+ recent example, which isn't code, but it is done by [[https://ydvisual.github.io/YdvPortfolio/index.htm][YD Visual (Ken York)]] and
+ his portfolio of physics technology animations.
+file:img/bscram1.jpg
+**
+- These seem now to mostly to be in collaboration with Isaac Arthurs Youtube
+ Channel [[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZFipeZtQM5CKUjx6grh54g][Science and Futurism]]. This work is done for free, though he has, I
+ believe, received funding for other animations.
+- However the existence of this impressive online portfolio certainly raises his
+ profile should he be in a job search scenario. Other candidates without a
+ comparable online presense would find it harder to compete.
+**
+- Lone projects can work fine, particularly for new developers. All your
+ mistakes can happen in secret.
+- But there will *never* be a time when you stop making mistakes. The mistakes
+ just get bigger as your technical knowledge increases, so hiding mistakes is
+ not a reason to work alone.
+- It's also more fun to work with other people, so joining an existing,
+ larger project is perhaps better.
+**
+- You will find that your out GiHub/GitLab repository fills up with small
+ personal projects quickly enough anyway.
+- Ken Chose to have his own project, but works with Isaac and the somewhat
+ extensive community which has evolved around his highly technical
+ channel. Therefore he is not working in a vacuum, nor is he the only person
+ contributing 3D graphics or resources.
+** In Summary
+- How you approach this is up to you.
+- The benefits are often indirect, and generally not immediate, but are related
+ to the amount of effort you put in.
+- A low quality portfolio will not attract attention.
+- Failure to engage in any form of community is generally a bad move.
+- Community means contacts, contacts can lead to opportunties.
+- These opportunties may not mean jobs, but you can't look at this solely as a
+ money making or job creation activity. It needs to be fun.
+
+
+
+
+** Obligatory XKCD
+[[file:img/goto.png]]
+- Copyright: Randall Munroe - XKCD
+- Mirrored in my hosting to avoid bandwidth stealing
+** Licence for this work
+- Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0
+ International by Dr Carey Pridgeon 2019
+- (Licence does not cover linked images or content owned by other creators)
diff --git a/lectures/saas.html b/lectures/saas.html
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+389COM: Becoming an Open Source Developer
Dr Carey Pridgeon, DR Nazaraf Shah
Created: 2019-08-20 Tue 13:36
+
+
+Table of Contents
+ +Becoming an Open Source Developer
+
+
+Required Skill level
+-
+
- None. +
- All you need is interest in a particular subject. +
- As you're not being paid, there are no deadlines to meet other than the ones +you set yourself. +
- If you have agreed to be part of a team who are also working in their free +time, deadlines might be set, but this is a different matter. +
- As such this is a great way to learn something new. A language, or a +particular tool, or a library you've not previously found time for. +
- I used Open Source to learn basic OpenGL, then Parallel and Distributed +Computing, none of which I'd learned as an undergraduate. +
- I also learned several new languages, and enough of .NET to know I hated it, +nasty slow thing that it is. + +
Immediate benefits
+-
+
- Also none. +
- You get the experience of course, and your online portfolio increases, which +makes you even more visible to potential employers, but you won't be writing +code and rolling in coin. +
- However.
+
-
+
- Every Open Source developer I know has ended up working in a far better +position than it's likely they would have obtained had they not been either +producing their own code or contributing to other Open Source projects. +
- The latter is often better, as there are usually pre-existing communities. + +
+
+
What could I do?
+-
+
- So long as you can code, design, or otherwise create something which other +people can recreate from a design, template or some form of source you +produce, it can be Open Source. +
- There are, as well as software projects: +
- Computers. +
- Cars. +
- Satellites. +
- Airplanes. +
- House building plans. +
- Music. +
- And almost anything you can think of. + +
Long Game vs Short Game
+-
+
- Why write code or do something you won't get paid for? After all, that effort +could be put into getting promotions, getting more pay. +
- Companies can have bad periods. When they do, people lose their jobs. +
- Specialise too much on your job and you could find yourself unable to find +work with the same pay elsewhere. +
- By all means go for promotions, but look at the history of your industry, +investigate its booms and huge crashes. + +
-
+
- Specialising, while required for promotion is also extremely +dangerous. +
- Never let your portfolio go stale, even if your position appears to be rock +solid. +
- There is also the possibility you might feel the need for a radical career +change. I did, plenty of others do. Like me many of those people were prepared +for the change, so it was easy to achieve. If you're not it may be impossible, +or you might have to wait years. + +
Advantage After Graduating
+-
+
- Jobs all need experience. +
- You can't get experience without a job. +
- A Good Open Source Product can give you that same experience, if your project +is complex enough (it might take several iterations to achieve this). +
- You get to control everything in your product. +
- It doesn't matter if you fail to achieve your ultimate goal, the code is still +there to be read. + +
How To Go About It
+-
+
- You start by choosing something you're interested in and starting a project +which involves it. +
- To start with it can be a lone project, but it needn't be, let's look at a +recent example, which isn't code, but it is done by YD Visual (Ken York) and +his portfolio of physics technology animations. + +
+
+
+
-
+
- These seem now to mostly to be in collaboration with Isaac Arthurs Youtube +Channel Science and Futurism. This work is done for free, though he has, I +believe, received funding for other animations. +
- However the existence of this impressive online portfolio certainly raises his +profile should he be in a job search scenario. Other candidates without a +comparable online presense would find it harder to compete. + +
-
+
- Lone projects can work fine, particularly for new developers. All your +mistakes can happen in secret. +
- But there will never be a time when you stop making mistakes. The mistakes +just get bigger as your technical knowledge increases, so hiding mistakes is +not a reason to work alone. +
- It's also more fun to work with other people, so joining an existing, +larger project is perhaps better. + +
-
+
- You will find that your out GiHub/GitLab repository fills up with small +personal projects quickly enough anyway. +
- Ken Chose to have his own project, but works with Isaac and the somewhat +extensive community which has evolved around his highly technical +channel. Therefore he is not working in a vacuum, nor is he the only person +contributing 3D graphics or resources. + +
In Summary
+-
+
- How you approach this is up to you. +
- The benefits are often indirect, and generally not immediate, but are related +to the amount of effort you put in. +
- A low quality portfolio will not attract attention. +
- Failure to engage in any form of community is generally a bad move. +
- Community means contacts, contacts can lead to opportunties. +
- These opportunties may not mean jobs, but you can't look at this solely as a +money making or job creation activity. It needs to be fun. + +
Obligatory XKCD
+ +
+
+
+
-
+
- Copyright: Randall Munroe - XKCD +
- Mirrored in my hosting to avoid bandwidth stealing + +
Licence for this work
+-
+
- Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 +International by Dr Carey Pridgeon 2019 +
- (Licence does not cover linked images or content owned by other creators) + +
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
diff --git a/lectures/saas.org b/lectures/saas.org
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..dc8183a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/lectures/saas.org
@@ -0,0 +1,110 @@
+# -*- mode: org -*-
+#+TITLE: 389COM: Software as a Service (SaaS)
+#+AUTHOR: Dr Carey Pridgeon, DR Nazaraf Shah
+* setup :noexport:
+#+OPTIONS: reveal_center:t reveal_progress:t reveal_history:t reveal_control:t
+#+OPTIONS: reveal_mathjax:t reveal_rolling_links:t reveal_keyboard:t reveal_overview:t num:nil
+#+OPTIONS: reveal_width:1200 reveal_height:800
+#+OPTIONS: toc:1 num:nil H:2 ^:{}
+#+REVEAL_MARGIN: 0.2
+#+REVEAL_MIN_SCALE: 0.5
+#+REVEAL_MAX_SCALE: 2.5
+#+REVEAL_TRANS: none
+#+REVEAL_THEME: night
+#+REVEAL_HLEVEL: 999
+#+REVEAL_EXTRA_CSS: ../css/presentation.css
+#+REVEAL_ROOT: http://cdn.jsdelivr.net/reveal.js/3.0.0/
+#+STARTUP: showeverything
+# Licenced under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0
+# International by Dr Carey Pridgeon 2019
+* What is Software as a Service
+** Why is it relevant
+- The definition.
+- The purpose.
+- How businesses are reforming around the concept.
+** Where did we begin
+- Software was, and for small businesses, still is, sold in discrete
+ units, with success measured in per unit sales.
+- Problems with this model:
+ - Piracy
+ - You need DRM to control your product - which never works -
+ - As Microsoft found with Windows, you are often competing against
+ previous versions of your own product on a new product release.
+** Partial solution
+- Companies began to sell their software products but sell support as
+ well to ensure an ongoing income and lock out people who stole their
+ software.
+- This is where Microsoft still are with some of their products.
+- In the business world, success is measured by revenue consistency,
+ not only by large amounts of money coming in occasionally. SaaS therefore has
+ come to have more appeal over time.
+**
+- SaaS goes back to before the current IT world existed, it's beginnings can be
+ traced to the 1960's.
+- In short it is software hosted on a centralised computer, delivered to
+ clients. In the past these would have been /thin/ clients computers able to do
+ no job other than the task the centralised server sent them, but this is no
+ longer the case.
+**
+- Now customers expect their software to be personalised, their data to be
+ secure, hosted in a way they specify, either on a secure cloud or locally, and
+ they want updates they don't have to do themselves.
+- Also support 24/7, if the software is of a type which requires it.
+**
+- Not only this, but with paying so much, they will often no longer perceive the
+ software itself as having any inherent value. Instead they want to pay for a
+ service, and want the service to be personalised and reliable.
+- Time is money, and with so many small enterprises starting up, a good value
+ SaaS package is better than a large purchase of Commercial software, or even
+ unsupported Open Source Software.
+**
+- This in fact is what held back Open and Free software for so long in the
+ business world, if there was no-one to call when it broke, no-one wanted to
+ use it.
+- The Software Developer is therefore becoming a service provider if he works in
+ the commercial world, whether Open Source or not, though Open Source
+ developers currently have more freedom.
+- You do not need to create Open Source Software to provide a SaaS package for
+ it.
+- It just needs to be a really good one, preferably involving the original
+ developers in time, or at least contributing to Open Source if you are
+ succesful.
+** Current Example
+- OpenStack - managed by the [[https://www.openstack.org/foundation/][The OpenStack Foundation]] is a specification. It
+ needn't be Open Source, since they only define what it should do to be OpenStack.
+- Most implementations of this use do use Open Source technologies to provide SaaS
+ based solutions. For the most assessable of these, look at Red Hats OpenStack
+ implementation.
+- You can use theirs, which is available free via Centos and uses [[https://docs.maas.io/1.9/en/installconfig-images][MAAS - Metal
+ As A Service]] I don't have time to explain this in detail, since it's a
+ complex topic.
+- All kinds of services can be overlaid on MAAS, which abstracts away the
+ hardware of a cluster.
+** How should a SaaS product be managed
+- If it is your own product, frequent updates. How often depends on the type of
+ product. Unlike The per unit sale model customers won't be happy with cosmetic
+ changes only, they will expect substantive changes in response to their
+ feedback.
+- If it isn't your product the changes must be to your product support service,
+ so how can you improve? To justify keeping your customers you will need to
+ evolve your business.
+** Managing SaaS Customers
+- To give a real world example:
+- A company I recently dealt with ran what was supposed to be a customer
+ feedback and support day for SaaS products.
+- Instead it was a day long sales pitch intended to lock customers into multi
+ year academic contracts.
+- Doing business this way simply won't cut it in the future when there are more
+ competitors.
+** Customer Budgets
+- Customers have less money, not no money, but less. A lean company can do well
+ if it learns how to do SaaS well.
+- Create your own SaaS infrastructure yes, market that, but market Open Source
+ products with it. The difficulty is in the support, not in the software.
+- There's no reason to think massive companies, SME's /Small to Medium
+ Enterprises/ can use SaaS too, if it's cheap enough.
+** What does Stallman think?
+- Boy does he has a lot to say, he even has his own term SaaSS /Server as a
+ Software Substitute/
+- Unsurprisingly, no-one else uses this - You can read his full statement [[https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/who-does-that-server-really-serve.en.html][here]]
+
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+389COM: Version Control
Dr Carey Pridgeon, Dr Nazaraf Shah
Created: 2019-10-30 Wed 12:05
+
+
+Table of Contents
+
+
+
+Version Control
+-
+
- Version control in all its incarnations exists to allow you to track changes +in your source code, so if you make a change you want to revert, you can do +so. +
- It has existed in many forms for quite a while, and has evolved in complexity, +so right now there are several different classes of version control in use. +
- It came into existence because companies were losing code when hardware failed +or was mistakenly discarded, and the losses from this began to mount +significantly. +
- There are two classes of version control available, they do the same basic +job, but do it in different ways. + +
Centralised
+-
+
- SVN Apache Subversion, first released 20 October 2000 +
- All changes are stored in the repository. Your local copy is the +current version only. +
- Since you only store the current version locally, working on the +same codebase from multiple machines means you introduce conflicts +very easily. +
- Dropbox's version history takes broadly the same approach as SVN, but much improved. + +
-
+
- Sharing a single repository between multiple developers can be done, +but it is very easy to break things. +
- When multiple developers use an SVN stored codebase, problems are introduced so +easily you'll often find individual develops storing local copies separately. +
- Conflicted files are downloaded and timestamped in the filename to +allow you to manually merge to get the file you wanted. +
- Centralised Version Control isn't really relevant for programming +any more, the only real benefit is that you have a version history. + +
Decentralised
+-
+
- Git and Mercurial +
- Git was written in 2005, when Linux was no longer allowed to use Bitkeeper, a +commercial version control system. +
- Mercurial was written at around the same time Git was, and for more or less +the same reasons. Thus they are nearly identical in functionality +
- With both of these there is a central repository, as with +SVN, only not as basic. +
- Unlike SVN, each developer has their own complete local copy of the entire +codebase, including a full repository history and all branches. + +
-
+
- (Git has the option of only downloading a partial history, Mercurial does not). +
- Code changes are committed locally first, then the changed portions in the +local repository are pushed (uploaded) to the central repository. +
- Commits slot into a tree of versions, unlike SVN it is trivially +easy to maintain different versions within the same repository. +
- You can perform many local commits without pushing them upstream to the global +(online) repository if you want. +
- Unless you are the only person committing to a codebase this isn't recommended. + +
How Decentralised Version Control Works
+-
+
- Revision history for Git and Mercurial is COW Copy On Write based. +
- When a change is made to a tracked file (a file that is being +managed by version control), a changeset is stored. +
- Changesets can be applied to turn one version of a file into the one +the changeset represents. +
- Successive file versions are chains of these Changesets. + +
Revision History
+-
+
- Occasionally instead of changesets a new whole file is stored, if +there are enough differences to make this worthwhile. +
- Every change has a unique id, so it can be referred to later. +
- Instead of replacing entire files or groups of files, you can apply +a patch that will only update the relevant files. +
- while both Git and Mercurial do basically the same thing, there is +still a fairly lively 'Emacs vs Vi' style type debate over which +does it better. + +
-
+
- Mozilla use Mercurial primarily, but mirror that repository to git for +read only access or easy forking. +
- As previously mentioned, Mercurial requires all the history be checked out, +Git has the option not to. +
- When you checkout the Mozilla codebase you will see why this is an +issue for some people. If you didn't notice, it takes a long time. + +
Conflict Resolution
+-
+
- Since multiple developers can be editing the same file, conflicts +can emerge. +
- Git and Mercurial will let you commit any file locally. +
- If however that file will cause a conflict on the main (shared) +repository, it won't let you push it there. + +
-
+
- This way problems only exist locally, you won't break other +developers code by making an unexpected change. +
- The solution to a code conflict is usually to get (pull down) the +committed file your local file conflicts with, edit in your changes, +then commit and push the fixed file. + +
-
+
- The easiest way to minimise this is to always pull down the latest +copy of the code before working on it. The more you keep your code +in sync, the fewer problem you will have. +
- If conflicts are very likely because you are working on a major +change, the best thing is to create a new branch and work in +that. (more on Branches in a bit). + +
Tagging
+-
+
- A Tag marks a milestone in development, this can be a release, or a +point when the design is changed. +
- Tags mean the code state at that point can be downloaded later. +
- Create a tag - git tag v1 -m tag_message + +
Branching
+-
+
- A branch in Git is simply a lightweight movable pointer to the head +of a commit chain, of which you can have several. +
- Branching splits the code into two streams for parallel +development/testing. You commit to a specified stream without +effecting the other. This is used for patching or trying a new idea +that might break your code. + +
+
+
+
+
-
+
- Create a new branch git branch branchname. +
- Switch to that branch (or back to another) git checkout branchname +
- Or you can combine these git checkout -b branchname +
- Pushing the local branch upstream to your repository. +
- git push origin branchname +
- The disparate branches can be merged later if you want. + +
Forking
+-
+
- Forking is just like cloning, except you don't commit to the same +upstream repository. +
- You can see the current upstream repository url by typing git remote -v +
- Change the upstream repository with the command git remote set-url origin new_url +
- Any subsequent commits are in your repository/fork, not the original. +
- Gitlab et al make forking really easy. + +
Submodules
+-
+
- Code in one git project can be made part of another via the submodule feature +
- Submodules are always pointed at a specific commit in the other +another codebase. +
- This avoids subsequent changes in that codebase breaking your program. +
- To update a submodule you have to specify a new pull point (head or some specific commit). + +
Patches
+-
+
- Patches are diff files that let git/Mercurial write file changes to +your repository +
- Patches should always be applied to a branch of the main project. +
- You create the branch, apply the Patch, test the result, and.. +
- Either you merge the branch back in or discard it if the patch didn't work. +
- So, you can test a change without risking your code. + +
Good Practice
+-
+
- Commit/push often. +
- Use the features available to track progress. +
- Test on each commit using Continuous Integration. +
- Use tags whenever you are about to make some major change or set a +release version. + +
Continuous Integration
+-
+
- CI Builds you code at each commit, runs your tests and shows you the results. +
- CI helps you catch errors as they are introduced into your codebase. +
- It is pointless without some form of embedded testing (compiles != works after +all). + +
-
+
- There are multiple CI platforms - Travis and Jenkins being examples. +
- Gitlab is the only free Git hosting service I know to have it's own +system, and it is really easy to use. +
- The worksheet associated with this module includes a section where +you set up rather basic Gitlab CI on a project. + +
Other things CI Can Do
+-
+
- You can Lint your code. +
- Acceptance Testing (how close is your code to the customers requirements, or +the goals you've set for your project?). +
- Performance testing (requires a local CI instance on a dedicated machine). + +
Obligatory XKCD
+ +
+
+
+
-
+
- Copyright: Randall Munroe - XKCD +
- Mirrored in my hosting to avoid bandwidth stealing + +
Licence for this work
+-
+
- Licenced under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 +International by Dr Carey Pridgeon 2016 +
- (Licence does not cover linked images owned by other content creators) + +
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
diff --git a/lectures/version_control.org b/lectures/version_control.org
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..cd083ee
--- /dev/null
+++ b/lectures/version_control.org
@@ -0,0 +1,190 @@
+# -*- mode: org -*-
+#+TITLE: 389COM: Version Control
+#+AUTHOR: Dr Carey Pridgeon, Dr Nazaraf Shah
+* setup :noexport:
+#+OPTIONS: reveal_center:t reveal_progress:t reveal_history:t reveal_control:t
+#+OPTIONS: reveal_mathjax:t reveal_rolling_links:t reveal_keyboard:t reveal_overview:t num:nil
+#+OPTIONS: reveal_width:1200 reveal_height:800
+#+OPTIONS: toc:1 num:nil H:2 ^:{}
+#+REVEAL_MARGIN: 0.2
+#+REVEAL_MIN_SCALE: 0.5
+#+REVEAL_MAX_SCALE: 2.5
+#+REVEAL_TRANS: none
+#+REVEAL_THEME: night
+#+REVEAL_HLEVEL: 999
+#+REVEAL_EXTRA_CSS: ../css/presentation.css
+#+REVEAL_ROOT: http://cdn.jsdelivr.net/reveal.js/3.0.0/
+#+STARTUP: showeverything
+# Licenced under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0
+# International by Dr Carey Pridgeon 2019
+#+BEAMER_HEADER: \institute[Coventry Uni]{Coventry University\\\url{http://www.coventry.ac.uk}}
+
+* Version Control
+- Version control in all its incarnations exists to allow you to track changes
+ in your source code, so if you make a change you want to revert, you can do
+ so.
+- It has existed in many forms for quite a while, and has evolved in complexity,
+ so right now there are several different classes of version control in use.
+- It came into existence because companies were losing code when hardware failed
+ or was mistakenly discarded, and the losses from this began to mount
+ significantly.
+- There are two classes of version control available, they do the same basic
+ job, but do it in different ways.
+** Centralised
+- SVN /Apache Subversion/, first released 20 October 2000
+- All changes are stored in the repository. Your local copy is the
+ current version only.
+- Since you only store the current version locally, working on the
+ same codebase from multiple machines means you introduce conflicts
+ very easily.
+- Dropbox's version history takes broadly the same approach as SVN, but much improved.
+**
+- Sharing a single repository between multiple developers can be done,
+ but it is very easy to break things.
+- When multiple developers use an SVN stored codebase, problems are introduced so
+ easily you'll often find individual develops storing local copies separately.
+- Conflicted files are downloaded and timestamped in the filename to
+ allow you to manually merge to get the file you wanted.
+- Centralised Version Control isn't really relevant for programming
+ any more, the only real benefit is that you have a version history.
+** Decentralised
+- [[https://git-scm.com/][Git]] and [[https://www.mercurial-scm.org/][Mercurial]]
+- Git was written in 2005, when Linux was no longer allowed to use Bitkeeper, a
+ commercial version control system.
+- Mercurial was written at around the same time Git was, and for more or less
+ the same reasons. Thus they are nearly identical in functionality
+- With both of these there is a central repository, as with
+ SVN, only not as basic.
+- Unlike SVN, each developer has their own complete local copy of the entire
+ codebase, including a full repository history and all branches.
+**
+- (Git has the option of only downloading a partial history, Mercurial does not).
+- Code changes are committed locally first, then the changed portions in the
+ local repository are pushed (uploaded) to the central repository.
+- Commits slot into a tree of versions, unlike SVN it is trivially
+ easy to maintain different versions within the same repository.
+- You can perform many local commits without pushing them upstream to the global
+ (online) repository if you want.
+- Unless you are the only person committing to a codebase this isn't recommended.
+** How Decentralised Version Control Works
+- Revision history for Git and Mercurial is *COW* /Copy On Write/ based.
+- When a change is made to a tracked file (a file that is being
+ managed by version control), a changeset is stored.
+- Changesets can be applied to turn one version of a file into the one
+ the changeset represents.
+- Successive file /versions/ are chains of these Changesets.
+** Revision History
+- Occasionally instead of changesets a new whole file is stored, if
+ there are enough differences to make this worthwhile.
+- Every change has a unique id, so it can be referred to later.
+- Instead of replacing entire files or groups of files, you can apply
+ a patch that will only update the relevant files.
+- while both Git and Mercurial do basically the same thing, there is
+ still a fairly lively 'Emacs vs Vi' style type debate over which
+ does it better.
+**
+- Mozilla use Mercurial primarily, but mirror that repository to git for
+ read only access or easy forking.
+- As previously mentioned, Mercurial requires all the history be checked out,
+ Git has the option not to.
+- When you checkout the Mozilla codebase you will see why this is an
+ issue for some people. If you didn't notice, it takes a long time.
+** Conflict Resolution
+- Since multiple developers can be editing the same file, conflicts
+ can emerge.
+- Git and Mercurial will let you commit any file locally.
+- If however that file will cause a conflict on the main (shared)
+ repository, it won't let you push it there.
+**
+- This way problems only exist locally, you won't break other
+ developers code by making an unexpected change.
+- The solution to a code conflict is usually to get (pull down) the
+ committed file your local file conflicts with, edit in your changes,
+ then commit and push the fixed file.
+**
+- The easiest way to minimise this is to always pull down the latest
+ copy of the code before working on it. The more you keep your code
+ in sync, the fewer problem you will have.
+- If conflicts are very likely because you are working on a major
+ change, the best thing is to create a new branch and work in
+ that. (more on Branches in a bit).
+** Tagging
+- A Tag marks a milestone in development, this can be a release, or a
+ point when the design is changed.
+- Tags mean the code state at that point can be downloaded later.
+- Create a tag - *git tag v1 -m tag_message*
+** Branching
+- A branch in Git is simply a lightweight movable pointer to the head
+ of a commit chain, of which you can have several.
+- Branching splits the code into two streams for parallel
+ development/testing. You commit to a specified stream without
+ effecting the other. This is used for patching or trying a new idea
+ that might break your code.
+ #+begin_src ditaa :file img/branch.png
+ /---------------------------------------\ /----------------------\
+ | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | -->| Master Branch pointer|
+ \---------------------------------------/ \----------------------/
+ |
+ | /----------------\ /----------------------\
+ +->| 8b | 9b | 10b | -->| Other Branch Pointer |
+ \----------------/ \----------------------/
+#+end_src
+#+RESULTS:
+
+**
+- Create a new branch *git branch branchname*.
+- Switch to that branch (or back to another) *git checkout branchname*
+- Or you can combine these *git checkout -b branchname*
+- Pushing the local branch upstream to your repository.
+- *git push origin branchname*
+- The disparate branches can be merged later if you want.
+** Forking
+- Forking is just like cloning, except you don't commit to the same
+ upstream repository.
+- You can see the current upstream repository url by typing *git remote -v*
+- Change the upstream repository with the command *git remote set-url origin new_url*
+- Any subsequent commits are in your repository/fork, not the original.
+- Gitlab et al make forking really easy.
+** Submodules
+- Code in one git project can be made part of another via the submodule feature
+- Submodules are always pointed at a specific commit in the other
+ another codebase.
+- This avoids subsequent changes in that codebase breaking your program.
+- To update a submodule you have to specify a new pull point (head or some specific commit).
+** Patches
+- Patches are diff files that let git/Mercurial write file changes to
+ your repository
+- Patches should always be applied to a branch of the main project.
+- You create the branch, apply the Patch, test the result, and..
+- Either you merge the branch back in or discard it if the patch didn't work.
+- So, you can test a change without risking your code.
+** Good Practice
+- Commit/push often.
+- Use the features available to track progress.
+- Test on each commit using Continuous Integration.
+- Use tags whenever you are about to make some major change or set a
+ release version.
+** Continuous Integration
+- CI Builds you code at each commit, runs your tests and shows you the results.
+- CI helps you catch errors as they are introduced into your codebase.
+- It is pointless without some form of embedded testing (compiles != works after
+ all).
+**
+- There are multiple CI platforms - Travis and Jenkins being examples.
+- Gitlab is the only free Git hosting service I know to have it's own
+ system, and it is really easy to use.
+- The worksheet associated with this module includes a section where
+ you set up rather basic Gitlab CI on a project.
+** Other things CI Can Do
+- You can Lint your code.
+- Acceptance Testing (how close is your code to the customers requirements, or
+ the goals you've set for your project?).
+- Performance testing (requires a local CI instance on a dedicated machine).
+** Obligatory XKCD
+[[file:img/git.png]]
+- Copyright: Randall Munroe - XKCD
+- Mirrored in my hosting to avoid bandwidth stealing
+** Licence for this work
+- Licenced under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0
+ International by Dr Carey Pridgeon 2016
+- (Licence does not cover linked images owned by other content creators)
diff --git a/lectures/version_control.org~ b/lectures/version_control.org~
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e6009c6
--- /dev/null
+++ b/lectures/version_control.org~
@@ -0,0 +1,190 @@
+# -*- mode: org -*-
+#+TITLE: 389COM: Version Control
+#+AUTHOR: Dr Carey Pridgeon, DR Nazaraf Shah
+* setup :noexport:
+#+OPTIONS: reveal_center:t reveal_progress:t reveal_history:t reveal_control:t
+#+OPTIONS: reveal_mathjax:t reveal_rolling_links:t reveal_keyboard:t reveal_overview:t num:nil
+#+OPTIONS: reveal_width:1200 reveal_height:800
+#+OPTIONS: toc:1 num:nil H:2 ^:{}
+#+REVEAL_MARGIN: 0.2
+#+REVEAL_MIN_SCALE: 0.5
+#+REVEAL_MAX_SCALE: 2.5
+#+REVEAL_TRANS: none
+#+REVEAL_THEME: night
+#+REVEAL_HLEVEL: 999
+#+REVEAL_EXTRA_CSS: ../css/presentation.css
+#+REVEAL_ROOT: http://cdn.jsdelivr.net/reveal.js/3.0.0/
+#+STARTUP: showeverything
+# Licenced under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0
+# International by Dr Carey Pridgeon 2019
+#+BEAMER_HEADER: \institute[Coventry Uni]{Coventry University\\\url{http://www.coventry.ac.uk}}
+
+* Version Control
+- Version control in all its incarnations exists to allow you to track changes
+ in your source code, so if you make a change you want to revert, you can do
+ so.
+- It has existed in many forms for quite a while, and has evolved in complexity,
+ so right now there are several different classes of version control in use.
+- It came into existence because companies were losing code when hardware failed
+ or was mistakenly discarded, and the losses from this began to mount
+ significantly.
+- There are two classes of version control available, they do the same basic
+ job, but do it in different ways.
+** Centralised
+- SVN /Apache Subversion/, first released 20 October 2000
+- All changes are stored in the repository. Your local copy is the
+ current version only.
+- Since you only store the current version locally, working on the
+ same codebase from multiple machines means you introduce conflicts
+ very easily.
+- Dropbox's version history takes broadly the same approach as SVN, but much improved.
+**
+- Sharing a single repository between multiple developers can be done,
+ but it is very easy to break things.
+- When multiple developers use an SVN stored codebase, problems are introduced so
+ easily you'll often find individual develops storing local copies separately.
+- Conflicted files are downloaded and timestamped in the filename to
+ allow you to manually merge to get the file you wanted.
+- Centralised Version Control isn't really relevant for programming
+ any more, the only real benefit is that you have a version history.
+** Decentralised
+- [[https://git-scm.com/][Git]] and [[https://www.mercurial-scm.org/][Mercurial]]
+- Git was written in 2005, when Linux was no longer allowed to use Bitkeeper, a
+ commercial version control system.
+- Mercurial was written at around the same time Git was, and for more or less
+ the same reasons. Thus they are nearly identical in functionality
+- With both of these there is a central repository, as with
+ SVN, only not as basic.
+- Unlike SVN, each developer has their own complete local copy of the entire
+ codebase, including a full repository history and all branches.
+**
+- (Git has the option of only downloading a partial history, Mercurial does not).
+- Code changes are committed locally first, then the changed portions in the
+ local repository are pushed (uploaded) to the central repository.
+- Commits slot into a tree of versions, unlike SVN it is trivially
+ easy to maintain different versions within the same repository.
+- You can perform many local commits without pushing them upstream to the global
+ (online) repository if you want.
+- Unless you are the only person committing to a codebase this isn't recommended.
+** How Decentralised Version Control Works
+- Revision history for Git and Mercurial is *COW* /Copy On Write/ based.
+- When a change is made to a tracked file (a file that is being
+ managed by version control), a changeset is stored.
+- Changesets can be applied to turn one version of a file into the one
+ the changeset represents.
+- Successive file /versions/ are chains of these Changesets.
+** Revision History
+- Occasionally instead of changesets a new whole file is stored, if
+ there are enough differences to make this worthwhile.
+- Every change has a unique id, so it can be referred to later.
+- Instead of replacing entire files or groups of files, you can apply
+ a patch that will only update the relevant files.
+- while both Git and Mercurial do basically the same thing, there is
+ still a fairly lively 'Emacs vs Vi' style type debate over which
+ does it better.
+**
+- Mozilla use Mercurial primarily, but mirror that repository to git for
+ read only access or easy forking.
+- As previously mentioned, Mercurial requires all the history be checked out,
+ Git has the option not to.
+- When you checkout the Mozilla codebase you will see why this is an
+ issue for some people. If you didn't notice, it takes a long time.
+** Conflict Resolution
+- Since multiple developers can be editing the same file, conflicts
+ can emerge.
+- Git and Mercurial will let you commit any file locally.
+- If however that file will cause a conflict on the main (shared)
+ repository, it won't let you push it there.
+** Conflict Resolution
+- This way problems only exist locally, you won't break other
+ developers code by making an unexpected change.
+- The solution to a code conflict is usually to get (pull down) the
+ committed file your local file conflicts with, edit in your changes,
+ then commit and push the fixed file.
+** Conflict Resolution
+- The easiest way to minimise this is to always pull down the latest
+ copy of the code before working on it. The more you keep your code
+ in sync, the fewer problem you will have.
+- If conflicts are very likely because you are working on a major
+ change, the best thing is to create a new branch and work in
+ that. (more on Branches in a bit).
+** Tagging
+- A Tag marks a milestone in development, this can be a release, or a
+ point when the design is changed.
+- Tags mean the code state at that point can be downloaded later.
+- Create a tag - *git tag v1 -m tag_message*
+** Branching
+- A branch in Git is simply a lightweight movable pointer to the head
+ of a commit chain, of which you can have several.
+- Branching splits the code into two streams for parallel
+ development/testing. You commit to a specified stream without
+ effecting the other. This is used for patching or trying a new idea
+ that might break your code.
+ #+begin_src ditaa :file img/branch.png
+ /---------------------------------------\ /----------------------\
+ | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | -->| Master Branch pointer|
+ \---------------------------------------/ \----------------------/
+ |
+ | /----------------\ /----------------------\
+ +->| 8b | 9b | 10b | -->| Other Branch Pointer |
+ \----------------/ \----------------------/
+#+end_src
+#+RESULTS:
+
+**
+- Create a new branch *git branch branchname*.
+- Switch to that branch (or back to another) *git checkout branchname*
+- Or you can combine these *git checkout -b branchname*
+- Pushing the local branch upstream to your repository.
+- *git push origin branchname*
+- The disparate branches can be merged later if you want.
+** Forking
+- Forking is just like cloning, except you don't commit to the same
+ upstream repository.
+- You can see the current upstream repository url by typing *git remote -v*
+- Change the upstream repository with the command *git remote set-url origin new_url*
+- Any subsequent commits are in your repository/fork, not the original.
+- Gitlab et al make forking really easy.
+** Submodules
+- Code in one git project can be made part of another via the submodule feature
+- Submodules are always pointed at a specific commit in the other
+ another codebase.
+- This avoids subsequent changes in that codebase breaking your program.
+- To update a submodule you have to specify a new pull point (head or some specific commit).
+** Patches
+- Patches are diff files that let git/Mercurial write file changes to
+ your repository
+- Patches should always be applied to a branch of the main project.
+- You create the branch, apply the Patch, test the result, and..
+- Either you merge the branch back in or discard it if the patch didn't work.
+- So, you can test a change without risking your code.
+** Good Practice
+- Commit often.
+- Use the features available to track progress.
+- Test on each commit using Continuous Integration.
+- Use tags whenever you are about to make some major change or set a
+ release version.
+** Continuous Integration
+- CI Builds you code at each commit, runs your tests and shows you the results.
+- CI helps you catch errors as they are introduced into your codebase.
+- It is pointless without some form of embedded testing (compiles != works after
+ all).
+**
+- There are multiple CI platforms - Travis and Jenkins being examples.
+- Gitlab is the only free Git hosting service I know to have it's own
+ system, and it is really easy to use.
+- The worksheet associated with this module includes a section where
+ you set up rather basic Gitlab CI on a project.
+** Other things CI Can Do
+- You can Lint your code.
+- Acceptance Testing (how close is your code to the customers requirements, or
+ the goals you've set for your project?).
+- Performance testing (requires a local CI instance on a dedicated machine).
+** Obligatory XKCD
+[[file:img/git.png]]
+- Copyright: Randall Munroe - XKCD
+- Mirrored in my hosting to avoid bandwidth stealing
+** Licence for this work
+- Licenced under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0
+ International by Dr Carey Pridgeon 2016
+- (Licence does not cover linked images owned by other content creators)
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+389COM: Version Control
Dr Carey Pridgeon, Dr Nazaraf Shah
Created: 2019-10-30 Wed 11:59
+
+
+Table of Contents
+
+
+
+Version Control
+-
+
- Version control in all its incarnations exists to allow you to track changes +in your source code, so if you make a change you want to revert, you can do +so. +
- It has existed in many forms for quite a while, and has evolved in complexity, +so right now there are several different classes of version control in use. +
- It came into existence because companies were losing code when hardware failed +or was mistakenly discarded, and the losses from this began to mount +significantly. +
- There are two classes of version control available, they do the same basic +job, but do it in different ways. + +
Centralised
+-
+
- SVN Apache Subversion, first released 20 October 2000 +
- All changes are stored in the repository. Your local copy is the +current version only. +
- Since you only store the current version locally, working on the +same codebase from multiple machines means you introduce conflicts +very easily. +
- Dropbox's version history takes broadly the same approach as SVN, but much improved. + +
-
+
- Sharing a single repository between multiple developers can be done, +but it is very easy to break things. +
- When multiple developers use an SVN stored codebase, problems are introduced so +easily you'll often find individual develops storing local copies separately. +
- Conflicted files are downloaded and timestamped in the filename to +allow you to manually merge to get the file you wanted. +
- Centralised Version Control isn't really relevant for programming +any more, the only real benefit is that you have a version history. + +
Decentralised
+-
+
- Git and Mercurial +
- Git was written in 2005, when Linux was no longer allowed to use Bitkeeper, a +commercial version control system. +
- Mercurial was written at around the same time Git was, and for more or less +the same reasons. Thus they are nearly identical in functionality +
- With both of these there is a central repository, as with +SVN, only not as basic. +
- Unlike SVN, each developer has their own complete local copy of the entire +codebase, including a full repository history and all branches. + +
-
+
- (Git has the option of only downloading a partial history, Mercurial does not). +
- Code changes are committed locally first, then the changed portions in the +local repository are pushed (uploaded) to the central repository. +
- Commits slot into a tree of versions, unlike SVN it is trivially +easy to maintain different versions within the same repository. +
- You can perform many local commits without pushing them upstream to the global +(online) repository if you want. +
- Unless you are the only person committing to a codebase this isn't recommended. + +
How Decentralised Version Control Works
+-
+
- Revision history for Git and Mercurial is COW Copy On Write based. +
- When a change is made to a tracked file (a file that is being +managed by version control), a changeset is stored. +
- Changesets can be applied to turn one version of a file into the one +the changeset represents. +
- Successive file versions are chains of these Changesets. + +
Revision History
+-
+
- Occasionally instead of changesets a new whole file is stored, if +there are enough differences to make this worthwhile. +
- Every change has a unique id, so it can be referred to later. +
- Instead of replacing entire files or groups of files, you can apply +a patch that will only update the relevant files. +
- while both Git and Mercurial do basically the same thing, there is +still a fairly lively 'Emacs vs Vi' style type debate over which +does it better. + +
-
+
- Mozilla use Mercurial primarily, but mirror that repository to git for +read only access or easy forking. +
- As previously mentioned, Mercurial requires all the history be checked out, +Git has the option not to. +
- When you checkout the Mozilla codebase you will see why this is an +issue for some people. If you didn't notice, it takes a long time. + +
Conflict Resolution
+-
+
- Since multiple developers can be editing the same file, conflicts +can emerge. +
- Git and Mercurial will let you commit any file locally. +
- If however that file will cause a conflict on the main (shared) +repository, it won't let you push it there. + +
Conflict Resolution
+-
+
- This way problems only exist locally, you won't break other +developers code by making an unexpected change. +
- The solution to a code conflict is usually to get (pull down) the +committed file your local file conflicts with, edit in your changes, +then commit and push the fixed file. + +
Conflict Resolution
+-
+
- The easiest way to minimise this is to always pull down the latest +copy of the code before working on it. The more you keep your code +in sync, the fewer problem you will have. +
- If conflicts are very likely because you are working on a major +change, the best thing is to create a new branch and work in +that. (more on Branches in a bit). + +
Tagging
+-
+
- A Tag marks a milestone in development, this can be a release, or a +point when the design is changed. +
- Tags mean the code state at that point can be downloaded later. +
- Create a tag - git tag v1 -m tag_message + +
Branching
+-
+
- A branch in Git is simply a lightweight movable pointer to the head +of a commit chain, of which you can have several. +
- Branching splits the code into two streams for parallel +development/testing. You commit to a specified stream without +effecting the other. This is used for patching or trying a new idea +that might break your code. + +
+
+
+
+
-
+
- Create a new branch git branch branchname. +
- Switch to that branch (or back to another) git checkout branchname +
- Or you can combine these git checkout -b branchname +
- Pushing the local branch upstream to your repository. +
- git push origin branchname +
- The disparate branches can be merged later if you want. + +
Forking
+-
+
- Forking is just like cloning, except you don't commit to the same +upstream repository. +
- You can see the current upstream repository url by typing git remote -v +
- Change the upstream repository with the command git remote set-url origin new_url +
- Any subsequent commits are in your repository/fork, not the original. +
- Gitlab et al make forking really easy. + +
Submodules
+-
+
- Code in one git project can be made part of another via the submodule feature +
- Submodules are always pointed at a specific commit in the other +another codebase. +
- This avoids subsequent changes in that codebase breaking your program. +
- To update a submodule you have to specify a new pull point (head or some specific commit). + +
Patches
+-
+
- Patches are diff files that let git/Mercurial write file changes to +your repository +
- Patches should always be applied to a branch of the main project. +
- You create the branch, apply the Patch, test the result, and.. +
- Either you merge the branch back in or discard it if the patch didn't work. +
- So, you can test a change without risking your code. + +
Good Practice
+-
+
- Commit often. +
- Use the features available to track progress. +
- Test on each commit using Continuous Integration. +
- Use tags whenever you are about to make some major change or set a +release version. + +
Continuous Integration
+-
+
- CI Builds you code at each commit, runs your tests and shows you the results. +
- CI helps you catch errors as they are introduced into your codebase. +
- It is pointless without some form of embedded testing (compiles != works after +all). + +
-
+
- There are multiple CI platforms - Travis and Jenkins being examples. +
- Gitlab is the only free Git hosting service I know to have it's own +system, and it is really easy to use. +
- The worksheet associated with this module includes a section where +you set up rather basic Gitlab CI on a project. + +
Other things CI Can Do
+-
+
- You can Lint your code. +
- Acceptance Testing (how close is your code to the customers requirements, or +the goals you've set for your project?). +
- Performance testing (requires a local CI instance on a dedicated machine). + +
Obligatory XKCD
+ +
+
+
+
-
+
- Copyright: Randall Munroe - XKCD +
- Mirrored in my hosting to avoid bandwidth stealing + +
Licence for this work
+-
+
- Licenced under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 +International by Dr Carey Pridgeon 2016 +
- (Licence does not cover linked images owned by other content creators) + +