We should just have a picture of this zoom in to a 24/48 hour countdown with big text saying "test addons on dev branch".
[img]http://static.independent.co.uk/s3fs-public/thumbnails/image/2015/02/19/04/MajorasMask.jpg[/img]
[QUOTE=Yashirmare;50027574]Would be nice if we had a heads up before an update is going live (On somewhere other than here) so we have time to test things; for example most server owners/ devs don't want to have this thread open 24/7 in-case something might change.[/QUOTE]
Alright this opinion is being grossly misread here. Responses like "[I]Have addon developers test the dev branch god damnit[/I]" simply do not apply to this opinion. The quoted opinion answers the following question:
[B][U]HOW[/U][/B] should addon developers know [B][U]WHEN[/U][/B] to test the dev branch?
There are several answers to this question. Some better than others
1. Always follow this thread and don't miss that ONE post Willox sometimes makes that states the update is going to be released soon.
2. Test the dev branch every x days, risking a failure to catch last minute breaking changes while still putting an immense amount of effort into often testing the dev branch
3. Some kind of "feature freeze", where no new shit is added, a notification goes out on garrysmod.com and/or steam, stating that an update is going to be released in (at least) a week and developers all know to test their shit with the dev branch and find problems.
4. Refer to your personal religion for questions about whether your addon will break.
Option 3 is basically the quoted idea, with the concept of feature freeze added in.
Benefits:
1. Easy enough for devs: Everything can be moved to a different branch, new feature development can continue on master branch, and an update is also easy to send out. Fuck it can be a template message with just the date of the planned update in it.
2. More people testing the dev branch, finding more bugs before shit goes live. After all, you're prodding people to actually test it AND you're giving them enough time to actually do test it.
3. People know what to expect and when. When someone complains that shit broke, "[I]you should have tested the dev branch[/I]" becomes a [U]much[/U] more valid counterargument than it is now. [B]No one[/B] is testing the dev branch right now, don't be a hypocrite telling complaining people that they should have tested the dev branch.
Downsides:
1. You get more notifications than you already do
2. The notification reaches people not necessarily affected by it (i.e. end-users)
3. Garry might disagree for some reason. You never know :v:
4. We must go through the effort of discussing this idea.
Number 4 is definitely worth the effort in my opinion. I'll deal with Garry if he suddenly starts posting, so don't worry about that one, ok? :v:
[QUOTE=FPtje;50027378]Another case of "[I]why did literally no one test the dev branch?[/I]"?
I mean I'm guilty.[/QUOTE]
Surprisingly my ballsack didn't seem to get busted. The amount of drama in my addon's comment section is coming to a head but I'm pretty sure that's due to my april fools thing and my continued failure to fix conflicts with ULX and not the Gmod update.
[editline]29th March 2016[/editline]
Perhaps we could have some kind of developer mailing list for important announcements? I know it's kind of simplistic, but it might be good for important notifications that could be missed in this thread.
[QUOTE=FPtje;50028070]Alright this opinion is being grossly misread here. Responses like "[I]Have addon developers test the dev branch god damnit[/I]" simply do not apply to this opinion. The quoted opinion answers the following question:
[B][U]HOW[/U][/B] should addon developers know [B][U]WHEN[/U][/B] to test the dev branch?
There are several answers to this question. Some better than others
1. Always follow this thread and don't miss that ONE post Willox sometimes makes that states the update is going to be released soon.
2. Test the dev branch every x days, risking a failure to catch last minute breaking changes while still putting an immense amount of effort into often testing the dev branch
3. Some kind of "feature freeze", where no new shit is added, a notification goes out on garrysmod.com and/or steam, stating that an update is going to be released in (at least) a week and developers all know to test their shit with the dev branch and find problems.
4. Refer to your personal religion for questions about whether your addon will break.
Option 3 is basically the quoted idea, with the concept of feature freeze added in.
Benefits:
1. Easy enough for devs: Everything can be moved to a different branch, new feature development can continue on master branch, and an update is also easy to send out. Fuck it can be a template message with just the date of the planned update in it.
2. More people testing the dev branch, finding more bugs before shit goes live. After all, you're prodding people to actually test it AND you're giving them enough time to actually do test it.
3. People know what to expect and when. When someone complains that shit broke, "[I]you should have tested the dev branch[/I]" becomes a [U]much[/U] more valid counterargument than it is now. [B]No one[/B] is testing the dev branch right now, don't be a hypocrite telling complaining people that they should have tested the dev branch.
Downsides:
1. You get more notifications than you already do
2. The notification reaches people not necessarily affected by it (i.e. end-users)
3. Garry might disagree for some reason. You never know :v:
4. We must go through the effort of discussing this idea.
Number 4 is definitely worth the effort in my opinion. I'll deal with Garry if he suddenly starts posting, so don't worry about that one, ok? :v:[/QUOTE]
Well another additional issue is that the dev branch has barely any servers, and it wouldnt be the first time that on srcds something bricks while its fine on a listen server, so there comes double effort of managing servers including dev branch(es).
[QUOTE=MadParakeet;50028116]Surprisingly my ballsack didn't seem to get busted. The amount of drama in my addon's comment section is coming to a head but I'm pretty sure that's due to my april fools thing and my continued failure to fix conflicts with ULX and not the Gmod update.
[editline]29th March 2016[/editline]
Perhaps we could have some kind of developer mailing list for important announcements? Pretty simple, but it would be good for update notifications.[/QUOTE]
Good to hear about the lack of busting of your scrotum. Mine didn't bust either. Let's not bust our ballsacks together.
The steam announcements that announce updates serve very well for feature freeze notifications. I always see them pop up on the bottom right of my screen. Many other developers are likely to notice too, and you don't even have to subscribe to anything!
[editline]29th March 2016[/editline]
[QUOTE=Zeh Matt;50028138]Well another additional issue is that the dev branch has barely any servers, and it wouldnt be the first time that on srcds something bricks while its fine on a listen server, so there comes double effort of managing servers including dev branch(es).[/QUOTE]
Shouldn't happen during a feature freeze. Things like that going wrong during feature freeze is much better than after an actual update.
You only need to test your addons, the point of the notifications is that you test it when prodded, not all the time. You may need srcds, but you definitely don't need to manage some hosted server.
Why the fuck do people think that the update was pushed with the devs knowing stuff was broken? It should be very obvious that these things were not an issue on their ends and something went wrong between them and the update. Either that or they had fixed errors on their end that simply never got added to the update. The devs are running the dev branch on their end so if the check box and other stuff was broken for them they would of noticed and fixed it. This is why the dev branch is open to the public, to catch stuff that they aren't experiencing for some reason.
TLDR: use the dev branch cause shit happens
[QUOTE=highvoltage;50028240]
TLDR: use the dev branch cause shit happens[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=FPtje;50028070]<quote>
Alright this opinion is being grossly misread here. Responses like "[I]Have addon developers test the dev branch god damnit[/I]" simply do not apply to this opinion.[/QUOTE]
Your argument doesn't apply to the thing we are discussing.
Even moreso:
[QUOTE=FPtje;50028070] [B]No one[/B] is testing the dev branch right now, don't be a hypocrite telling complaining people that they should have tested the dev branch.
[/QUOTE]
By posting that opinion you have become one of the people I called a hypocrite.
[QUOTE=FPtje;50028269]Your argument doesn't apply to the thing we are discussing.[/QUOTE]
Sorry, I wasn't directing that to you but at the mass amount of people saying the devs should of seen these obvious errors, when there is no way they simply just didn't see them
I have a little problem since the revert of the new update ... :/
Most of the basic model seem to be missing:
Model missing: models/hunter/blocks/cube025x05x025.mdl
Am i the only one with this problem?
this update
[video]https://youtu.be/rJarN6cAspc[/video]
I genuinely don't understand why so many of you whine about updates. The test branch is always receiving little changes here and there so every fortnight (or a month if I'm slacking) I'll just test (my) things quickly and then go on my merry way.
Like we keep having this discussion every update and it's getting pretty silly.
I think it would help if the beta was listed as a separate game instead of this branch thing. I don't know if that's possible, but it's annoying having to switch, which is what I think can turn a lot of people off.
[QUOTE=man with hat;50028879]I think it would help if the beta was listed as a separate game instead of this branch thing. I don't know if that's possible, but it's annoying having to switch, which is what I think can turn a lot of people off.[/QUOTE]
We had this for the GMod 13 beta and the same thing happened there with most people.
[img]http://teddi.eu/ss/29_21-30-09-2029edfa-ad34-48ef-a101-da9ffaea87e5.png[/img]
We still had the same level of whining - the difference was 13 was a big enough change that it was like it or lump it.
Honestly I loved that GMod 13 was its own separate game - I can't stand the branch stuff. I liked being able to quickly hop between the two and not have to worry about anything - just choose the other one and it boots right up, no switching and waiting for downloads, being paranoid my stuff is going to disappear, etc etc.
I feel like now I have to micro-manage the installation.
Another thing that would help a lot is pushing client updates more often since they can easily and relatively painlessly be reverted.
[QUOTE=Teddi Orange;50028897]We had this for the GMod 13 beta and the same thing happened there with most people.
[img]http://teddi.eu/ss/29_21-30-09-2029edfa-ad34-48ef-a101-da9ffaea87e5.png[/img]
We still had the same level of whining - the difference was 13 was a big enough change that it was like it or lump it.[/QUOTE]
The difference was that the people that were complaining were those whose addons broke for their servers, not really developers. Developers all had a chance to test their stuff in a seperate game without having to constantly switch.
[QUOTE=code_gs;50029304]The difference was that the people that were complaining were those whose addons broke for their servers, not really developers. Developers all had a chance to test their stuff in a seperate game without having to constantly switch.[/QUOTE]
I agree that a huge influx of players complained on the forums however there were still many developers who complained about lack of warning or "omg this function has changed and I didn't test it even though it's been like this for months!!!".
The point I'm trying to make here can essentially be summed up with the proverb 'You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink'. The reality is no solution will work because people come up with excuses [I]no matter what.[/I]
[QUOTE=P4sca1;50027147]Is anyone else having the problem that "Model Missing <somepath>" is spammed in server console?
I think it got printed only once before.
[editline]29th March 2016[/editline]
Also players are reporting that the game crashes after pressing Escape.[/QUOTE]
Same for me, most of the basic prop seem to be missing ...
Like Model missing: models/hunter/blocks/cube025x05x025.mdl
[QUOTE=Noi;50028834]Maybe have a channel in Telegram where devs say important shit?[/QUOTE]
Why use telegram when the devs already say important shit in this thread?
[QUOTE=Noi;50029944]Having to open browser and website just to check if anything important happens - not to say that it requires reading tons of shit here - is not really convenient.[/QUOTE]
I highly doubt the devs would be willing to download telegram just to post about updates. Is it really that hard to click on your browser and go here? Hell you could even book mark the developer section to make it more convenient
[QUOTE=Noi;50029944]Having to open browser and website just to check if anything important happens - not to say that it requires reading tons of shit here - is not really convenient.[/QUOTE]
>open chrome
>press f in URL bar (this brings me to dev section)
>press new posts
Done...most of us don't use telegram
Why not just have a mail list, send out a mail a week before an update goes live, link the changelog and any removed functionality, gives people time to test and fix shit then they have no excuse to bitch and moan.
Cause people will still bitch and moan about not knowing about the mailing list, or not being able to test stuff themselves or that things should never ever change in the first place
Surely it's better than the current method of "Keep an eye on this thread 24/7 or shut the fuck up"?
[QUOTE=Yashirmare;50030387]Surely it's better than the current method of "Keep an eye on this thread 24/7 or shut the fuck up"?[/QUOTE]
Or if you actually care about your addons and server you could check: [url]http://wiki.garrysmod.com/changelist/[/url] on a weekly basis?
[QUOTE=F14;50030421]Or if you actually care about your addons and server you could check: [url]http://wiki.garrysmod.com/changelist/[/url] on a weekly basis?[/QUOTE]
All I'm trying to do is help find a better method of doing things, clearly the current way isn't working if we have to do a rollback because [b]literally no-one uses the dev branch![/b]
There should probably be a better way to communicate with players about updates. Obviously, you can't expect everybody that plays the game/runs servers to read some random thread. I would like to add some sort of notification to the version number on the main-menu and to keep the changelog fully up to date, at the least.
There's still going to be a small patch this month, but it'll be optional for servers and just include some actually important changes:
[quote]
• Fixes SetParent making crazy-physics system mad. Vehicle wheels should stop disappearing
• Fixes some crashes related to shadows
• Fixes some crashes when NPCs take damage with a null inflictor
• Fixes to WorkshopDL updates
• Fixes issues where game.MountGMA would not always reload models properly
• Slightly better detection for when users manage to install an entire game as an addon - lowers that addon's priority in the filesystem
• Fixed Lua panic when returning from lua_run, lua_run_cl, RunString, BroadcastLua, Player:SendLua
• Some security fixes
Also has the following just because it's where I based the merge from:
• Forced player simulation (when players are not sending usercommands) now increments command number & changes random seed
• Added whereis console command to menu state, helps with checking if addons are overriding a specific file
[/quote]
After that is sorted, I'll go through the issues people had during the short time the update was live and sort it out throughout next month. I think it's likely you'll see pull-requests being more strict about backwards compatibility remaining no matter how unlikely usage of a feature was.
You might think it'd make sense to not throw another update out so soon, but these few fixes are late enough as it is.
Why net.WriteType send type with net.WriteUInt(8)? 8 means that we can use number from 0 to 2^8-1, but types lower than 64. Every time when we use this function, we lost 2 byte because they aren't used. So examine yourself, if we use net.WriteTable with many values we send 2*2*value unused bytes. I know, what it funny, but use net.WriteUInt(6) is better.
[QUOTE=UnkN;50031408]Why net.WriteType send type with net.WriteUInt(8)? 8 means that we can use number from 0 to 2^8-1, but types lower than 64. Every time when we use this function, we lost 2 byte because they aren't used. So examine yourself, if we use net.WriteTable with many values we send 2*2*value unused bytes. I know, what it funny, but use net.WriteUInt(6) is better.[/QUOTE]
This can't be changed because a lot of code reads the type manually using net.ReadUInt(8). [url]https://github.com/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=%22net.ReadType%22&type=Code&ref=searchresults[/url]
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