The Future of WizTools

[Ommina]

Replying here as it would be horribly off-topic in its original thread.

I've been following this thread with interest. It seems many of the UI Elements and helpers being proposed overlap with what several of the WizTools do. I don't think it is a good idea to have two sets of toolsets that basically have similar functionality and will potentially cause problems down the line.

The WizTools were my first experiment with programming in C# and GBPVR, so may not be as efficient or well thought out as they should be. Therefore I am considering stopping development and enhancements (bug fixes will still be supported) to that toolset in favor of what Reven is working on here. I will be glad to open up the WizTools source if any of it may be useful to this project.

Any comments, concerns about this approach?

My comments:

JW - unless you, personally, I completely sick of working on the project and would rather move on to something new, please do not be too hasty in walking away from the tools you have developed.

The Wiz series is now a mature, functional set of libraries. I do believe there is room for both, and I would hate to see them grow stale.

[zehd]

Replying here as it would be horribly off-topic in its original thread.



My comments:

JW - unless you, personally, I completely sick of working on the project and would rather move on to something new, please do not be too hasty in walking away from the tools you have developed.

The Wiz series is now a mature, functional set of libraries. I do believe there is room for both, and I would hate to see them grow stale.

You know, using a one standardized set of libraries, is very logical for this community.

Adjusting the tools to start using the standard backends is quite a good idea, as I'll bet most of the work comes from User Interface and user proofing the User interfaces of the tools...

At least for me, backend is far easier than frontend

[Ommina]

I do not disagree! Working on the UI is a pain.

However, I submit we already have such a backend, and have had for over a year, and it is far too early consider the open source project any kind of alternative. I guess I prefer "tried and trusted".

Of course -- if JW is tired of the project and wants to move on, well, that's another story.

[JavaWiz]

I do not disagree! Working on the UI is a pain.

However, I submit we already have such a backend, and have had for over a year, and it is far too early consider the open source project any kind of alternative. I guess I prefer "tried and trusted".

Of course -- if JW is tired of the project and wants to move on, well, that's another story.

I definitely dont want to abandon development of the tools (or some derivative of them). I am however finding myself more tied to my 'real' job and not as able to spend the time that I'd like to. There have been several requests for enhancements, and I don't believe I will be able to address them anytime soon.

For this reason (and a few others), I have been thinking for awhile to move the tools into the open source realm. I have expressed interest in what Reven and Whurlston are doing (their initial work looks promising), but I think it may take quite a bit of work to port, so I have not jumped on-board yet.

When I do make that jump, I'm hoping that the impact to developers currently using WizTools can be minimized with few changes and a pretty straight forward conversion route.

That said, I will continue to support WizTools with fixes until the port is complete (you may even see some enhancements).

If anyone wants to try to port, let me know and I will share my code as well as my ideas as to what a successful port would look like.

[Ommina]

Well -- speaking for myself, and only myself, I would rather wait for WizUiTools enhancements (or just continue to use the version that I have, as I'm not waiting on any feature requests.)

The community project has made design decisions that are unacceptable to me, so in my eyes it is not an option, even were Wiz* to be ported to it.

Which is fine -- as indicated, I'm quite happy with the current state of the library, so should development stop where it is, that's OK too!

[reven]

The community project has made design decisions that are unacceptable to me, so in my eyes it is not an option, even were Wiz* to be ported to it.

huh, what is unacceptable? its open source and using BSD license meaning you can do whatever you want with the code.

[Ommina]

True, I could. But then that leaves multiple versions of the library available (in whatever capacity), and there goes the standardized libraries right out the window. It strikes me that having n versions with different functions and requirements floating about would be a step backward for us all.

[reven]

True, I could. But then that leaves multiple versions of the library available (in whatever capacity), and there goes the standardized libraries right out the window. It strikes me that having n versions with different functions and requirements floating about would be a step backward for us all.

currently its only an open source library, theres no discussion as to distribution yet.
i would prefer to have a dll that auto updates itself when a new version is available.