Back to the main page

Mailing List Logs for ShadowRN

Message no. 1
From: cmdjackryan@**********.com (Phillip Gawlowski)
Subject: Announcing: Ruby Shadowrun Character Generator (RSRCG)
Date: Mon, 7 Aug 2006 05:03:04 +0200
As I produced the first working code for this beast, I'm happy to
announce (in good Open Source manner), the Ruby[1]-based Shadowrun
Character Generator.
Right about now, it is still in a very rudimentary form (The code is
working, but only instancing the attributes).

What is Ruby? Why did I choose it?
Ruby is a pure Object Oriented scripting language, and runs on about
OS out there (well, any OSes it has been ported to, currently
including: Windows (including Vista), MacOS, Linux, *BSD), which
allows for clean, readable code and is easy enough to learn.

Featurelist:
- GUI (Tk-based, as Tk is included in the standard Ruby distribution)
- XML-output (For easy storage of character data)
- Sanity check (do the numbers add up?)
- Extensibility (Create your own Equipment files, modifiy the creation rules..)
- Whatever I can think of..

Roadmap: I hope to get an Alpha (Input/Output of character with
Attributes and Abilities, Save/Load to File, basic UI) out at the end
of September, and a Beta (configuration file, XML output, GUI,
Equipment database) at the End of December/End of January.

What I'm looking for:
- Testers (Windows and MacOS X especially, but other OSes are fine)
- (X)HTML/CSS-Gurus to maintain the webpage that is to come[2]
- People willing to write the Equipment-DB to specifications I am
about to write (relevant for Input into Ruby, so bear with me)
- Translators (I have yet to come up with a method to make this easy
to translate while still maintainable)

Of course, bombard me with Feature requests, ideas and / or high
praise for doing all this work ;)

If you write to me about this off-list, please put [RSRCG] in the subject.


Thank you for your time.


[1] Most known together with Rails, a webbased application frame work,
but older than just that. You can get Ruby at http://www.ruby-lang.org

[2] I have an account at RubyForge (http://www.rubyforge.org), which
is similar to SourceForge in concept, but specialising in Ruby (Who
would have thought?).


P.S.: The old-timers may remember the LSRCG project, which silently
passed away. Unlike that little failure, I can put some resources into
the RSRCG, as Ruby isn't nearly as tough a nut to crack for me as is
C++..

--
Phillip "CynicalRyan" Gawlowski

"By Zarglewang's thuppy!"
- Illiad
Message no. 2
From: ceadawg@*****.com (Russ Myrick)
Subject: Announcing: Ruby Shadowrun Character Generator (RSRCG)
Date: Sun, 6 Aug 2006 22:22:40 -0500
I will indeed be happy to test & would the DB request need to be sql
supported? If so, I can probably be persuaded to generate a few tables
under the MySQL umbrella....just need to remember where I mounted the bloody
server....

On 8/6/06, Phillip Gawlowski <cmdjackryan@**********.com> wrote:
>
> As I produced the first working code for this beast, I'm happy to
> announce (in good Open Source manner), the Ruby[1]-based Shadowrun
> Character Generator.
> Right about now, it is still in a very rudimentary form (The code is
> working, but only instancing the attributes).
>
> What is Ruby? Why did I choose it?
> Ruby is a pure Object Oriented scripting language, and runs on about
> OS out there (well, any OSes it has been ported to, currently
> including: Windows (including Vista), MacOS, Linux, *BSD), which
> allows for clean, readable code and is easy enough to learn.
>
> Featurelist:
> - GUI (Tk-based, as Tk is included in the standard Ruby distribution)
> - XML-output (For easy storage of character data)
> - Sanity check (do the numbers add up?)
> - Extensibility (Create your own Equipment files, modifiy the creation
> rules..)
> - Whatever I can think of..
>
> Roadmap: I hope to get an Alpha (Input/Output of character with
> Attributes and Abilities, Save/Load to File, basic UI) out at the end
> of September, and a Beta (configuration file, XML output, GUI,
> Equipment database) at the End of December/End of January.
>
> What I'm looking for:
> - Testers (Windows and MacOS X especially, but other OSes are fine)
> - (X)HTML/CSS-Gurus to maintain the webpage that is to come[2]
> - People willing to write the Equipment-DB to specifications I am
> about to write (relevant for Input into Ruby, so bear with me)
> - Translators (I have yet to come up with a method to make this easy
> to translate while still maintainable)
>
> Of course, bombard me with Feature requests, ideas and / or high
> praise for doing all this work ;)
>
> If you write to me about this off-list, please put [RSRCG] in the subject.
>
>
> Thank you for your time.
>
>
> [1] Most known together with Rails, a webbased application frame work,
> but older than just that. You can get Ruby at http://www.ruby-lang.org
>
> [2] I have an account at RubyForge (http://www.rubyforge.org), which
> is similar to SourceForge in concept, but specialising in Ruby (Who
> would have thought?).
>
>
> P.S.: The old-timers may remember the LSRCG project, which silently
> passed away. Unlike that little failure, I can put some resources into
> the RSRCG, as Ruby isn't nearly as tough a nut to crack for me as is
> C++..
>
> --
> Phillip "CynicalRyan" Gawlowski
>
> "By Zarglewang's thuppy!"
> - Illiad
>
Message no. 3
From: cmdjackryan@**********.com (Phillip Gawlowski)
Subject: Announcing: Ruby Shadowrun Character Generator (RSRCG)
Date: Mon, 7 Aug 2006 05:38:20 +0200
On 8/7/06, Russ Myrick <ceadawg@*****.com> wrote:
> I will indeed be happy to test & would the DB request need to be sql
> supported? If so, I can probably be persuaded to generate a few tables
> under the MySQL umbrella....just need to remember where I mounted the bloody
> server....

Probably won't be anything server based (although I'm pondering using
SQLite), as I want to keep it as low on required ressources as
possible, including software required to run it.

So, I think the Equipment-DB will be a plain Text-file, rather than a
fullfledged SQL-DB, but that could change during the development
process.

--
Phillip "CynicalRyan" Gawlowski

"By Zarglewang's thuppy!"
- Illiad
Message no. 4
From: derek@***************.com (Derek Hyde)
Subject: Announcing: Ruby Shadowrun Character Generator (RSRCG)
Date: Sun, 06 Aug 2006 22:39:43 -0500
> What I'm looking for:
> - Testers (Windows and MacOS X especially, but other OSes are fine)
Count me in, old OSX user, running the newest incarnation on my old 600mhz
G3 so it'll be a good test machine for speed with a lower end box.

> - (X)HTML/CSS-Gurus to maintain the webpage that is to come[2]
Might be able to help SOME there, but not a lot, as coding consumes time,
and I have precious little of it that's not already monopolized.

> Of course, bombard me with Feature requests, ideas and / or high
> praise for doing all this work ;)
First feature request: find out if the language you're writing it in can be
compiled to work on Windows Mobile 5 as well as PalmOS....I've got a
smartphone as does my fiancee, and we could both enjoy having quick access
to stuff like that at our side at all times.

Second feature request: both SR3 and SR4 support, and perhaps a way to
convert SR3 characters to SR4 with the chargen app
Message no. 5
From: cmdjackryan@**********.com (Phillip Gawlowski)
Subject: Announcing: Ruby Shadowrun Character Generator (RSRCG)
Date: Mon, 7 Aug 2006 05:45:17 +0200
On 8/7/06, Derek Hyde <derek@***************.com> wrote:

> > Of course, bombard me with Feature requests, ideas and / or high
> > praise for doing all this work ;)
> First feature request: find out if the language you're writing it in can be
> compiled to work on Windows Mobile 5 as well as PalmOS....I've got a
> smartphone as does my fiancee, and we could both enjoy having quick access
> to stuff like that at our side at all times.

Ruby is written in C/C++, IIRC, but I haven't found a port to PalmOS
yet (would be nice to have one myself), but it *should* compile with
the apropriate settings in the PlamOS-SDK.

> Second feature request: both SR3 and SR4 support, and perhaps a way to
> convert SR3 characters to SR4 with the chargen app

Highly unlikely, as I sold off my SR3 collection, and thus don't have
the BBB anymore. The Interim NSRCG for SR3 covers that niche, but I'll
look into the conversion SR3 > SR4. I'll try to contact the NSRCG
maintainer to get his file-format specs, to allow for some
interoperability (at least an import into RSRCG should be possible, I
think, but will be on lowest priority if I have to pick the HTML the
NSRCG produces apart).

--
Phillip "CynicalRyan" Gawlowski

"By Zarglewang's thuppy!"
- Illiad
Message no. 6
From: derek@***************.com (Derek Hyde)
Subject: Announcing: Ruby Shadowrun Character Generator (RSRCG)
Date: Sun, 06 Aug 2006 22:50:08 -0500
>> First feature request: find out if the language you're writing it in can be
>> compiled to work on Windows Mobile 5 as well as PalmOS....I've got a
>> smartphone as does my fiancee, and we could both enjoy having quick access
>> to stuff like that at our side at all times.
>
> Ruby is written in C/C++, IIRC, but I haven't found a port to PalmOS
> yet (would be nice to have one myself), but it *should* compile with
> the apropriate settings in the PlamOS-SDK.
>
Don't forget about windows mobile 5 though.....very important, since that's
where most all of the smart phones are going....the PPC-6700 is there, the
Treo 700w, the Motorola Q, as well as all the others I've looked into....

Unfortunately, we live in a world of masochists and everyone wants M$
induced migraines at their side apparently.
Message no. 7
From: cmdjackryan@**********.com (Phillip Gawlowski)
Subject: Announcing: Ruby Shadowrun Character Generator (RSRCG)
Date: Mon, 7 Aug 2006 05:56:32 +0200
On 8/7/06, Derek Hyde <derek@***************.com> wrote:

> Don't forget about windows mobile 5 though.....very important, since that's
> where most all of the smart phones are going....the PPC-6700 is there, the
> Treo 700w, the Motorola Q, as well as all the others I've looked into....

Well, I didn't. I just can't tell about Windows Mobile 5, as I am not
familiar with it (as I don't have such a Smartphone/PDA), and don't
know if there are any free SDKs ot there, to allow development for
them on a no-cost basis.

If there is .NET for Windows Mobile, and a .NET implementation of
Ruby, it more likely than not will work. But maybe not with Tk, and
I'm not about to learn MFC right now. I won't discount it for the
future, but I have to work on this on my free time at home, and this
limits my ressources.

> Unfortunately, we live in a world of masochists and everyone wants M$
> induced migraines at their side apparently.

;)

--
Phillip "CynicalRyan" Gawlowski

"By Zarglewang's thuppy!"
- Illiad
Message no. 8
From: davek@***.lonestar.org (David Kettler)
Subject: Announcing: Ruby Shadowrun Character Generator (RSRCG)
Date: Mon, 7 Aug 2006 04:14:36 +0000
On Mon, Aug 07, 2006 at 05:38:20AM +0200, Phillip Gawlowski wrote:
>
> Probably won't be anything server based (although I'm pondering using
> SQLite), as I want to keep it as low on required ressources as
> possible, including software required to run it.
>

Go for SQLite. I've used it a few times before and it's never failed to impress me. If
you're worried about portability you can always statically compile the libs, since they
aren't even that big. And it's much less of a pain in the ass to use SQLite than to parse
text files.

If you want a Linux tester I'll volunteer.

--
Dave Kettler
davek@***.lonestar.org
SDF Public Access UNIX System - http://sdf.lonestar.org
Message no. 9
From: davek@***.lonestar.org (David Kettler)
Subject: Announcing: Ruby Shadowrun Character Generator (RSRCG)
Date: Mon, 7 Aug 2006 04:18:31 +0000
On Sun, Aug 06, 2006 at 10:50:08PM -0500, Derek Hyde wrote:
> Don't forget about windows mobile 5 though.....very important, since that's
> where most all of the smart phones are going....the PPC-6700 is there, the
> Treo 700w, the Motorola Q, as well as all the others I've looked into....
>

Is that actually important? Maybe that is what most smart phones use, but are there
really people who want to make their SR characters on their smart phones?

--
Dave Kettler
davek@***.lonestar.org
SDF Public Access UNIX System - http://sdf.lonestar.org
Message no. 10
From: sfeley@*****.com (Stephen Eley)
Subject: Announcing: Ruby Shadowrun Character Generator (RSRCG)
Date: Mon, 7 Aug 2006 00:22:19 -0400
On 8/6/06, Derek Hyde <derek@***************.com> wrote:
>
> Don't forget about windows mobile 5 though.....very important, since that's
> where most all of the smart phones are going....the PPC-6700 is there, the
> Treo 700w, the Motorola Q, as well as all the others I've looked into....
>
> Unfortunately, we live in a world of masochists and everyone wants M$
> induced migraines at their side apparently.

Unfortunately, you seem to believe that either Phillip has control
over which systems are capable of running Ruby, or that he should
change his choice of language to ensure that his program can run on
every PDA, phone, pocket calculator and digital watch.

Ruby's a good language. It has a lot of power and a lot of elegance.
According to the FAQ (http://www.rubygarden.org/faq) it runs on
"Linux, UNIX, DOS, Windows 95/98/NT/2000, Mac OS X, BeOS, Amiga, Acorn
Risc OS, and OS/2."

So no, it won't run on *everything*, but it's a hell of a lot more
platform-flexible than, say, Visual Basic (which the vast majority of
role-playing tools are written in; and most of them are lousy.) A
character generator that ran on everything would suck anyway-- not
because of the language, but because of the interface requirements.
You try designing a stats screen that would be equally useable on a
full-sized monitor and at 320x240. It could theoretically be done in
a subset of Java, but it would be horrible to work with on one or
both.

Phillip was very clear about what he intends to do. He posted a good
idea, with a roadmap, and with significant work already done. He's
doing it for free, on his own time, for the good for the community.
He chose his language because it's the one he likes. Everyone on this
list surely owns a computer that can run the software he's building.
If it took three times longer to write a crappier version of the same
software, but you could carry it on your phone, would it really be
worth it?

--
Have Fun,
Steve Eley (sfeley@*****.com)
ESCAPE POD - The Science Fiction Podcast Magazine
http://www.escapepod.org
Message no. 11
From: n.kobschaetzki@**********.com (Niels Kobschaetzki)
Subject: Announcing: Ruby Shadowrun Character Generator (RSRCG)
Date: Mon, 7 Aug 2006 06:26:56 +0200
Hi!

On Aug 7, 2006, at 5:03 AM, Phillip Gawlowski wrote:

> What I'm looking for:
> - Testers (Windows and MacOS X especially, but other OSes are fine)
> - (X)HTML/CSS-Gurus to maintain the webpage that is to come[2]
> - People willing to write the Equipment-DB to specifications I am
> about to write (relevant for Input into Ruby, so bear with me)

you should ask FanPro in advance what is allowed and what not with
that database. I helped once a project which was shut down afaik as
soon as FanPro heard about it.

Niels


--
Jack Sparrow: Me? I'm dishonest, and a dishonest man you can always
trust to be dishonest. Honestly. It's the honest ones you want to
watch out for, because you can never predict when they're going to do
something incredibly... stupid.
-- Pirates of the Carribean: The Secret of the Black Pearl
Message no. 12
From: sfeley@*****.com (Stephen Eley)
Subject: Announcing: Ruby Shadowrun Character Generator (RSRCG)
Date: Mon, 7 Aug 2006 00:33:06 -0400
On 8/7/06, David Kettler <davek@***.lonestar.org> wrote:
>
> Go for SQLite. I've used it a few times before and it's never failed to impress me.
If you're worried about portability you can always statically compile the libs, since they
aren't even that big. And it's much less of a pain in the ass to use SQLite than to parse
text files.

Or use modern data abstraction and you shouldn't even have to care in
your main code how stuff is saved. You have a method for "save this
character object," a method for "load this character object," and a
method for "list the character objects that have been saved," and plug
in whatever module you feel like that implements those methods.

You could save your characters to 18 different databases, text files,
online Web services and into the RNA of your pet hamster. If you have
to make the decision on persistence methods when you begin coding, and
make it permanently, you're not doing it the Ruby way.


--
Have Fun,
Steve Eley (sfeley@*****.com)
ESCAPE POD - The Science Fiction Podcast Magazine
http://www.escapepod.org
Message no. 13
From: davek@***.lonestar.org (David Kettler)
Subject: Announcing: Ruby Shadowrun Character Generator (RSRCG)
Date: Mon, 7 Aug 2006 04:45:50 +0000
On Mon, Aug 07, 2006 at 12:33:06AM -0400, Stephen Eley wrote:
>
> Or use modern data abstraction and you shouldn't even have to care in
> your main code how stuff is saved. You have a method for "save this
> character object," a method for "load this character object," and a
> method for "list the character objects that have been saved," and plug
> in whatever module you feel like that implements those methods.
>

Yes and no. Using a database can affect how things are programmed at a higher level than
that. As an example, let's say that you want to store all the SR equipment with a
category and short description, and you want to have an interface such that when you click
on a category it displays all the equipment in that category, and then when you click on a
specific piece of equipment it shows the description.

If the data is stored in a flat text file you pretty much have to preload everything and
then keep it around in memory in some sort of array or hash table. Can you imagine having
to parse through the whole text file each time you select a piece of equipment in order to
get the description? I mean, yeah you could do it, but it would be very slow and clunky.
Random data access in a database is *much* faster, so that wouldn't be a problem. You
would just need one table with three columns and you could do all your selections on the
fly without any trouble.

Anyway, SQLite is extremely simple and lightweight. It has an interface for Ruby
already...why not just use it?

--
Dave Kettler
davek@***.lonestar.org
SDF Public Access UNIX System - http://sdf.lonestar.org
Message no. 14
From: adam@************.com (Adam Jury)
Subject: Announcing: Ruby Shadowrun Character Generator (RSRCG)
Date: Sun, 06 Aug 2006 22:50:56 -0600
On 6-Aug-06, at 10:26 PM, Niels Kobschaetzki wrote:

> you should ask FanPro in advance what is allowed and what not with
> that database. I helped once a project which was shut down afaik as
> soon as FanPro heard about it.

Data files bundled with software can contain the game stats from the
books, but not the descriptive/flavor text.

cheers,
Adam
--
Adam Jury :: adam@************.com
Shadowrun Information, News & Previews: www.shadowrunrpg.com
FanPro Information & News: www.fanprogames.com
Message no. 15
From: sfeley@*****.com (Stephen Eley)
Subject: Announcing: Ruby Shadowrun Character Generator (RSRCG)
Date: Mon, 7 Aug 2006 01:18:11 -0400
On 8/7/06, David Kettler <davek@***.lonestar.org> wrote:
>
> If the data is stored in a flat text file you pretty much have to preload everything
and then keep it around in memory in some sort of array or hash table. Can you imagine
having to parse through the whole text file each time you select a piece of equipment in
order to get the description? I mean, yeah you could do it, but it would be very slow and
clunky. Random data access in a database is *much* faster, so that wouldn't be a problem.
You would just need one table with three columns and you could do all your selections on
the fly without any trouble.

Actually, you got it right in your first sentence. Load the whole
equipment list into memory -- why not? It can't be more than a few
megabytes. That's nothing to a modern machine. Random data access in
a database is *not* faster than looking up the same data in a resident
hash table. Nothing is faster than resident hash tables.

And preloading and parsing are solved problems, by the way. Unless
your needs are really exotic, no one should have to reinvent that
wheel. For instance, if you use YAML for your serialization (the most
human-readable markup ever invented), you can retrieve your entire
Shadowrun equipment hash in two lines:

require 'yaml'
equipmentList = YAML.load(File.open('equipment.yaml'))

To save it, you can just write equipmentList.to_yaml to the same file.
SQL's easier than that? Really?

There are definite limitations to hashes compared to databases (atomic
keys, etc.) but none are showstoppers. If your collections aren't
that big, even doing a find_all on inner values could still be faster
than a database select. And again, it should be a problem for the
equipment list's persistence module, not the equipment list itself.

Anyway, my point isn't to say that text files are positively better
than databases. My point is that it's possible to design the program
just to say "List all equipment from category (X)" and leave the form
of persistence flexible. Yes, even with structured text files (YAML,
XML, what-have-you) as an option.

And if you're really thinking in Ruby, keeping this stuff flexible
doesn't make your work harder. It makes it easier.


--
Have Fun,
Steve Eley (sfeley@*****.com)
ESCAPE POD - The Science Fiction Podcast Magazine
http://www.escapepod.org
Message no. 16
From: gurth@******.nl (Gurth)
Subject: Announcing: Ruby Shadowrun Character Generator (RSRCG)
Date: Mon, 07 Aug 2006 10:52:36 +0200
According to Phillip Gawlowski, on 7-8-06 05:03 the word on the street
was...

> What I'm looking for:
> - Testers (Windows and MacOS X especially, but other OSes are fine)

Sure, I'll take a look at it. I'm running OS X on a G5 Mac, so

> - Translators (I have yet to come up with a method to make this easy
> to translate while still maintainable)

I guess I'd do it by putting all the translated text into a file like this:

Text to be translated = Tekst die vertaald moet worden

and then call a function with a parameter consisting of the string to be
translated. It digs through the file (or an array/dictionary/whatever
read in from the file) until it finds the specified string, and returns
the translated text. If it doesn't find a match, it returns the string
it was supplied with in the first place.

This should be fairly easy to maintain, since you don't need to have a
full translation, and making a translation would be as easy as adding
another text file.

Then all you need to do is add a mechanism to let the user select the
desired language, which is easy enough to add. BTW, if I may make a
request here: could you look into having it automatically detect the
system's language on program startup? I ask because this is basically
the default behavior of any OS X app (though the mechanism is a bit
different, the end result is the same).

--
Gurth@******.nl - Stone Age: http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
"Siege weapons, golems and giant armies cause Common Penguins to
cry like little girls." --Hacklopedia of Beasts VI
-> Former NAGEE Editor & ShadowRN GridSec * Triangle Virtuoso <-
-> The Plastic Warriors Site: http://plastic.dumpshock.com <-

GC3.12: GAT/! d- s:- !a>? C++(---) UB+ P(+) L++ E W++(--) N o? K w-- O
M+ PS+ PE@ Y PGP- t- 5++ X(+) R+++$ tv+(++) b++@ DI- D G+ e h! !r y?
Incubated into the First Church of the Sqooshy Ball, 21-05-1998
Message no. 17
From: magen@***************.com (Magen Hardy)
Subject: Announcing: Ruby Shadowrun Character Generator (RSRCG)
Date: Mon, 7 Aug 2006 07:13:14 -0500
-----Original Message-----
From: David Kettler [mailto:davek@***.lonestar.org]
Sent: Sunday, August 06, 2006 11:19 PM
To: Shadowrun Discussion
Subject: Re: Announcing: Ruby Shadowrun Character Generator (RSRCG)

> On Sun, Aug 06, 2006 at 10:50:08PM -0500, Derek Hyde wrote:
>> Don't forget about windows mobile 5 though.....very important, since
> that's
>> where most all of the smart phones are going....the PPC-6700 is there,
> the
>> Treo 700w, the Motorola Q, as well as all the others I've looked into....
>>

> Is that actually important? Maybe that is what most smart phones use, but
> are there really people who want to make their SR characters on their
>smart phones?

Derek will. If there's a way he can find to put it on his Smartphone, he
will...he's obsessed like that! ;) As far as on the Palm OS, since it's my
phone he's referring to, I'm not so worried about it unless someone else
just direly HAS to have it. I can sit at my desktop or laptop like all the
rest of us normal slobs and create my characters.
Message no. 18
From: derek@***************.com (Derek Hyde)
Subject: Announcing: Ruby Shadowrun Character Generator (RSRCG)
Date: Mon, 07 Aug 2006 07:57:54 -0500
> Is that actually important? Maybe that is what most smart phones use, but are
> there really people who want to make their SR characters on their smart
> phones?

Well.....I wouldn't have mentioned it if I didn't want to ;)

Most of my free time comes in little bits and pieces while I'm at work,
something that could run on my phone like that would make it far simpler for
me to get NPC's statted out and things like that, as well as slowly work on
that character that's been floating in my head for days/months
Message no. 19
From: derek@***************.com (Derek Hyde)
Subject: Announcing: Ruby Shadowrun Character Generator (RSRCG)
Date: Mon, 07 Aug 2006 07:59:08 -0500
> Unfortunately, you seem to believe that either Phillip has control
> over which systems are capable of running Ruby, or that he should
> change his choice of language to ensure that his program can run on
> every PDA, phone, pocket calculator and digital watch.

No, not at all, I seemed to ask if it was a possibility, a clear yes or no
would have been more than adequate ;)
Message no. 20
From: derek@***************.com (Derek Hyde)
Subject: Announcing: Ruby Shadowrun Character Generator (RSRCG)
Date: Mon, 07 Aug 2006 08:06:27 -0500
>> Is that actually important? Maybe that is what most smart phones use, but
>> are there really people who want to make their SR characters on their
>> smart phones?
>
> Derek will. If there's a way he can find to put it on his Smartphone, he
> will...he's obsessed like that! ;) As far as on the Palm OS, since it's my
> phone he's referring to, I'm not so worried about it unless someone else
> just direly HAS to have it. I can sit at my desktop or laptop like all the
> rest of us normal slobs and create my characters.
>
She also seems to think me short sighted and/or selfish & greedy.

I'm also thinking of the fact that a lot of people have PDA's and while
using it for creation on the pda might be a pain, once its created having
the ability to review/modify on it would be great.

If there were a way that I could get something akin to the gear app bundled
with nsrcg to work on a PDA so I could quickly look up random items and/or
bits of info, it'd be great.

I tend to think of it as a situation where most people don't think they'd
use it until it's available and can use it, then you'll see how many people
would simply because they can.

It's the same as it was with the PDF's, everyone swore that they're not that
useful cause you can't sit down and read an entire book from the computer,
but, people do it quite often.

Derek
Message no. 21
From: magen@***************.com (Magen Hardy)
Subject: Announcing: Ruby Shadowrun Character Generator (RSRCG)
Date: Mon, 7 Aug 2006 08:14:36 -0500
-----Original Message-----
From: Derek Hyde [mailto:derek@***************.com]
Sent: Monday, August 07, 2006 8:06 AM
To: Shadowrun Discussion <shadowrn@*****.dumpshock.com>
Subject: Re: Announcing: Ruby Shadowrun Character Generator (RSRCG)

> She also seems to think me short sighted and/or selfish & greedy.

Now you know that is absolutely NOT true. I was giving you a hard time
because I know that you really would make use of the program on your
smartphone if there were a way to do it.
Message no. 22
From: derek@***************.com (Derek Hyde)
Subject: Announcing: Ruby Shadowrun Character Generator (RSRCG)
Date: Mon, 07 Aug 2006 08:17:15 -0500
>> She also seems to think me short sighted and/or selfish & greedy.
>
> Now you know that is absolutely NOT true. I was giving you a hard time
> because I know that you really would make use of the program on your
> smartphone if there were a way to do it.
>
>
But of course ;) and I have to give you a hard time, by default.
Message no. 23
From: cmdjackryan@**********.com (Phillip Gawlowski)
Subject: Announcing: Ruby Shadowrun Character Generator (RSRCG)
Date: Mon, 7 Aug 2006 20:42:27 +0200
I'm going to add a bit of info in appropriate places:

On 8/7/06, Phillip Gawlowski <cmdjackryan@**********.com> wrote:

> - GUI (Tk-based, as Tk is included in the standard Ruby distribution)
> - XML-output (For easy storage of character data)
> - Sanity check (do the numbers add up?)
> - Extensibility (Create your own Equipment files, modifiy the creation rules..)
> - Whatever I can think of..

I plan this thing with flexibility in mind. I'm usre there will be
different menas of accessing files, accessing data in various formats
and whatnot. This is a learning exercise and a work of love. I want
this thing to be as flexible as I can, because I simply want it that
way, as I think it is the Right Thing to do.

I'll start simple (File I/O, which I need anyhow for saving data) and
work my way up (SQLite, MySQL, postgreSQL).
Same could be true with GUIs. First there'll be command line interface
(just type ruby rscrg.rb --check=char_i_got_from_player.dataformat for
a sanity check of the numbers), and a GUI (It is just easier on the
eyes), which at first will be Tk (it is by standard inscluded with
Ruby), GTK+, QT, MFC (maybe).
But if you don't like it, it will be a matter of adding a # at the
right place (or tick a checkbox in a config dialogue), and removing a
#, to have the behaviour you want, eventually.

> Roadmap: I hope to get an Alpha (Input/Output of character with
> Attributes and Abilities, Save/Load to File, basic UI) out at the end
> of September, and a Beta (configuration file, XML output, GUI,
> Equipment database) at the End of December/End of January.

This has to be taken with a grain of salt. I've formulated it loosley
enough to not put me on pressure, and I reserve the right to change
the dates at my leisure.
Seeing, as I don't *have* to share the RSRCG with the community, but I want to.

There's even a reason I announced it here first, and nowhere else.

> Of course, bombard me with Feature requests, ideas and / or high
> praise for doing all this work ;)

Which doesn't mean I'll do it. But I'll add it to the TODO-List, so I
don't forget it.
But first, the thing has to work (as the code yet doesn't do anything
visible, but was an important learning exercise for me, and is
important in the background, so what if it is just a class I wrote
with a subclass for initiative, defining neat command-line output?),
then I'll go to the fancy stuff (a config-GUI, a legion of output and
storage formats..).

Don't get me wrong: I want your input. But I won't go out of my way to
implement it, if it is too time consuming at that very moment, or
doesn't fit in with my release plan.

Bear with me, I'll keep you all updated, in the good old Open Source
tradition: Release Early, Release Often!

--
Phillip "CynicalRyan" Gawlowski

"By Zarglewang's thuppy!"
- Illiad
Message no. 24
From: jeremie.bouillon@****.fr (Jérémie_Bouillon)
Subject: Announcing: Ruby Shadowrun Character Generator (RSRCG)
Date: Fri, 11 Aug 2006 12:44:07 +0200
Phillip Gawlowski wrote:
> - Testers (Windows and MacOS X especially, but other OSes are fine)

Ok for XP. Maybe Ubuntu if I kick my ass to re-plug my other computer.

> - (X)HTML/CSS-Gurus to maintain the webpage that is to come[2]

Depending on time constraints, ok (not so much right now for example).
If it's purely to maintain, we can set you up a little thing so you
don't need xhtml later on.

> - Translators (I have yet to come up with a method to make this easy
> to translate while still maintainable)

Ok for French. I'm one of the official SR French translator, so it will
stick with printed book, which is good for the players.

Several things :

1. UTF-8 is good. utf-8 is nice. Eat utf-8. Non utf-8, not good.
2. Remember that specific strings are code only in some languages, and
common in other. I mention that because ' is a very common glyph in
French (and others), and translating a PHP software is sometimes harder
that it should because the dev enforce ' to be a string delimiter. I
don't now if it's an issue with Ruby.
3. Involve translator from the beginning. An English word can have
several uses ok, but may need several translation in several context in
other languages.


> Of course, bombard me with Feature requests, ideas and / or high
> praise for doing all this work ;)

I'll wait for the first alpha to comment. Right now the only feature I
can think is needed and maybe not planned is a web export of characters
(XHTML export). I can help with the XHTML markup for that. Layout is
purely CSS, that can be done later, and everyone could have their own
screen and/or print stylesheet later.

Ah, no, another one. Easy versionning. Ok maybe a diff tool is overkill,
but an easy way to version the character (by number or by timestamp)
would be good to maintain characters in a long campaign.
Message no. 25
From: jeremie.bouillon@****.fr (Jérémie_Bouillon)
Subject: Announcing: Ruby Shadowrun Character Generator (RSRCG)
Date: Fri, 11 Aug 2006 16:53:46 +0200
Another feature request: don't forget a timeline field for each "item"
(spell, metamagical way, equipment, adept power, etc.) in the base.

Some GM may want to adjust what is available, and SR4 will probably end
up like the 2050-65 timeline, with "item" appearing along the way but
not before.
Message no. 26
From: gurth@******.nl (Gurth)
Subject: Announcing: Ruby Shadowrun Character Generator (RSRCG)
Date: Fri, 11 Aug 2006 17:14:00 +0200
According to Jérémie Bouillon, on 11-8-06 12:44 the word on the street
was...

> 2. Remember that specific strings are code only in some languages, and
> common in other. I mention that because ' is a very common glyph in
> French (and others), and translating a PHP software is sometimes harder
> that it should because the dev enforce ' to be a string delimiter. I
> don't now if it's an issue with Ruby.

I'd be surprised if there wasn't some escape mechanism, like putting a
backslash before the "illegal" character. That way you can do stuff like
a = 'don\'t' without causing an error.

--
Gurth@******.nl - Stone Age: http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
"Siege weapons, golems and giant armies cause Common Penguins to
cry like little girls." --Hacklopedia of Beasts VI
-> Former NAGEE Editor & ShadowRN GridSec * Triangle Virtuoso <-
-> The Plastic Warriors Site: http://plastic.dumpshock.com <-

GC3.12: GAT/! d- s:- !a>? C++(---) UB+ P(+) L++ E W++(--) N o? K w-- O
M+ PS+ PE@ Y PGP- t- 5++ X(+) R+++$ tv+(++) b++@ DI- D G+ e h! !r y?
Incubated into the First Church of the Sqooshy Ball, 21-05-1998
Message no. 27
From: jeremie.bouillon@****.fr (Jérémie_Bouillon)
Subject: Announcing: Ruby Shadowrun Character Generator (RSRCG)
Date: Fri, 11 Aug 2006 17:19:28 +0200
Gurth wrote:
> I'd be surprised if there wasn't some escape mechanism, like putting a
> backslash before the "illegal" character. That way you can do stuff like
> a = 'don\'t' without causing an error.

In PHP, there is. It's however a pain in the... well, bottom part. I've
translated the whole PunBB into French, compared to other PHP system
such as Textpattern which I also translated it was troublesome for
nothing. In PHP it's simply a matter of using another delimiter (such as
""), so I don't know Ruby (apart from the fact it crash my Textdrive
shared server on a regular basis) but I wanted to point that out right
from the start :-)
Message no. 28
From: graht1@*****.com (Graht)
Subject: Announcing: Ruby Shadowrun Character Generator (RSRCG)
Date: Fri, 11 Aug 2006 10:23:14 -0600
On 8/11/06, Jérémie Bouillon <jeremie.bouillon@****.fr> wrote:
> Gurth wrote:
> > I'd be surprised if there wasn't some escape mechanism, like putting a
> > backslash before the "illegal" character. That way you can do stuff
like
> > a = 'don\'t' without causing an error.
>
> In PHP, there is. It's however a pain in the... well, bottom part.

The english word is "ass" ;)

> I've
> translated the whole PunBB into French, compared to other PHP system
> such as Textpattern which I also translated it was troublesome for
> nothing. In PHP it's simply a matter of using another delimiter (such as
> ""), so I don't know Ruby (apart from the fact it crash my Textdrive
> shared server on a regular basis) but I wanted to point that out right
> from the start :-)

Find and replace with regular expressions :)

--
-Graht
Message no. 29
From: pb3209@****.utah.edu (Jamison Cooper-Leavitt)
Subject: Announcing: Ruby Shadowrun Character Generator (RSRCG)
Date: Fri, 11 Aug 2006 10:57:13 -0600
>
>> - Translators (I have yet to come up with a method to make this easy
>> to translate while still maintainable)
>
> Ok for French. I'm one of the official SR French translator, so it
> will stick with printed book, which is good for the players.
>
> Several things :
>
> 1. UTF-8 is good. utf-8 is nice. Eat utf-8. Non utf-8, not good.
> 2. Remember that specific strings are code only in some languages, and
> common in other. I mention that because ' is a very common glyph in
> French (and others), and translating a PHP software is sometimes
> harder that it should because the dev enforce ' to be a string
> delimiter. I don't now if it's an issue with Ruby.
> 3. Involve translator from the beginning. An English word can have
> several uses ok, but may need several translation in several context
> in other languages.
>

Here is an online tool that may be useful in translating. It will give
you all of the wordsenses and the context that they are used in for
English. WordNet 2.1 <http://wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn>;

You can download it for free and use it on your own computer. It can
also be used in batch mode so as to work with other software. I use it
on a number of NLP projects. Other projects similar to Wordnet and
interfaces with other languages can be found
http://wordnet.princeton.edu/links There is an interface for Ruby on
that list.

Hope this helps, at least on the translation issue.
Message no. 30
From: jeremie.bouillon@****.fr (Jérémie_Bouillon)
Subject: Announcing: Ruby Shadowrun Character Generator (RSRCG)
Date: Fri, 11 Aug 2006 20:47:11 +0200
Jamison Cooper-Leavitt wrote:
> Here is an online tool that may be useful in translating. It will give
> you all of the wordsenses and the context that they are used in for
> English. WordNet 2.1 <http://wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn>;

Gettext is widely used too, but I don't know who good it would be for
this project.

It's a small software, so I guess simple text file (one for each lang)
should be enough. Something like this:
http://rpc.textpattern.com/lang/en-us.txt
Message no. 31
From: cmdjackryan@**********.com (Phillip Gawlowski)
Subject: Announcing: Ruby Shadowrun Character Generator (RSRCG)
Date: Fri, 11 Aug 2006 20:47:46 +0200
On 8/11/06, Jérémie Bouillon <jeremie.bouillon@****.fr> wrote:
> Phillip Gawlowski wrote:
> > - (X)HTML/CSS-Gurus to maintain the webpage that is to come[2]
>
> Depending on time constraints, ok (not so much right now for example).
> If it's purely to maintain, we can set you up a little thing so you
> don't need xhtml later on.

I forgot to notice that, but my employer was so kind to sponsor
webspace with Typo3 (which I have to learn, as we sell Typo3
Services).

> > - Translators (I have yet to come up with a method to make this easy
> > to translate while still maintainable)
>
> Ok for French. I'm one of the official SR French translator, so it will
> stick with printed book, which is good for the players.
>
> Several things :
>
> 1. UTF-8 is good. utf-8 is nice. Eat utf-8. Non utf-8, not good.
> 2. Remember that specific strings are code only in some languages, and
> common in other. I mention that because ' is a very common glyph in
> French (and others), and translating a PHP software is sometimes harder
> that it should because the dev enforce ' to be a string delimiter. I
> don't now if it's an issue with Ruby.

Shouldn't be. And if it is, well, it *has* escape chars. But I will
keep that in mind when coding.

> 3. Involve translator from the beginning. An English word can have
> several uses ok, but may need several translation in several context in
> other languages.

I'll set-up a Translator's mailing list to take care of that. I think
that the RSRCG will use a modular approach in languages, too.

> > Of course, bombard me with Feature requests, ideas and / or high
> > praise for doing all this work ;)
>
> I'll wait for the first alpha to comment. Right now the only feature I
> can think is needed and maybe not planned is a web export of characters
> (XHTML export). I can help with the XHTML markup for that. Layout is
> purely CSS, that can be done later, and everyone could have their own
> screen and/or print stylesheet later.

It is planned. It will be a fallback, if no other export formats work,
and will be included fast. As I want to use XML for datastorage, too,
converting to XHTML shouldn't be an issue, I think.

> Ah, no, another one. Easy versionning. Ok maybe a diff tool is overkill,
> but an easy way to version the character (by number or by timestamp)
> would be good to maintain characters in a long campaign.

Noted and will be included (at least for the 1.0 release).

--
Phillip "CynicalRyan" Gawlowski

"By Zarglewang's thuppy!"
- Illiad

Further Reading

If you enjoyed reading about Announcing: Ruby Shadowrun Character Generator (RSRCG), you may also be interested in:

Disclaimer

These messages were posted a long time ago on a mailing list far, far away. The copyright to their contents probably lies with the original authors of the individual messages, but since they were published in an electronic forum that anyone could subscribe to, and the logs were available to subscribers and most likely non-subscribers as well, it's felt that re-publishing them here is a kind of public service.

Thwap!