daggorath and desktop systems

[Charles Schaum]

This is a two-for:

1) I have the SDL port (originally for Windows) of
Dungeons of Daggorath working with little alteration
on FreeBSD 6.2-RELEASE. I did minor changes and
cleaned up the code base a touch.

Todo:
     a. Put all defaults/data under proprietary dir
under /usr/local/share.
     b. Do some proper documentation.
     c. Review the code, if needed. Rick Hunnerlach
writes well-done, very readable code. Some of the mods
by others in the PC-port project aren't as well
documented. I documented all my changes. Need there be
any more code review?
     d. Get the code to look for a dot-directory under
~/ and, if not present, do the init, else read
configs, yada yada.
     e. Spiff up some of the rough spots in the
interface.
     f. Create a high-quality offering for FreeBSD and
friends that meets the current generous licensing
terms of the game's original creator as well as
presents a tight, well-designed forked code base.

Since my contact with the developers has yielded no
practical interest, hosting for the source will be
needed, as well as interest.

It's been sixteen years since I did any serious
coding. I don't want to pretend to know what I'm doing
only to irritate people. Any takers want to work with
me to get this off the ground? Right now you can
compile it and play a fun game of daggorath, now
renamed from dod.

2) Re desktop systems / FreeBSD

It's so easy to cast stones. Windows either costs
money to upgrade or it depends on whose software
depends on what or whether you end up in dll hell.
Linux has RPM hell or the equivalent, or nonstandard
repos, or waiting until the next release and so on.
PBI's don't solve every possibility, although they are
intriguing.

Does one want to let someone else set everything up
per release/packages "distro" and then hope one's
config will work with that? It all boils down to this:
In any system that is complex enough, there will be
various issues regarding resources and dependencies.
Look at Grady Booch's Object-Oriented Design.

Even Mac OSX, the brilliant Donald Norman
notwithstanding, has its quirks. Ever have Tiger drive
your network crazy with Bonjour and dynamically change
hostnames, kill Kerberos and wreak havoc, taking out
users' email passwords and so on...

I'm glad that the ports work and I can get my job done
with FreeBSD. I'll sit tight probably until the next
release and probably update or reinstall things then.

Ports allows me to easily modify code and make it
work. Doing that on any Linux is more difficult. I'm
definitely in the "thanks camp," making sure I have a
good look at UPDATING and the lists before changing
this, that and everything else.