Hi Patrick,
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. :-)
It would be great if we could move the RoboWiki to another Wiki or similar
(static pages?), e.g. using the Export feature of the MediaWiki
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Export).
Perhaps it could be moved to the Wiki for the Robocode page on SourceForge?
It should be enabled first. Currently the developer pages on SourceForge
are down (is being restored after a disk breakdown). So I am not able to
see, if it is possible to import the MediaWiki export (yet).
At least I want to let people access all the vital knowledge to make good
Robocode robots. And people get upset when the RoboWiki is down. But I
fully understand that you (PEZ) and David Alves don't what to be involved
with the RoboWiki anymore. The best thing would be to put it somewhere
where more people is able to maintain it - and hopefully without to pay for
hosting etc.
When the developer pages of SourceForge (SF) are up and running again, I
will see if I can import the RoboWiki pages to the SF Wiki somehow.
I will also try to make an export of the RoboWiki pages, when I get time
for it (probably tonight). I expect that it will not be possible to export
the RoboWiki users. So this will be an issue.
Regarding the development of Robocode. I am only maintaining the current
Robocode with bug fixes etc. If somebody want to add new features, they
should go ahead and implement these. I will help with the integration etc.
if the features are not too complex to handle. But I won't be the one doing
all the work (anymore).
Robocode is Open Source, so if somebody else want to take over the
development, they are free to do so. I just hope he/she/they will have
skills enough to get it in a better shape. ;-)
- - - -
I am still working on a "Robocode 2", which is protocol based (on top of
WebSockets) making it possible to be language independent and also work for
web - e.g. using JavaScript. The development progress is slow as I don't
have so much spare time as I had 10 years ago (when taking over the
development/maintenance of Robocode).
I am not sure if I will ever finish this new version, but at least the
development is still ongoing. Currently it is not open source as I want to
make a clean core and have the freedom to change anything at anytime
without being forced to coordinate with other developers. I see this new
version as "my new baby", so it must be good enough before I let other
people in.
Best regards,
- Flemming
Post by Patrick Cupkawall of text incoming.)
The wiki mostly runs itself and is hosted at VPSLink, which is pretty
reliable. The problem during downtime is that neither myself, who "owns"
the wiki (i.e., from PEZ), nor David Alves, who actually pays for hosting,
actually care so much about Robocode anymore. When your heart's not in it,
there are plenty of other things that take precedence.
I believe MediaWiki has a facility to export all the pages to an XML
format. We could make the full archive available somewhere (eg, someone's
Dropbox) every so often, if it's something people are interested in. Then
you can do whatever you want with it. It strikes me as the kind of thing
people say they want, then nobody would actually download it. :-) But we
could try.
There's certainly nobody acting as a gatekeeper here to keep it single
sourced. There are no ads. PEZ and I gave a dump of the old wiki to someone
upon request a while back. The RoboWiki is all about sharing Robocode
knowledge.
There are plenty of other programming games, but nothing in the same
league as Robocode as far as number of bots or active competitions. Then
again, people also complain that there is nothing new to be innovated in
Robocode, so it's a double-edged sword. I like to joke that it's the
"Google Reader of programming games" â it got a huge corporate push from
IBM, it smothers the rest of the market (tons of bots, history, Java, name
recognition), and might need to die off before all these other games can
blossom - hopefully with some kind of common community, as well as
communities of their own.
I have my own offering: BerryBots (http://berrybots.com). You can read a
http://berrybots.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=17 ... Or even try it in a
browser: http://playberrybots.com. Primarily, it features programmable
stages, walls on the playing field, and a secondary weapon (grenade-like).
It also has a pretty sweet automation API with built-in multithreading,
(optional) graphical form inputs, and the ability to save HTML5 replays of
matches. There are only a few bots, but I'd be hella impressed if you can
beat Sanic (from Frohman).
The other games that have caught my eye are FightCodeGame.com, a fully
web based Robocode-inspired game; and NodeWar.com, which might be the
only truly inspiring / innovative gameplay I've seen. I'd also check out
http://programminggames.org, which seems to be gaining steam.
I sympathize with the desire to join a large, active community. But the
RoboWiki might make the Robocode community seem a lot more active than it
is. Good luck catching me and Skilgannon while we never update our bots. ;)
At some point, we have to make something new. I suspect even "Robocode 2"
will have the same problems as the rest of the new entrants into the genre.
Hope that's enlightening! Best of luck,
-- Patrick
Sent from mobile
I'll raise my hand. I just don't know what would need to be done though
since I've never done this before. Would a service such as
http://www.shoutwiki.com/wiki/Main_Page suffice? Can anyone provide some
other guidance on a good way to host that is minimal cost? Also, how would
one obtain the current wiki content?
Question. Is robocode still viable or are there other better, widely
used, supported platforms along the same vein? Please advise. I'm looking
to work with a platform like robocode to ultimately compete against others..
Post by ramn.se â¸How do we get hold of the database?
Post by Pavel Å avaraHi everybody,
it would be perhaps good idea if all people who think robowiki is
important would try to help.
Somebody may try to run mirror, or perhaps somebody would organize and
run it on more stable hosting ?
Perhaps people would donate some cash needed to pay for the hosting ?
Just suggestions, in the end it's community project, right ?
Anybody at all ? Raise your hands !
Pavel
Post by i***@gmail.comYeah, I hope they fix it soon... It's really important for many people!
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