For awhile, clicking the link on the Libertas Infinitum page labeled ‘forum’ was an exercise in futility, taking you nowhere (well, to an error page… but that’s hardly somewhere most people want to go). That’s been fixed now, and the Firebrand Entertainment Forum is online
I’ll fix it later…
We’ve all done it, and its bad enough when you’re maintaining your own code… but if you are working with other developers (or if someone may one day be working with your code), the ‘dirty hack now, fix it later’ way of coding is simply not acceptable.
Source is meant to be read by human beings. Disregarding this truth is the first step on a dark path. Taking the time to do it right the first time pays off fast.
A lot of it isn’t even hard to do. Naming your variables clearly consumes mere seconds, and pays off immediately by reducing the amount of documentation you need to write. For example, naming an object scd1 rather than OverviewMenu creates the need for documentation that could have been avoided. If you append an item to scd1, someone looking at your code may need to figure out what scd1 actually does to understand that, while appending an item to OverviewMenu probably means you’re adding an item to the menu. The code documents itself.
Indenting your code properly is trivial to accomplish (and all but the most primitive editors make it very easy to do without thinking about it), and it simplifies understanding program flow.
Doing it the ‘easy’ way now, with the intent of fixing it later is almost always a recipe for trouble, and more often than not it creates more work for you very quickly. Now you have ugly code that needs to be fixed, and replacing it can take longer than it would have to write it well in the first place. Besides, why write something just to throw it out? Your time should be worth more than that.
If you happen to be writing web code, don’t create JavaScript functions or complex code inside event handlers, or apply inline styles your HTML. JavaScript has functions, and the style tag exists to be used. There are reasons for these things, part of which is making it easy to manage your code.
If it’s worth doing at all, it should be worth doing right. Please, don’t create more work than you need to for yourself, and other developers.
As it happens, another game exists with under the name of ‘Emperia’, and it’s been around since August of 2002. You can find its site here, and some technical details here, courtesy of MUD Magic.
Given that both projects are games, a potential for confusion was recognized, and discussion on a new name began. Some titles that didn’t make the cut were…
By a unanimous vote, the name Libertas Infinitum was decided on. This name was formed from three comments:
Links have been redirected by 301, all content available at http://www.firebrand-entertainment.com/libertas-infinitum/.
I recently enjoyed a vacation in Revelstoke, British Columbia. For those who don’t know where that is, it’s a cozy little city nestled away in a valley somewhere up in the BC Interior. The trip was ~10.5 hours each way, and during that time I had the opportunity to bask in the natural beauty of British Columbia, and it got me thinking that I should do something to share my love of this astounding province with the rest of the world. Naturally (being the web monkey that I am) I went the route of a domain, and Province6.ca was born. Well, it might have involved a bit more thought than that, and it certainly involved collaboration with Melissa (and Isabelle, to some extent) over what type of content the site would be built around. The resulting site will be a place for tourists and residents of BC alike to find and share information about the most breathtaking region in North America.
For some time, Emperia has been in development quietly. Not privately, but not actively promoted. The reason was that it was (and still is) a work in progress, and the documentation was too sparse to be useful. There is still a lot of work to be done, but there is enough of a foundation that it can be worked with.
The intent of this project is to produce a game that incorporates the ideas of the players from the beginning. This will be released free to the community, as both client and server software. Source will be available for modification and review, as it should be.
What is asked of the community is this: Tell us what you want, and help build it. The documentation is in a wiki format, and a source repository is in place, both to facilitate open collaboration.