I believe this game will never happen

[Greyshaft]

ORIGINAL: krupp_88mm
I do believe this debugging progress and polishing could go much much more quickly if part of the work was outsourced to Pakistan, we can hire coders for only a few dollars an hour, several of them maybe even a half dozen, and get the game ready to go in a few months tops.

The only problem is this will take money, but not -a lot maybe 46 thousands dollars. But it would also require the cooperation and willingness of the current development team (or person) to set up the methodology to network and outsource the work. Maybe a week or two to get that set up and get the right people up to speed and ready to go. I don;t know if they would like that...

Hmmm... Krupp old boy, I don't suppose you have a cousin that runs a development team in Pakistan who have fifty years aggregate experience in converting ADG wargames to the computer with a particular interest in strategic WWII games ... you do? What a co-incidence... I never would have guessed!

I've seen small project work outsourced to offshore interests and the time spent briefing the coders and then fixing their bugs far outweighs any transitory benefit in speeding up development. Just to clarify, it doesn't matter if the offshore is in Pakistan, India, Germany, Australia, or Chad. The same problems remain to a greater or lesser extent.

[krupp_88mm]

Yes that is what programers terrified of having their work off shored tell me over and over. I found off shoring my work not only got faster and higher quality results, it was cheaper by a factor of almost x20. I get an outpouring of rage when i suggest such things around domestic programers. But the guys I hired often did have decades of experience fluent in multiple languages and very well organized. Foreign education has made big strides lately, there is a large talent pool maturing and lots looking for work. I can;t say if it's the right solution for the proejct, but after several years you have to wonder.

[Greyshaft]

ORIGINAL: krupp_88mm
I found off shoring my work not only got faster and higher quality results, it was cheaper by a factor of almost x20...

That may be a valid comment for your own work, but unfortunately your post still reads like an advertisement for your cousin in Pakistan. I suggest you get your cousin to enroll as a beta-tester for MWiF and demonstrate his understanding of the project concept before taking this idea any further.

[Rising-Sun]

Maybe they need extra hands to help completing it? Or Speed it up??

[Neilster]

Krupp, Steve has repeatedly said that, with certain exceptions, the effort required in getting others up to speed on the game and the enormous amount of code that has been written over nearly 20 years for this conversion, is not worth it. There are other factors at work too but suffice to say, your suggestion isn't going to happen. Good luck to Imran or Javed or whatever [:'(]

Cheers, Neilster

[pzgndr]

ORIGINAL: krupp_88mm
I do believe this debugging progress and polishing could go much much more quickly if part of the work was outsourced to Pakistan, we can hire coders for only a few dollars an hour, several of them maybe even a half dozen, and get the game ready to go in a few months tops.

How do we know Steve doesn't already have a dozen undocumented Pakastanis in his basement slaving away week after week, month after month, year after year??

Lines from the movie Ten Commandments comes to mind:

Day after day,
year after year,
century after century,
bondage without rest,
toil without reward.

These are the children of misery,
the afflicted,
the hopeless,
the oppressed.

[Extraneous]

ORIGINAL: Greyshaft

ORIGINAL: krupp_88mm
I found off shoring my work not only got faster and higher quality results, it was cheaper by a factor of almost x20...

That may be a valid comment for your own work, but unfortunately your post still reads like an advertisement for your cousin in Pakistan. I suggest you get your cousin to enroll as a beta-tester for MWiF and demonstrate his understanding of the project concept before taking this idea any further.

Think twice before you disrespect outsourcing to consultants.


Having been a consultant to the state of New York working on their Welfare Management System. In the month after implementation in three counties (none of them in New York City) we saved the state enough money to pay off the development costs, employee salaries, cost of hardware (mainframe, workstations, and etc.).

This project was to be a pilot program for a nation wide system to combat welfare fraud but was stopped by politics.

We never missed a deadline and most of the time competed projects ahead of schedule.

Yes we were much better than the New York State employees.

If you are from Oklahoma and are a consultant in New York you are indeed considered a foreigner.



Steve proved that you don't need a background in WiF to code it. He started with very little knowledge of the game and worked hard and has over come this.

Suggesting someone enroll as a beta tester before being able to code a project is not constructive and shows a complete lack of computer systems design and development.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Extraneous

ORIGINAL: Greyshaft

ORIGINAL: krupp_88mm
I found off shoring my work not only got faster and higher quality results, it was cheaper by a factor of almost x20...

That may be a valid comment for your own work, but unfortunately your post still reads like an advertisement for your cousin in Pakistan. I suggest you get your cousin to enroll as a beta-tester for MWiF and demonstrate his understanding of the project concept before taking this idea any further.

Think twice before you disrespect outsourcing to consultants.


Having been a consultant to the state of New York working on their Welfare Management System. In the month after implementation in three counties (none of them in New York City) we saved the state enough money to pay off the development costs, employee salaries, cost of hardware (mainframe, workstations, and etc.).

This project was to be a pilot program for a nation wide system to combat welfare fraud but was stopped by politics.

We never missed a deadline and most of the time competed projects ahead of schedule.

Yes we were much better than the New York State employees.

If you are from Oklahoma and are a consultant in New York you are indeed considered a foreigner.



Steve proved that you don't need a background in WiF to code it. He started with very little knowledge of the game and worked hard and has over come this.

Suggesting someone enroll as a beta tester before being able to code a project is not constructive and shows a complete lack of computer systems design and development.

My 10 years of playing WIF over the board yielded "very little knowledge"????[:D]

[Centuur]

I think that a sane programmer who didn't play WiF over the board wouldn't start coding it... He would read the rulebook and throw the whole thing directly into a wastebucket. Far to difficult... That's why I love the fact that there is a madman here who played the game and is a skilled games programmer too...

[Mike Parker]

ORIGINAL: Centuur

I think that a sane programmer who didn't play WiF over the board wouldn't start coding it... He would read the rulebook and throw the whole thing directly into a wastebucket. Far to difficult... That's why I love the fact that there is a madman here who played the game and is a skilled games programmer too...

Indeed in all seriousness its fortunate the community has someone with both skill sets.

[Extraneous]

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

My 10 years of playing WIF over the board yielded "very little knowledge"????[:D]

And here I thought when we started you were new at WiF.

ORIGINAL: Centuur

I think that a sane programmer who didn't play WiF over the board wouldn't start coding it... He would read the rulebook and throw the whole thing directly into a wastebucket. Far to difficult... That's why I love the fact that there is a madman here who played the game and is a skilled games programmer too...

Evidently you wouldn't pass the aptitude test for programming (yes there was/is one).

I find it laughable the way you all assume programming is such a hard thing to do.


Here is how it works in the real world.

A Systems analyst is given the project and meets with the user to define the specifications of the project

The Systems analyst then assigns Programmers from their group deadlines to write programs (executables, modules, or etc.) for the project.

The Programmers are to code and desk check their programs as completely as possible before submitting their programs to the test group.

The test group submits reports on errors found in the programs to the Systems analyst.

The Systems analyst returns the error report to the correct programmer for corrections.

The Systems analyst is responsible for seeing that all programmers provide documentation of their work, that the programmers are notified of changes from the user, and for the final presentation of the finished product.

Simple huh.[:D]

(Substitute: Developer for Systems analyst, game for project, rules for user, beta testers for test group and you have an Idea how a system design works.)

[Numdydar]

You left out the part of UAT in the above As that is normally a seperate function from QA testing.

But somehow, I think the release of MWiF is going to be the UAT lol.

[Extraneous]

UAT ~ User Acceptance Testing

The final phase in a software development process in which the software is given to the intended audience to be tested for functionality. UAT is either done by making the software available for a free trial, typically over the Internet, or by using an in-house testing panel comprised of users who would be using the product in real-world applications. UAT is done in order to get feedback from users to make any final adjustments to the programming before releasing the product to the general public.


The UAT is not always offered but in this case the beta test team does the UAT.

[paulderynck]

ORIGINAL: Extraneous

Evidently you wouldn't pass the aptitude test for programming (yes there was/is one).

I find it laughable the way you all assume programming is such a hard thing to do.

Here is how it works in the real world.

A Systems analyst is given the project and meets with the user to define the specifications of the project

The Systems analyst then assigns Programmers from their group deadlines to write programs (executables, modules, or etc.) for the project.

The Programmers are to code and desk check their programs as completely as possible before submitting their programs to the test group.

The test group submits reports on errors found in the programs to the Systems analyst.

The Systems analyst returns the error report to the correct programmer for corrections.

The Systems analyst is responsible for seeing that all programmers provide documentation of their work, that the programmers are notified of changes from the user, and for the final presentation of the finished product.

Simple huh.[:D]

(Substitute: Developer for Systems analyst, game for project, rules for user, beta testers for test group and you have an Idea how a system design works.)

[Greyshaft]

ORIGINAL: Extraneous

ORIGINAL: Greyshaft

ORIGINAL: krupp_88mm
I found off shoring my work not only got faster and higher quality results, it was cheaper by a factor of almost x20...

That may be a valid comment for your own work, but unfortunately your post still reads like an advertisement for your cousin in Pakistan. I suggest you get your cousin to enroll as a beta-tester for MWiF and demonstrate his understanding of the project concept before taking this idea any further.

Think twice before you disrespect outsourcing to consultants.

Having been a consultant to the state of New York working on their Welfare Management System. In the month after implementation in three counties (none of them in New York City) we saved the state enough money to pay off the development costs, employee salaries, cost of hardware (mainframe, workstations, and etc.).

This project was to be a pilot program for a nation wide system to combat welfare fraud but was stopped by politics.
We never missed a deadline and most of the time competed projects ahead of schedule.
Yes we were much better than the New York State employees.
If you are from Oklahoma and are a consultant in New York you are indeed considered a foreigner.
Steve proved that you don't need a background in WiF to code it. He started with very little knowledge of the game and worked hard and has over come this.

Suggesting someone enroll as a beta tester before being able to code a project is not constructive and shows a complete lack of computer systems design and development.

Au contraire... I believe my comments were quite reasonable. I too am a computer consultant and have been earning my daily bread doing this work for many decades. However, before we start throwing resumes at each other lets examine the premise of my comments.

1. Wif is a complex system and the only "Business Specification" (ie documentation) is aimed at WiF users - not programmers. There is no Functional Specification in terms of screens, process flow or the other components of a standard IT project. I believe that the learning curve for any programmer to understand the MWiF "model" would be immense. Hence my suggestion that any programmer enroll as a beta tester first to see if they could comprehend (and be happy to work with) the requirements of MWiF.

2. I will not talk to the finances of the project. Even though I am aware of some of the details it is not appropriate for me to comment. However I will say that it would cause immense amounts of renegotiation and legal fees to consider how to provide IP ownership rights and dividends to any new investor - let alone an eager hoard of KickStarters.

3. Suggesting that $46k could be raised to finish the project is an absolutely inappropriate comment. The specification for MWiF is fixed (ie the existing game) so how can someone who is uninformed about the current state of development suggest any particular budget is appropriate. I have spoken with clients who want to start the negotiations by saying that they only have 'x' dollars to spend to achieve a predetermined result and my response is always 'Which part do you want to leave out if 'x' dollars is insufficient?"

I could go on but I'll leave it there...

[Extraneous]

paulderynck its funny that you should bring up such an old cartoon of computer system design. Do you think the user or the programmers made it?

Here is a couple of old computer sayings for you:

Garbage in garbage out.

Use the KISS method "Keep It Simple Stupid".

ORIGINAL: Greyshaft
Au contraire... I believe my comments were quite reasonable. I too am a computer consultant and have been earning my daily bread doing this work for many decades. However, before we start throwing resumes at each other lets examine the premise of my comments.

1. Wif is a complex system and the only "Business Specification" (ie documentation) is aimed at WiF users - not programmers. There is no Functional Specification in terms of screens, process flow or the other components of a standard IT project. I believe that the learning curve for any programmer to understand the MWiF "model" would be immense. Hence my suggestion that any programmer enroll as a beta tester first to see if they could comprehend (and be happy to work with) the requirements of MWiF.

2. I will not talk to the finances of the project. Even though I am aware of some of the details it is not appropriate for me to comment. However I will say that it would cause immense amounts of renegotiation and legal fees to consider how to provide IP ownership rights and dividends to any new investor - let alone an eager hoard of KickStarters.

3. Suggesting that $46k could be raised to finish the project is an absolutely inappropriate comment. The specification for MWiF is fixed (ie the existing game) so how can someone who is uninformed about the current state of development suggest any particular budget is appropriate. I have spoken with clients who want to start the negotiations by saying that they only have 'x' dollars to spend to achieve a predetermined result and my response is always 'Which part do you want to leave out if 'x' dollars is insufficient?"

I could go on but I'll leave it there...

Then you should have pointed out Matrix partners and let it go at that.


Greyshaft you live in Australia a point of civilization surrounded by heathens. I know because I did global computer customer service.

Asians (not counting Australia) have no concept of how computers work although some Americans are worse.

We had a manager in Singapore call and complain because she was told she would be up in a half hour and the techs got her up sooner than that. You can't please some people we should have kept her system down for the full half hour.

We had a woman from the USA call saying she couldn't power up her computer. The person at the help desk asked if the power light was on. The woman said "just a minute while she got a flashlight since they were in the middle of a power failure".


Quick computer fixes:

When someone has a power problem with his or her computer always first ask, is the computer plugged in?

When someone is not receiving email with his or her computer always first ask, is email set for work online of work offline?

When someone's computer is running slow always first ask, how much email do you have on your computer now and when was the last time you defragged your computer?

[bo]

Actually Extraneous I think Paul's depiction of simplification is right on. [&o] "Keep it simple stupid" That is a saying I can live with as I need simple things made simply clear to me. Instead of talking down to us why didn't you join the beta testing team to help Steve bring MWIF to it's proper conclusion.

I am sure with your computer expertise this game could have been finished, oh lets say hmmmm, two years ago [;)].

Like I said I feel your are talking down to posters on this forum, at least my friend crussdaddy is honest with us he just is plain steamed up about how long this game has taken. I also feel [not being mean] [:-] that crussdady could have been more of a help by also joining the beta team, if your going to complain then I think you two should show us a better way to bring this game to fruition.

Bo

[bo]

Hey Greyshaft I think Extraneous was calling you an aborigine [:D]

Good lord Grey, tell him that Australia was where this wonderful board war game was born. Without those savages from Canberra [Harry Rowland, Chris and all of ADG][&o] there would be no WIF and hence no MWIF [:@]

Bo

[Numdydar]

ORIGINAL: Extraneous

UAT ~ User Acceptance Testing

The final phase in a software development process in which the software is given to the intended audience to be tested for functionality. UAT is either done by making the software available for a free trial, typically over the Internet, or by using an in-house testing panel comprised of users who would be using the product in real-world applications. UAT is done in order to get feedback from users to make any final adjustments to the programming before releasing the product to the general public.


The UAT is not always offered but in this case the beta test team does the UAT.

Actually in my experience, it is the project sponsers that do the UAT, not the beta team. The Beta team was used to make sure the specifications were met, not so much to insusre someone could actually use the product. But that is what is great about all of this. Each development (including this one) is different and while there are broad general rules that apply, once you get down into the details every one is unique and done differently based on the organizational needs.

I also agree that outsorcing something like this is a horrible idea, unless there is a huge number of WiF players that happen to be great programers hiding out that no one knows about [:)]. The same applies to Kickstarted too. Most of Kickstart projects fail btw. To set up a project like that to develop the agreements, protections Matrix would need is not a trivial task. And for what?

The game will get done or it will not. It will have an AI or it will not. Some may buy it if it is completed, some will not. I truely fail to see why any of this matters to anyone as much as it seems to. Do I want the game to be finished? Yes. Am I getting hyper because it is not done yet or complaining about it never being done the way I want it to? No. The Earth is still turning, Sun is shinning, etc. Will anyone I know and love die or be searvely hurt if this game is not finished in the next X weeks/months/years? No. IT IS A FRIGGING GAME. It is NOT the cure for cancer. People's priorities are really messed up conisdering the comments I have read on these forums over the years. All I can say is I am glad mine are not. Well at least as far as MWiF goes anyway lol.

[Centuur]

ORIGINAL: bo

Actually Extraneous I think Paul's depiction of simplification is right on. [&o] "Keep it simple stupid" That is a saying I can live with as I need simple things made simply clear to me. Instead of talking down to us why didn't you join the beta testing team to help Steve bring MWIF to it's proper conclusion.

I am sure with your computer expertise this game could have been finished, oh lets say hmmmm, two years ago [;)].

Like I said I feel your are talking down to posters on this forum, at least my friend crussdaddy is honest with us he just is plain steamed up about how long this game has taken. I also feel [not being mean] [:-] that crussdady could have been more of a help by also joining the beta team, if your going to complain then I think you two should show us a better way to bring this game to fruition.

Bo

I like the Crussdaddy part a lot... If there is anyone who should apply for beta testing when there is a free spot, he should enter his name. It would be a relieve to have him onboard. However, I don't think he's got the guts to do it.