Join

Note: The content on this page is very old and is likely outdated. You may want to check on the irc channel #arianne.

Hi and thanks for your interest in joining Arianne.

First of all, you should only read this if you are interested in joining as a core developer of Arianne.

If you want to do a one time contribution or periodic contributions you can use the Patch Tracker at Sourceforge.

As a core arianne developer must know arianne! He/she must understand the system which is not an easy, simple task. Fortunately, it should be the only non-simple task that you need to do in Arianne. :)

Developers

First I request that you join the arianne-devel mailing list, so as to ease communication between us.

The position of developer, as most of the tasks in arianne, involves coordination with other member of the project, hehe, but don't worry, there is not much. All I request is that you tell the rest of us how your task is going every 3-4 days to keep us up to date. We often meet in IRC because it is a much faster communication method than the mailing list, but both options are just as good.

All tasks in Arianne are created as small tasks that can be accomplished independantly in approx. 5-10 hours.

The source of Tasks should be the Bug tracker. We add all the tasks that need to be accomplished there, and we give them a priority depending on how important it is to finish them before the next release. (BTW Arianne uses XP methodology, we do small, but fully working releases of the project every 15-20 days. This way we force ourselves to be productive and think simple and small).

You must choose the tasks you want to do :), I am not an assigner. Once you have completed a task, please send it to the Patch Tracker at Sourceforge.
When you reach three(3) completed tasks I will add you into the developer list of the project. I know this is not very nice, but in the past Arianne's developer list has reached 30 members, of whom only 3 were really working on Arianne! I want the developer list to show the real active dedicated workers.

OK, I shall stop the idle chat :) First here are a few things that must be done, before you start work. They should take you a few days:

Read the following webpages

• http://arianne.sourceforge.net/index.php?arianne_url=servers/server_marauroa
• http://arianne.sourceforge.net/index.php?arianne_url=content/about

Please post us your problems/queries to mailing list.
Also, please point out anything that you think may be wrong in the docs.

Read the Marauroa documentation

Checkout the CVS by doing:
cvs -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.sf.net:/cvsroot/arianne checkout marauroa

In this module is a folder called Docs, please take some time to read them.

Server side: Marauroa

Browse Marauroa code

Read the code and try to understand it.
The most important parts are GameServerManager and RPServerManager, and of course the RPRuleProcessor and RPZone.

There are several headers that need to be documented and as you didn't write them it would be really helpful if you could point out methods that are complex to understand. Documenting some methods using Javadocs would be a great help.

Compile and Run Marauroa

Documenting how to compile and run it would be great. It is already explained in the readme, but it needs to be improved.

Client side: ariannexp

Browse ariannexp code

Read the code and try to understand it.

There are several headers that need to be documented and as you didn't write them it would be really helpful if you could point out methods that are complex to understand. Documenting some methods using Doxygen would be a great help.
There are several folder in the ariannexp module:

• libClient
• libFramework
• libGladiator
• AIGladiator
• TestLibClient
• TestLibGladiator

The gladiators folders are for our Gladiators game.
libClient is the base for developing clients.
libFramework is the basic library to wrap the arianne system into any other language. In particular libFramework is python oriented.

To understand how the code works take a look at AIGladiator.
We are now focusing on developing all the games using the wrapped library in Python, check out test.py in libFramework

Point out what you don't understand, but in mailing list please.

Compile and Run AIGladiator

Documenting how to compile and run it would be a great help. It is already explained in the readme, but it needs to be improved. The linux support is not 100% up to date, so you may have to edit the autoconf files.

Client side: gladiators, mapacman and stendhal

Browse mapacman code

Read the code and try to understand it.

Browse gladiators code

Read the code and try to understand it, but don't worry too much about it because it is written in blitz and it should soon be replaced ( who knows, maybe by you... ;) by version written in python.

Point out what you don't understand, but in mailing list please.

Compile and Run mapacman and stendhal

Documenting how to compile and run it would be a great help, it is already explained in the readme, but it needs to be improved. The linux support is not 100% up to date, so perhaps you need to update the autoconf files.

The documentation is not 100% synced with the code, but you will get a good idea of Marauroa and its workings.
If you need help on any of these tasks remember that I am always reachable by the mailing list.
I know that these kinds of tasks are not really motivating, but keep in mind: start small, start simple, start fast. Once you complete these things you will have a pretty good idea of how Marauroa runs.

Improving them

Adding better graphics, better sound effects, and better animation support would be great.
All of which is badly needed.

Artists

Arianne needs a huge support of artists: graphics, sounds, plots, writtings.
Everything is evolving very fast and usually lack of GFX and SFX does stop us.

You may help us!.