I'm drifting off the target... whatever it was.

[Fenrir]

Be careful that feature creep doesn't kill your project. I did that once.

It looks like it may soon be twice. I started adding a chatbot, so now you can talk to enemies about creatures they've seen and get a response according to how they feel about it (which doesn't ever really change, or mean anything important). Now, for some reason, enemies no longer move, attack, or die when you hit them. Oh, and the player changes color while he walks. That was on purpose, though, to test a status system that I wasn't really sure I needed.

I guess I shouldn't really be surprised, since I didn't plan anything before I started. I mean anything.

Right now I have two options:

a - Make a proper plan, then rip out all the useless crap I added and try to redesign things to fit the new plan.

b - Nuke it from orbit and plan a new project.


Option 'a' will make it so the time spend typing all this code wasn't completely wasted, but option 'b' allows me to consider easier development paths.

At any rate, this whole "I'll figure it out when I get to it. If I even want to implement it, that is" strategy isn't working.

[Slash]

Some projects are meant to be nuked from existance, and their ripped pieces be reused for something better

[Fenrir]

The space-station 'Ironwood' looms over the planet's atmosphere in high orbit. On the bridge sits Fenrir, surrounded by a busy human crew. "Sir, we've just received word from the admin. He suggests we launch" says the communications officer. The great wolf hesitates a moment with a pondering look in his eye, then turns to the tactical station. "Lieutenant, open the missile-bay doors" he commands, "prep for strike." "Aye, sir" the tactical operations officer replies as he hastily enters the pass codes into the console. A few moments pass as the station readies its nuclear payload. "Nuclear strike ready, sir" the tactical officer says. Fenrir hesitates again and gazes at the viewscreen showing the planet below.

"Fire."

The tactical officer presses a button, and a missile violently leaves its bay. The monstrous wolf follows the projectile solemnly with his eyes as the nuke hits the atmosphere and screams toward its target. The blazing rocket slowly shrinks from view. Another few minutes pass, and Fenrir stares at the intended target. Suddenly a great light flashes on the surface and a great mushroom-shaped explosion erupts. "Launch the salvage drones" Fenrir says as he turns to leave, "I'll pick through the wreckage when it stops glowing." The door to the wolf's quarters slide away to let him through, and he calls over his shoulder "That makes four projects. Let's make the next one work, people" as he leaves the bridge.

[Numeron]

I have an archive full of all the old crap Ive written, and a lot of it really is crap.

And yet I find myself still occasionally pulling snippets out, cleaning them up, and reusing them...

In particular, Ive found that my 7drls have started up quicker by grabbing 5-6 classes from an old failed project, gutting them so they are just a shell with maybe one or two of the previous procedures and remnants of variables, and then rebuilding it from there.

After all, if you want to implement the same kind of chatting in a future project, there is no need to reinvent the wheel.

[Etinarg]

I wish code reuse was easier - my code tends to have too many interdependencies with a lot of project specific things, and it's much more difficult to reuse than I had expected in the past 

Good luck with your next try Fenrir. I hope you find enough to salvage from your old projects, that you get a quick start and can focus on the new features to implement

[Fenrir]

After all, if you want to implement the same kind of chatting in a future project, there is no need to reinvent the wheel.

True, true. This project actually had some code from a previous project pasted in there.

Good luck with your next try Fenrir. I hope you find enough to salvage from your old projects, that you get a quick start and can focus on the new features to implement

Thanks, Hajo. I've an idea and I think I can pull this one off.