DStecks posted:

Then update the documentation? I cannot imagine a single scenario where that takes less effort than implementing the change in-game would.

This just feels like the equivalent of stripping out the seatbelts and airbags from a car to save weight.

podcat posted:

Nah, thats probably me, and its a giant emergent blob of, to miss-quote Dr Who, economy-whimey stuff :P Just because you understand how it works doesnt mean its easy to predict exactly how it will react in certain situations. The V2 economy ended up being too hard to control from a game balance standpoint. If/when we do a V3 we will have to do a rethink.

podcat posted:

Everyone can read code, so code = documentation. Lots of time saved.

A_Raving_Loon posted:

Tangentially related - lots of minor countries in MotE are really short on generals, some to the point that they can't even fully staff a single army. Anyone looking to get into it should pick up one of the Leader-generating mods so that everyone can participate in those mechanics. Leaders gaining traits is a fair part of how your armies improve over time.

podcat posted:

Documentation is poo poo. It gets out of date and just takes time to make. We make games, and arent in the business of getting bogged down in "processes". Thats why we can deliver games that are actually on time at pretty good quality despite rocking teams that are extremely small.

For HOI4 we have made some code that generates documentation for modders though about scopes etc. That kind doesnt get out of date so its not a waste of time.

While we are at it, lol concept art. We just make the final art right away. Saves a lot of time!

BBJoey posted:

podcat posted:

Implementing a feature or fixing a bug takes time X. Doing documentation for it takes Y. Total time T:
T = X + Y
For all Y larger than 0, it will be faster to just do X. It adds up as you iterate over something too because every time you do a change you need to remember to update that documentation. Also, nobody is going to have time to read that stuff and stay up to date when it changes.

Everyone can read code, so code = documentation. Lots of time saved.

I'm not saying documentation is completely useless, I am just saying that it isn't exactly free and I have never seen anyone who actually has all their documentation up to date and covering everything. So your code is the only thing you can trust to see how stuff actually works. Hence, documentation generated from code is fine, hoping someone remembers (or has time) to update some other documents nobody ever reads is just dumb.

elf help book posted:

I love you guys.

podcat posted:

Everyone can read code, so code = documentation.

YF-23 posted:

Ok in all seriousness though I remember that in say HoI2 there's console commands that literally no-one has any idea what they do and I'm pretty sure at this point the developers don't either. Stuff like that is just... weird.

podcat posted:

Documentation is poo poo. It gets out of date and just takes time to make. We make games, and arent in the business of getting bogged down in "processes". Thats why we can deliver games that are actually on time at pretty good quality despite rocking teams that are extremely small.

For HOI4 we have made some code that generates documentation for modders though about scopes etc. That kind doesnt get out of date so its not a waste of time.

While we are at it, lol concept art. We just make the final art right away. Saves a lot of time!

BillBear posted:

Is USSR at war with the allies?

DrSunshine posted:

I'll just toss this out here while I have you -- It'd be really nice for modders to be able to use the "debug events" cheat code in CK2, so we can mouse over events and things and see what ID they were.

DStecks posted:

Speaking as somebody who's coded professionally, that's a lie and you know it. Unless you've got strict-as-poo poo coding standards, and I'm gonna guess that you don't.

Dibujante posted:

Code = documentation; it's not your problem if everyone (including future you) is illiterate

Darkrenown posted:

I just mailed that to our mod support guy.

gradenko_2000 posted:

I've asked for this tool a couple of times already but never got an answer back.

DStecks posted:

I'd much rather spend the 5 minutes it takes to update the documentation, than risk that at some point I could lose an entire workday trying to figure out old code because I don't even have a clue how the game system works, let alone how it's implemented in code.

DStecks posted:

I'd much rather spend the 5 minutes it takes to update the documentation, than risk that at some point I could lose an entire workday trying to figure out old code because I don't even have a clue how the game system works, let alone how it's implemented in code.

podcat posted:

If you can't understand code you wrote chances is the code is poo poo and that day should be spent rewriting it instead to be honest. Same goes for game systems (I am fully aware we have broken against this a few times, but in neither of those cases documentation would have been helpful. The lesson is instead not to make systems that complicated again)

Dibujante posted:

All regressions will be fixed by meticulously written and maintained unit tests, always

podcat posted:

If you can't understand code you wrote chances is the code is poo poo and that day should be spent rewriting it instead to be honest.

DStecks posted:

Are you actually a programmer?

Patter Song posted:

I don't think it'd surprise anyone here that I'm also part of the "rather play Victoria 2 than any other Paradox game" group. On some level it clicks for me and I just adore when a country I despise breaks completely and I start getting the "Jacobin/Reactionary/Jacobin/Communist/Anarcho-Liberal/Communist/Anarcho-Liberal/Jacobin/Fascist/Communist rebels have enforced their demands on X" for the rest of the game as millions of their pops flee to the peace and quiet of the United States, all their factories disappear, and their score goes from the four digits to approaching absolute zero.

ThatBasqueGuy posted:

You can only truly "win" Victoria 2 when you manage to reduce the population of a still sovereign country to zero.

DStecks posted:

Are you actually a programmer?

Disco Infiva posted:

Wouldn't this be easier if you have a "documentation guy"? Every time you change/add/remove something, you submit it to some poor underpaid intern to also change it in the documentation.

Darkrenown posted:

I just mailed that to our mod support guy.

DStecks posted:

Are you actually a programmer?

Riso posted:

Do us a real solid here and give us a debug commandline switch so we can actually see the event numbers that were used in events in random.log instead of just saying "there was an event".

PittTheElder posted:

I also program for a living, and I'm with Podcat on the whole 'code should be readable and it's own documentation' thing.

Zerf posted:

Edit: A lot of people live in sort of a dream bubble where they believe that proper documentation will somehow magically make a product good. In reality, the only thing that matters is that people using the code and/or scripts actually know how stuff works. There are plenty of different ways to teach people how to use your code base, documentation is just one way to learn it.

Zerf posted:

Sure, if we started licensing our engine to whoever wanted it, documentation would be important. But now, lots of people know the code and if you encounter a problem of some kind, you can just ask how stuff works. It is so much more efficient than maintaining documentation that someone might read.

DStecks posted:

We got on this discussion from somebody mentioning that modders would like to have official documentation about what can be done with scripts, so stop acting like nobody would ever read the documentation.

PittTheElder posted:

Are you?

I also program for a living, and I'm with Podcat on the whole 'code should be readable and it's own documentation' thing. Obviously there's lots of customer facing documentation, but all of my experience with internal documentation is that it inevitably falls way behind and just adds to the confusion. Perhaps if there was someone who's job it was to manage all of that internal documentation and make sure others were updating it, it would work, but my group of engineering staff sure isn't going to do that.

DStecks posted:

We got on this discussion from somebody mentioning that modders would like to have official documentation about what can be done with scripts, so stop acting like nobody would ever read the documentation.

Darkrenown posted:

Actually, Podcat got into the discussion replying to a post about us internally not knowing how stuff works because of lack of documentation. Without wanting to be mean to modders, we don't center how we work around them.

Disco Infiva posted:

God I love that picture. Not just his left leg, but also that horse. drat that's one fat horse.

Darkrenown posted:

What does that even mean? Us having hired a guy to do mod support doesn't mean all our internal processes are orientated around modders

DStecks posted:

That's a textbook Nirvana fallacy, the idea that because something isn't a magic-bullet solution, then it isn't worth doing at all.

DStecks posted:

We got on this discussion from somebody mentioning that modders would like to have official documentation about what can be done with scripts, so stop acting like nobody would ever read the documentation.

Darkrenown posted:

What does that even mean? Us having hired a guy to do mod support doesn't mean all our internal processes are orientated around modders

DStecks posted:

Honestly, I don't really give a rat's rear end about Paradox's internal coding practices, I'd just like some documentation about how the CKII scripting system works; a comprehensive list of the things that it can and cannot do. If I had that, it wouldn't matter to me if you write all the code while completely shitfaced, because it doesn't affect me at all.