[Poll Closed] First Core Development Post

[IAHM-COL]

What is the best launcher for FGFS?

Well, not quite the first - Core Development- post. More the first poll. Feel free to comment below. Propose, make suggestions. We probably won't be able to have major influence in the core developer open-minded group. But ... who knows ...?

[Firefly]

FGx all the way!! I can select my start position on a map! what else could you want!

[IAHM-COL]

I like FGX a lot too... Yet, I am still command line guy

I do see the need to make a new launcher. One that integrates well with github modularity... per example

[legoboyvdlp]

FGRUN, all the days!
But you forgot Phi.
But I'm for making a new launcher.... but not me.
Noooo! Run! C++!

[IAHM-COL]

Is Phi a launcher? I don't think so.

[jwocky]

Since you have three OS platforms to support, I suggest Java every day to make a new launcher. However, I want to see first, what comes up with FG. FGRun has still problems with libraries and since the Qt implementation pulls the same routines, I guess, it has as well.
The problem with a new launcher is, we are a little short handed here with programmers, I guess?

[legoboyvdlp]

Phi is a launcher.
Sort of.
Torsten calls it one.
But he forgets that you need FG open before opening Phi.
I guessnyou can change your location and plane in it.

[jwocky]

Let me tell you about another kind of wire mesh technique. In the early 60s, when computers just begun to became integral part of air defence systems, manufacturers produced a lot of different and entirely proprietary systems and people made a lot of money by knowing how to wedlock all those different and in their nature incompatible systems.
A place where people really earned a lot of money by doing this was NORAD. Now, one night, after such a system upgrade, the computers started to project thousands of attacking ballistic missiles on the screens. An early Amiga, no kidding, integrated into this wire mesh, decided, it would be time to go all Defcon 1 and warm up the US missiles, bring the B-52s ready for an alarm start and so on, an IBM in the same wire mesh decided to advice the General to wake up the President, an early Cray picked in split seconds the action plan for picking primary and secondary targets in Russia and on one screen, a big fat timer started to count down. It was about 8 minutes till doomsday. Only that PDP in the corner scratched its electronic head and wondered, why it couldn't calculate impact points for those thousands of ballistic missiles incoming.
A human wondered too and after some very quick, very hectic and very panicky discussion, they interrupted the alert 1 minute before the missiles got their start code sequences. Some B-52 squadrons were actually already in the air, armed with hot nukes.
So, there were no impacts, they called back the bombers, there was no nuclear attack. All that had happened was, that a programmer had the genious idea to integrate another system of dubious compatibility into the wire mesh. It was basically a lense that combined with some optical sensors spotted things on the sky. Everything big and high was considered a form of aircraft and missile and sent to another computer with another OS who then had the job to compare against flight plans whether there was an object supposed to be in this position. It was kind of genious. However, as soon as this system went active with the system upgrade, the spotter found something big anf bright on the night sky. And the comparer found no plane that was supposed to be there. Even worse, when the optic came around the second time, there was again such a big bright thing and according to the software, it couldn't be the same because the one some seconds earlier spotted had to be somewhere else now. It couldn't just hang motionless in the sky, by all means.
You guessed it, the optical sensors spotted the moon. And since the moon didn't move in its relative position fast enough, the computer thought to have found a long line of missiles, one after the other. No wonder, the third computer couldn't calculate impact points. The second computer, the controller, had of course no idea, how the object, he was looking for was looking like. He knew only about position and time. Because that was all, the wire mesh interface gave him.

Now, if this story isn't a good reason to be a little careful with the integration of always more incompatible systems, then there is probably no way to convince people that this strategy is bullshit. The clock stopped 1 minute before hundreds of nuclear ballistic missiles would have gone on their way to destroy the world. So ... lets just be happy, our all too integration happy friends on the other side have no big red button. We know, they have a tendency to rather nuclear solutions and they have a tendency to glue together what doesn't really works together, that appears to me as a dangerous combination.

[IAHM-COL]

I guessnyou can change your location and plane in it.

Do you call that a launcher?
A launcher in principle works for launching. Not to change locations "in it"

[IAHM-COL]

So.. In the meantime, command line leads? oh! Interesting.