B
beatle
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Hey All,
Interesting thread :->
Hey Crashaz,
Nice historical look at where the franchise has been and where it is going. Just wanted to comment on one thing:
After a month or so of decompress time, pretty much that's exactly what we've done in the past and currently. For awhile there we were cycling back and forth between doing FS and CFS releases (with some team members working on just one product, while others were working on the other product, and some of us floated back and forth as needed :-> ). Not to mention time spent developing service packs, etc after each of those releases (and no, those things still don't develop or test themselves :-> ).
I'll grant you, there has been some turnover over the years, but that's actually fairly common at MS (one of the advantages of working someplace with so many different products/projects being developed, you get bored working on one thing, you can move to a different department/team and do something different for a while :-> ). At the moment, counting myself, there are 4 developers (hope I didn't miss counting anyone) on the team that trace all the way back to pre-FS95 days at BAO in Champaign IL; of those, only 1 has been on the team the entire time (and its not me :-> ).
There are at least another 10 to 15 folks who can trace their time on the team back to the FS95 or FS98 timeframe (this includes folks on the art team, test team, management team, and the development team), although again, not all of these folks have been on the team continuously. Our current studio head, Shawn, has been around since FS95 (I believe he was a PM back then).
The team is much bigger now than it was back in the early days (I think right now, we have more folks just in developer/coding based jobs than the entire production team (ie all job titles) for FS95, granted that's counting folks working on all 3 current products - FS, TS, & ESP (which is where I am these days)).
Oh, and just to add a couple of additional points to your section on What has FSX accomplished:
- Added the SimConnect API to the sim engine and the SDK (first time we've had a documented external access API included directly in the SDK). Is it the be all and end all for all addon developers? Of course not (we can't anticipate everything you guys (and gals) are going to attempt to do :-> heck, I've run into a few things myself that made me say, "how the heck did we forget to include that in SimConnect" :-> ), but its certainly a good first step in the right direction (compared to previous SDKs).
- Added the new mission system to replace the previous ABL (Adventure Basic Language, or A Better Language :->) based system, which itself was a replacement for the older ADV (Adventure) based system. Again, was everything implemented perfectly? I'm pretty sure anybody who has used the Object Placement Tool to create missions will agree with me its far from perfect :->, but again, its better than what was included in previous SDKs.
Tim
http://beatlesblog.spaces.live.com
Interesting thread :->
Hey Crashaz,
Nice historical look at where the franchise has been and where it is going. Just wanted to comment on one thing:
After a month or so of decompress time, pretty much that's exactly what we've done in the past and currently. For awhile there we were cycling back and forth between doing FS and CFS releases (with some team members working on just one product, while others were working on the other product, and some of us floated back and forth as needed :-> ). Not to mention time spent developing service packs, etc after each of those releases (and no, those things still don't develop or test themselves :-> ).
I'll grant you, there has been some turnover over the years, but that's actually fairly common at MS (one of the advantages of working someplace with so many different products/projects being developed, you get bored working on one thing, you can move to a different department/team and do something different for a while :-> ). At the moment, counting myself, there are 4 developers (hope I didn't miss counting anyone) on the team that trace all the way back to pre-FS95 days at BAO in Champaign IL; of those, only 1 has been on the team the entire time (and its not me :-> ).
There are at least another 10 to 15 folks who can trace their time on the team back to the FS95 or FS98 timeframe (this includes folks on the art team, test team, management team, and the development team), although again, not all of these folks have been on the team continuously. Our current studio head, Shawn, has been around since FS95 (I believe he was a PM back then).
The team is much bigger now than it was back in the early days (I think right now, we have more folks just in developer/coding based jobs than the entire production team (ie all job titles) for FS95, granted that's counting folks working on all 3 current products - FS, TS, & ESP (which is where I am these days)).
Oh, and just to add a couple of additional points to your section on What has FSX accomplished:
- Added the SimConnect API to the sim engine and the SDK (first time we've had a documented external access API included directly in the SDK). Is it the be all and end all for all addon developers? Of course not (we can't anticipate everything you guys (and gals) are going to attempt to do :-> heck, I've run into a few things myself that made me say, "how the heck did we forget to include that in SimConnect" :-> ), but its certainly a good first step in the right direction (compared to previous SDKs).
- Added the new mission system to replace the previous ABL (Adventure Basic Language, or A Better Language :->) based system, which itself was a replacement for the older ADV (Adventure) based system. Again, was everything implemented perfectly? I'm pretty sure anybody who has used the Object Placement Tool to create missions will agree with me its far from perfect :->, but again, its better than what was included in previous SDKs.
Tim
http://beatlesblog.spaces.live.com
