Meeting 2014 04 29

Raw Log

• Andrew[Chair]: Welcome all to the PCGen Board of Directors Meeting.
• It's 5pm (PDT) on April 25th
• Our Agenda for tonight/today:
• 1) Team Reports
• 2) Code/Arch - Status of Projects
• 3) Code/Release - Status of Trunk Releases (6.3.x line)
• 4) Outstanding items
• 5) Open Forum
• Anestis, why don't you start us off with a report from the Web Team.
• Andrew[Chair]: passed Talking Stick to Anestis
• [Web_2nd]Anestis: There was an issue with the website earlier this week, but I think it was an isolated incident
• In any case, we've implemented a cache plugin which seems to have improved response a bit.
• The slowest page to load is the one with the videos, but that's understandable as it is grabbing external content from YouTube
• The website is slow on my computer, but it may be because of the plugins I am running in Chrome and the number of windows and tabs I have open.
• As I mentioned, Firefox and IE with no plugins, the website tends to be prett quick.
• Speaking of videos, Andrew, is there any specific order the videos should be in (from first to last) in terms of learning how to LST code?
• Might help those of us (*ahem, like me*) who want to learn to LST Code but have no idea where to start.
• Andrew[Chair]: I kinda was a bit haphazard in putting them together. Order would best be pcc file, and then beyond that, whatever class would fit. The videos themselves are actually numbered.
• [Web_2nd]Anestis: OK, well, send me a list and we'll see what we can do
• Andrew[Chair]: If I was doing it, PCC > Feat > Class > Ability > rest.
• [Web_2nd]Anestis: Apart form that, everything else is going smoothly (mostly).
• Any questions?
• Andrew[Chair]: None here.
• James[Code_SB]: None from me
• Tom[Arch_SB]: not here
• Andrew[Chair]: @James - you have mail
• [Web_2nd]Anestis: Oh, and we're good on the Heartbleed vulnerability front. Tested and checked and we're fine, as far as I know.
• Andrew[Chair]: Good to hear.
• Finishing up for Admin - No issue with Trackers, and Release we have slotted for later in the agenda.
• For Content -
• Docs - Eric tackled some items since last meeting, but hasn't entered the new SITUATION stuff yet. We still have plenty of time.
• Tom[Arch_SB]: probably smart to wait until it settles out anyway
• Andrew[Chair]: OS - I just brought James into a Help Request for PDF sheets acting up. Hopefully we'll be able to get that resolved. I have finished updating our official sheets and they *seem* to work. The FOP upgrade wasn't pleasant, but a necessary item.
• James[Code_SB]: Does that mean http://jira.pcgen.org/browse/OS-298 can be closed?
• "Update all XSLT and fo based sheets to work with the new FOP library"
• Andrew[Chair]: I think so. I'd have to recheck, but I got the base xml and xslt working for the fantasy sheets (Which is the majority of them).
• James[Code_SB]: Yep those are the big ones
• Andrew[Chair]: Data - I've embarked on two mega projects. I posted the items on the list. But essentially, it's bringing our two major systems up to speed. Pathfinder (Inconsistencies and rules updates) and RSRD (Has been left in the dust). In the process I'm fixing bugs we didn't know we had.
• Connor Petty has made me two little conversion programs
• One that helps with pathfinder, does the KEY:xxx ~ yyy to KEY:yyy ~ xxx switching and finds all matches using those keys.
• The second is a program that uses the migration file to update everything that matches - I'd caution these are prototypes and he says the second will do Matches regardless of category, but it has a nice log to reference.
• James[Code_SB]: Nice work Connor!
• Andrew[Chair]: After our conversation, he's wanting to jump back into the project... :)
• On a side note: James isn't the only one going back to school... so once I finish the mega projects, I expect my time on project will be greatly reduced.
• James[Code_SB]: Fantastic
• Tom[Arch_SB]: cool :D
• James[Code_SB]: What are studying?
• Tom[Arch_SB]: both on Connor pitching in on some tools as well as the school thing
• Andrew[Chair]: Bachelors in Computer IT
• James[Code_SB]: Nice
• Andrew[Chair]: Any questions for the Admin/Content report?
• [Web_2nd]Anestis: You'll soon know more about computers than me.
• Tom[Arch_SB]: no questions here
• Andrew[Chair]: Well, hoping it will give me a new career path. :)
• [Web_2nd]Anestis: I'll have a new job soon (same company, different group (Server Side)
• Andrew[Chair]: Okay, Tom or James, who wants to go next?
• [Web_2nd]Anestis: There'll be some shift work and overtime so my availability may change
• Tom[Arch_SB]: I can go
• Andrew[Chair]: passes talking stick to Tom
• Tom[Arch_SB]: Implemented much of SITUATION, though missed the conditional output (meaning it should only print a skill/situation when the value is different from the base skill
• Also have discovered that the count function is incomplete in that it doesn't take a filter (which the SKILLSIT token can), and that should be corrected as count("SKILLSIT") is fixed to address conditional output
• Second major 6.4 project is Ability work.
• Have a circular dependency situation on the changes where A->B->C->A is requiried, and have just done all at once in the local patch
• it's not horrible in size, unlike it might have been in the early days of the Ability work
• it currently does not clone, and passes the entire set of *existing* unit tests for PCGen, though it does not yet pass a handful of new tests I have written to address/check for the set of issues I have discovered while doing the Ability work
• It may also set a new record for # of bugs in one patch, as I think it has over a dozen fixes so far...
• James[Code_SB]: Sounds great
• Andrew[Chair]: Sounds nice!
• Tom[Arch_SB]: I'll be getting back to that after I finish up the SITUATION stuff, which I realize is a bit of a thorn (since Andrew has made the changes in Pathfinder to use SITUATION)
• Andrew[Chair]: Trunk is a mess anyways, but glad I'm in your thoughts. :-)
• Tom[Arch_SB]: After the work I have done in the branch on Formulas, I believe there is a good way to gently integrate that work into the Trunk
• (The main challenge being that to cut over to the new parser on all existing formulas means writing dozens of functions for each of the parenthesis and bracket based formulas/terms that we have)
• So I have put out a proposal of how to bring in the parser for use on Equip Vars only in the first pass: https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/pcgen_developers/conversations/messages/3936
• There is also a link in there to the full proposal on the Wiki
• The main reason the formula parser is a focus is that we eventually want to clean up BONUS, but in order to do that, we must know Formula content.
• To do that we need a new parser, and given the deprecation rules, it means new parser for base formulas in Revision A, then BONUS can be changed in Revision A+1
• So I'm tentatively thinking Equip Vars in 6.4, main formula in 6.6, BONUS work in 6.8
• that's the fastest I think it can be done
• As another smaller project, the cleanup of Epic BAB and Saves has produced a bunch of traffic on _experimental, and that may be stable enough now to turn that into a formal proposal on syntax
• James[Code_SB]: Seems like a good roadmap
• Tom[Arch_SB]: I'm hoping to get that into 6.4 since the epic loops are getting painful to the core
• and thus want to get them deprecated in 6.4 for removal in 6.5
• I think that's it from me, any questions?
• James[Code_SB]: None from me
• Andrew[Chair]: None here... (Company just showed up)
• Okay James, it's your turn.
• James[Code_SB]: Really not much to report over what Tom has already provided
• Could be a few weeks until I get to look at anything myself
• Any questions or issues to be raised?
• Andrew[Chair]: Just the OS one I sent you an email
• Tom[Arch_SB]: Do we have a tentative schedule for 6.4? I've seen things bantered around, but if some of those schedules are true, we should be giving folks warning on when the alpha end is, since it really isn't that far away...
• Andrew[Chair]: Well - Okay, let's segway into the Release Schedule for 6.3 line.
• James[Code_SB]: Sure
• There isn't a target date for the next alpha right now
• That would likely depend on
• a) My time (or someone else) to do the release
• b) Stabilisation of PDF output
• c) Stabilisation of the situational skills
• d) 34e and rsrd sets usable - either before application of the reorg or once done
• Sorry d should be pathfinder and rsrd
• Andrew[Chair]: I understood what you meant. ;)
• James[Code_SB]: That's probably sufficient criteria :)
• Andrew[Chair]: I can handle A, and D is squarely in my court. I estimate 1 month min to get the major clean up done.
• Pathfinder is roughly 35% finished.
• RSRD - 65%
• James[Code_SB]: Would you be happy with an alpha in the midst of that month, or should we use that as the baseline for the next release?
• Andrew[Chair]: RSRD hasn't been pushed in, so the release won't reflect any of that work.
• Pathfinder, I've been using the tests to catch the major items. (I'm tempted to ask for a Test to test all the sets, easier to catch mistakes)
• But yeah, let's shoot for Situation stabilization as a target for the next release of alpha
• James[Code_SB]: What sort of test?
• Andrew[Chair]: Our Data Load Tests
• James[Code_SB]: Lets chat offline sometime then
• Andrew[Chair]: Fair enough.
• Next Agenda item is Outstanding business
• Anything we need brought up to handle?
• [Web_2nd]Anestis: Apart format eh PFS Not Legal stuff?
• from the
• Andrew[Chair]: The can't select is fixed in the trunk
• the PFS Not legal was added by Mark to indicate it's not rules legal for PFS
• Otherwise has no other function and shouldn't prevent anything else.
• [Web_2nd]Anestis: Except a lot of stuff marked as Not Legal is
• As an example that I mentioned, selecting the Andoran Background is legal
• Andrew[Chair]: (Contact Mark on the _Exp list and ask him about it. He's tending the PFS sets).
• [Web_2nd]Anestis: This allows selection of the Freedom Fighter Trait
• Andrew[Chair]: Okay, anything else?
• (Moving into Open Forum)
• Bystanders welcome to comment now.
• No comments.
• I'd like to thank everyone for attending the meeting. I hereby declare this session closed. *Bangs Gavel*
• James[Code_SB]: This may be of interest to some people: https://stacksocial.com/sales/the-name-your-own-price-learn-to-code-bundle
• I have no idea of the quality of the courses etc, just that the topics look interesting