Liquidfun – 2D physics engine for games • Hacker News Board

Re: Liquidfun – 2D physics engine for games

#61

Post by talmand » Thu, Mar 20, 2014, 7:17 PM UTC

fooqux wrote: post #57

talmand wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's wrong with creating something new? If someone decides to attempt something but there's already a similar project, why do so many think they should abandon their own to contribute to the other? They can always contribute down the road.

Creating a large software project is hard and time consuming. Lets use an analogy to help visualize it: say, building Eiffel Towers. If everyone collaborated on a few such projects, we'd have a few really great Eiffel towers scattered around. If everyone started their own, we'd have a million piles of metal all over, and very few towers.

I think your analogy, while a good one, is quite a bit off on scale there.

But if I wanted to attempt to build my own Eiffel Tower in my backyard, why is it bad that I wish to do so? Maybe I just want to do it to see if I can accomplish it?

Re: Liquidfun – 2D physics engine for games

#62

Post by zem » Thu, Mar 20, 2014, 7:42 PM UTC

aaronetz wrote: post #36

I wonder why they came up with a new library instead of contributing to box2d directly? Unless they had to break box2d's API (but off the top of my head, without looking at the code, it's hard to see why they would have to)

i'm guessing this lets them both build on top of box2d and experiment/iterate more rapidly than waiting for patches to be integrated would.

Re: Liquidfun – 2D physics engine for games

#63

Post by StavrosK » Thu, Mar 20, 2014, 8:19 PM UTC

babuskov wrote: post #42

StavrosK wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Since this is open source, you are free to remove the version string but we would appreciate if you would leave it in. It's easy to remove, and they only track which apps use it to gauge how popular it is. Hardly evil.

I'm not implying it is evil. I just imagined what would the world look like if everyone was doing that.

Oh sorry, I guess I read your comment before reading what the tracking is about and thought they tracked all usage (i.e. user actions, in-game).

Re: Liquidfun – 2D physics engine for games

#64

Post by alexvr » Thu, Mar 20, 2014, 9:52 PM UTC

vanderZwan wrote: post #52

alexvr wrote: post #47

Anyone see the Strandbeest in the video?

Well, it said "Theo Jansen's Walker" so it was kinda hard to miss :)

Oh, I found the other stuff too cool to notice any text :p

Re: Liquidfun – 2D physics engine for games

#65

Post by georgemcbay » Fri, Mar 21, 2014, 7:54 AM UTC

fooqux wrote: post #57

talmand wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's wrong with creating something new? If someone decides to attempt something but there's already a similar project, why do so many think they should abandon their own to contribute to the other? They can always contribute down the road.

Creating a large software project is hard and time consuming. Lets use an analogy to help visualize it: say, building Eiffel Towers. If everyone collaborated on a few such projects, we'd have a few really great Eiffel towers scattered around. If everyone started their own, we'd have a million piles of metal all over, and very few towers.

Coordinating with random people over the internet is also very hard and time consuming and fraught with all sorts of problems like NIH, bike shedding, etc, particularly if you're the "newbie" trying to get changes into the existing project.

Sometimes it is easier to work within an existing project and sometimes it is easier to just fork to meet your own needs, unimpeded by the pace of the original project's maintainers... neither choice (to fork or not to fork) is correct for all situations.

Re: Liquidfun – 2D physics engine for games

#66

Post by fooqux » Fri, Mar 21, 2014, 2:57 PM UTC

talmand wrote: post #61

fooqux wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Creating a large software project is hard and time consuming. Lets use an analogy to help visualize it: say, building Eiffel Towers. If everyone collaborated on a few such projects, we'd have a few really great Eiffel towers scattered around. If everyone started their own, we'd have a million piles of metal all over, and very few towers.

I think your analogy, while a good one, is quite a bit off on scale there. But if I wanted to attempt to build my own Eiffel Tower in my backyard, why is it bad that I wish to do so? Maybe I just want to do it to see if I can accomplish it?

>I think your analogy, while a good one, is quite a bit off on scale there.

According to wiki.answers, it took 300 people just over two years to build the Eiffel Tower.

Now compare that to Linux, or Gimp, or any other large OSS project and tell me the scale is still off. Or were you claiming that I was off in the other direction? In which case... I might agree with you. ;-)

> But if I wanted to attempt to build my own Eiffel Tower in my backyard, why is it bad that I wish to do so? Maybe I just want to do it to see if I can accomplish it?

It depends entirely on your motive and goal. If your goal is to build it yourself, if your motive is just "see if I can build this with my own power" then there is nothing at all bad. I applaud that. If your goal is to make the best software to fill a certain gap, if it's to make the world a better place with the highest change/effort ratio, then I would argue that adding your knowledge & power to an already existing project is the better way.

Re: Liquidfun – 2D physics engine for games

#67

Post by rehevkor5 » Fri, Mar 21, 2014, 3:51 PM UTC

The liquid seems a bit compressible, more like balls of jello or rubber than water. Is that a difficult or costly problem to resolve when simulating liquids?