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Godot Engine official documentation
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Suggest building server in debug mode first and most prominently #5360

Closed johnfn closed 3 years ago

johnfn commented 3 years ago

Issue description:

The docs suggest to build a release build for server builds. The first thing you'll want to do when working on multiplayer games is to make a debug build, so we should probably suggest that first. The documentation should have 3 commands to paste into the terminal - the debug server build, the release server build, and the headless build.

I make this suggestion because I followed the instructions and didn't realize that I was in release mode for a while (because I didn't expect that to be what I had built).

URL to the documentation page (if already existing):

https://docs.godotengine.org/en/stable/development/compiling/compiling_for_osx.html#compiling-a-headless-server-build

Calinou commented 3 years ago

An headless editor build can be used as a game server, and it's always a debug build (like any editor build). Therefore, I'm not sure we need to advertise building a debug server build as a recommended solution. It's exactly like standard export templates; generally, using an editor build is sufficient to perform debugging.

Nonetheless, it doesn't hurt to mention it for completeness' sake.

Note that in Godot 4.0, the server platform has been removed in favor of the --headless switch. It works with any Godot binary on any platform.

johnfn commented 3 years ago

Let me give you my perspective of how a novice (me :P) reads these lines, with all my misconceptions intact:

To compile a headless build which provides editor functionality to export projects in an automated manner, use:

My thoughts: Huh? I don't need editor functionality. I just want a local sever to run on the terminal. This seems like overkill, maybe it's for CI or something - I don't really understand the purpose of this.

"To compile a server build which is optimized to run dedicated game servers"

My thoughts: Ah yes, that sounds like exactly what I want! (Obviously, I'm wrong here :P)

Note: if the first option IS what I want, perhaps a line about "this is the ideal choice for a local development server" would be useful.

Anyway, the 4.0 change sounds great - can't wait! 😉