[Meeting] 4th March, 2020

[Wodann]

Participants:

• @kabergstrom
• @aclysma
• @Wodann

Minutes:

• Decision making (#88)

  • Due to varying availability, decision making should happen in an asynchronous manner on Github
  • To prevent too much work falling on few shoulders, we should consider adding more people with rights on the Github repos

• Rust survey (#21)

  • Iteration times (@Wodann)
  • @Wodann is working on the Mun scripting language, which is designed around hot reloading - which reduces iteration times.
  • @aclysma mentioned WASM as an potential alternative for scripting (that could also be written in Rust for more performance), but its still immature.
  • @aclysma and @kabergstrom are working on the atelier asset management system for quicker iteration times (specifically undo/redo)
  • Rust adoption roadmap
  • @aclysma thinks the way to go is to perfect the PC development story. Then consoles will follow
  • It is .. to expect AAA studios to adopt Rust for game engines when they have huge legacy code bases
  • Documentation
  • High-level tutorial documentation on how to implement integrated gamedev demos is missing. It would be good to show off the strengths of Rust's dependency management.
  • Writing documentation could be a "good first issue" as it is a valuable skill to have on your resume
  • @kabergstrom found an interesting technical writing course

• Standardised API for sharing thread pools [/executors] needs someone to champion (#75)

  • The issue has been updated with a more accurate problem description

• What to do with the Matrix trial? (related to #81)

  • The fewer IM clients, the better. Should we terminate our usage of Matrix?
  • What is Discord lacking that we are looking for in other IM apps?

• Amethyst / Legion merge is looking for contributors (@kabergstrom)

• Amethyst's atelier asset management system is looking for contributors (@kabergstrom)

[Lokathor]

Re: Matrix / Discord: Some people will not use Discord. Full stop. End of story.

On the other hand, Matrix is pretty garbage.

So I totally get why some people wouldn't want to use Matrix so much, but if we don't have that there it just cuts off some non-zero portion of the population.

[AlexEne]

I think it's the same one in the other direction. Some ppl will not use matrix full stop. So i agree, it is what it is and maybe a bridge thing is needed.

For the threadpool stuff @bitsifter might be the right person but I am unsure if he wants to officially volunteer haha

[Wodann]

Would the people who are not willing to use Discord (e.g. @kvark), be willing to use Zulip?

My main concern is spreading the limited resources of our wg members and simplifying on-boarding for new members. The simpler we can make our workflow and communication, the better.

We originally launched Matrix as a test case. Since not everyone can attend video calls, we investigated text meetings on Discord/Matrix, but I feel like those IM clients lack features to structure discussion. Zulip does have this feature using "named threads". I see three options:

1) We also try text-based meetings using Zulip on the rust-lang Zulip server. After several meetings we decide between Discord/Matrix/Zulip. 2) We stop text-based meetings using Matrix and instead have discussions on Github to ensure everything is properly recorded. 3) We properly support multiple IM clients by making a bridge between Discord and Matrix. This potentially increases the workload on the WG members, as we need to maintain the bridge. Another concern is whether people who do not want to use Discord in the first place, object against a bridge that crossposts their content!

[kvark]

Fine by me... the problem with Zulip is that you can't have all Zulip rooms in the same tab. You'll need to explicitly switch between rooms. You may even need separate account for each zulip server?..

[Lokathor]

You can log into the rust-lang zulip server with github.

I don't know if other servers need other tabs, I know that all rust-lang streams are a single tab.

[kvark]

IIRC, you can create an account on a particular Zulip server using your Github credentials as the basis, and then login with github. But it doesn't neglect the fact that there is still a separate account per server.

[ozkriff]

@ozkriff (02/25/2020): btw, it's sad that we don't have a bridge bot between this chat and https://matrix.to/#/#rust-gamedev-wg:matrix.org :frowning:

@XAMPPRocky (she/her) (02/25/2020): @ozkriff if that's something that already exists you could ask the mod team about it. There are other working groups on matrix so it would be useful for more than just channel.

(from WG's Discord)

Btw, could somebody who understands these things investigate how hard it's to connect all the chats with a bridge bot, please?

[XAMPPRocky]

Hello, I think I can clarify some of the questions on zulip.

Fine by me... the problem with Zulip is that you can't have all Zulip rooms in the same tab.

Maybe this was based on an old version but in the current version there is a "All messages" tab that contains every stream you're subscribed to. This does also include also include private messages. You can also input streams:public into the search field to see a feed of every public stream.

IIRC, you can create an account on a particular Zulip server using your Github credentials as the basis, and then login with github. But it doesn't neglect the fact that there is still a separate account per server.

That is correct, Zulip does not have any kind of federation to keep your identity across servers, so your private messages and profile won't be shared across servers. Whether that's good or bad depends on who you are, everything comes with tradeoffs.

[aclysma]

I'd like to try zulip. I don't especially like having both riot and discord (unless they were bridged.) Zulip seems like a different format and I think something in between GitHub issues and raw chat would be a great fit.

If we don't bridge the two, and one of them is in practice relatively dead, I think we should drop it for now.

[smokku]

• Rust adoption roadmap

  • @aclysma thinks the way to go is to perfect the PC development story. Then consoles will follow
  • It is .. to expect AAA studios to adopt Rust for game engines when they have huge legacy code bases

There is this approach: > How I Wrote a Modern C++ Library in Rust

[Ralith]

A discord-matrix bridge can be established by following the instructions at https://t2bot.io/discord/.