The "gamma" label is my fault. I forgot the order (though I guess it is 
pretty obvious). The official label of the current version is "pre-alpha".

I have never seen game design done this way. Speed comes from architecture. 
Anyone that tries to build a fast system and then fit an architecture to it 
will never ship a game.

DAS


At 10:19 PM 12/4/2002 -0500, you wrote:
>On Wed, Dec 04, 2002 at 09:27:03PM -0500, PhiHo Hoang wrote:
> > > We haven't done any performance testing or tweaking at this point.
> >
> >     According to Alan, 'This is a "gamma" release' already.
> >     (alpha and beta were not released ?)
>
>I noticed that, too.  I took the liberty of interpreting that as
>"pre-alpha".  Was it 3.2 that had a gamma phase right before it was
>finalized?
>
>I would normally expect gamma to mean "the release to polish off the
>final bugs, and get some input from the community about shortcomings
>in the documentation, etc".
>
> >
> >     Is it still too early for preformance testing ?
> >
> >     I remember reading somewhere, game/game engine
> >     developing should go thru 3 steps in order:
> >
> >     1/- First, make it fast, things should move at supersonic speed
> >     (and who cares about few pixels off here and there.)
> >
> >     2/- Second, make it correct  (hey, look at that guy, he's
> >     been fighting for hours and has not a signle drop of sweat
> >     on his face :-)
> >
> >     3/- Third, make it right (like exposing props/attrs
> >     through interface instead of exporting them ;-)
>
>This isn't really traditional game engine design.  For instance, one
>of the explicit goals is to support end-user programming.  Therefore,
>3 isn't an afterthought to be addressed if there happens to be time.
>
>Joshua
>
> >
> >     Anyway, thanks for the info, Andreas.
> >
> >     Cheers,
> >
> >     PhiHo.
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Andreas Raab" <andreas.raab at gmx.de>
> > To: <squeak-dev at lists.squeakfoundation.org>
> > Sent: Wednesday, December 04, 2002 4:44 AM
> > Subject: RE: Croquet alpha release(s?)
> >
> >
> > > >     How would you compare, performance-wise, Croquet to
> > > >
> > > >         1/- RuneScape http://www.runescape.com
> > > >
> > > >         2/- WildTangent http://www.wildtangent.com
> > >
> > > We haven't done any performance testing or tweaking at this point.
> > >
> > > > > but the addition of the TeaTime collaboration object model/protocol
> > > > > and the new scripting architecture will have a dramatic impact
> > > > > on the nature of how you program for the system.
> > > >
> > > >     Does it have any impact on performance ?
> > >
> > > Yes and no. It's sort of comparing C and Smalltalk - from the "raw"
> > > perspective of microbenchmarks it will certainly be much slower. Yet, it
> > > won't matter (or not very often) since what you're doing is to 90%
> > > graphics bound and then the added flexibility and resiliency of the
> > > architecture will kick in.
> > >
> > > Cheers,
> > >   - Andreas
> > >
> > >