United Bot
 

A very , very ambitous idea but it would be great if it could work out.

1. A 'United Bot', a bot that is made by the comminity (meaning , everyone who can code and has some serious contributions) for the community
2. A bot that supports a lot of mods (since the community decides)

What needed.

1. A place where the source is available
2. A program that can get your source updated without destroying your own made changes (and vice versa)
3. A good set of rules so the 'official bot code' gets updated with proper code.

I wonder how the guys at linux do this, they have millions of coders, yet they seem to create distribution packages which are continiously updated.

Note. If needed, i would like to strip down my code to a minimum to some sort of template... Or , just use the source as it is now. Anyway, i need some input/replies on this one.

Re: United Bot
 

I can setup a CVS servber for you guys ...

Re: United Bot
 

This is without any doubt THE goal to be achieved sooner or later, however it'll need a lot of discussion before even thinking about it at the algorithmic level. Let's take this by the right end.

The goal must be clearly defined, and all of us must agree on the features.
Then the general architecture of the bot (data structures) must be agreed upon.
Then each of its features has to be discussed at some technical level.
Then a work plan has to be devised.
ONLY then it'll be time to worry about CVS and who codes what...

Anyway I believe it'll be safer for each of us to bring our own projects to completion beforehand. We will then free our mind of them, and we will have gained even more experience.

For what it's worth... :)

Re: United Bot
 

i would be willing to stop realbot for this (or atleast, not working that much as i used to) to code/design something for our bot.

Re: United Bot
 

i'd rather agree with PM, better have one thing finished and gain some kind of same level. then make a real project, from first hand experience i would suggest this as a commercial setup:

- one is lead-programmer (usually no specific coding, just getting all work together and fixup small errors)
- most others have fixed fields of responsibility
- one makes prototype testing, regression test, test cases and perhaps the build, pakage and user doc's stuff

and the leader (el ultimo) makes the design stuff, preferably using some software desing software (there are simple UML editors or Toghether ($$$$$)) so incase someone leaves/idles/is bussy the code maintanance is not so painfull. prefeably you have one quality management guy who documents the process and enforces the usage of a intrgrated bugtracking system.

for the open source software it looks like this:
- if it's small one make all, a simple download and some basic "get it to work" doc's, after a longer time perhaps a mailinglist is started
- if gets moderate one make some sort of core coding [starting with a working proof if concept] and volunteers start to fix bugs and add/demand features, a mailinglist is started, cvs is usually not need, the community will start boards with tips/faq/patches; a very strong community
- if it gets popular more than one mailinglist is formed, a cvs is common, a team is anounced which has csv write access, one ore all are input point for the community for patches/wishes/help, good documentation and samples are needed to reduce questions, forums will become popular and need much care, if mentioned in a pc magazine the slashdot effect might come; but fame is certain
- if it grows real big and people are more and more relying on it you will need a core team which manages more than it codes, you will have branches and probably interessting job offers :)

it will be easier if you make clear guidelines and strict principels. my linux tv software (name it my tv does it *g*) happens still to be only 366 kb source code, since the main invetor made clear code, a plugin interface and never integrated stuff he didn't like or needed.

Cheers MeMeD

Re: United Bot
 

IMO a united bot, should be like a template bot, where components are plugged in, or default ones removed and replaced with alternate versions. The template idea may be best, because programmers can create their own alternate versions of the bot (diversity breeds innovation), and still retain a good standard to work with. Default components can be replaced with newer enhanced versions, allowing the bot to evolve to ever better forms. "Better" is an opinion, so anyone with coding skills could in princible replace or modify components to suit their vision of better. I think we'll have much less arguments of opinion over how the bot should perform and what it should do.

This type of project was attempted a few years ago, and there was a breif talk about it in botmans forums. It should be in the archives for reference. Someone (can't recall the details) had (or still has) a website with the details of the project.

Personally, I like the idea of us working on such a project. There's a lot of effort going into reinventing the wheel, but there's also a need to allow plenty of freedom to explore alternate methods - in a united way of course.

Re: United Bot
 

apart from the question how much this bot should support (in terms of games/mods) it would be indeed superb if you could use plugins.

So, you kinda have a code structure which loads DLL's which are specific parts of the bots brain. Like a pathfinder DLL for example.

Re: United Bot
 

Righto, that's why we need to agree on a common data structure and the APIs that come with them first.

botmeister, I wonder how interesting it would be to "integrate" this concept with the little things we were talking about by email... or the contrary.

Re: United Bot
 

yes, a working 'template' in this one would be neat. Perhaps using metamod can simplify things? hmm, nahh..

Re: United Bot
 

What we've been talking about would use the exact same concept, but would be a much larger project. I really would like to explore working on a bot first, because it is a relatively smaller project. We can gain experience with the concept, develop the needed techniques and experience, then move ahead with the larger project with a much better idea what to expect.

Re: United Bot
 

logically, you learn, you try something bigger, then you learn again, etc. Endless loop. Cognitive ;)

Anyway, can't wait to see this concept of you guys, because i have no clue of what you are talking about.

Re: United Bot
 

I found this discussion in botmans forum archive, I think it's kind of the same idea we're talking about.

Re: United Bot
 

I think this whole United Bot thread should be placed into a forum of it's own so it does not get buried away.

Here's some more ideas for a united bot:

1. If we proceed with a bot that can be built up using "plugin" parts, then we'll have to solve some interesting design challenges, which are generic and should apply to bot development outside HL.

2. A united bot will need a common API which should work across game engines. There would be an interchangeable plugin (or driver) for the bot that would be designed to work with each specific game engine - sort of like using a specific device driver that works with a specific video card, yet the software that uses the device driver does not care about which card is in use.

3. A new concept will have to be developed, I'll call it the Data API. Traditionally, an API is used as both for calling functions (FAPI) and for data interchage (DAPI). If you think about a united and generic bot for a while you'll see that the traditional API is not well suited for the task. The DAPI can allow for the generic interference free exchange of data between loosely integrated plugins that are designed to solve a common task.

More details on the DAPI:

Imagine that a plugin is created to replace the default aiming plugin which will perform more realistic aiming. The replacement plugin needs to add extra data fields to the common bot structure. Other plugins may or may not make use of the new data fields, and all existing data fileds must not be removed or interfered with in the process.

The concept of dynamically adding "sharable" data fields to a default structure, is what the DAPI will do. Each plugin can check to see what data fields exist or do not exist, and they can add their own data fields dynamically as the plugin is initialized without interfering with the needs of the other plugins. The DAPI can work for any structure, even for complex waypoint and navigation needs.

I can write volumes on this, so I better stop here for now and let other people chip in their own ideas.

*edit*

I just realized that the FAPI should be extended to make it dynamic, allowing the common interface to be extended as needed by each plugin. The DAPI idea is reasonably well thought out, and I even have something working already, but a dynamic FAPI is just a thought at this point, but I can see at least one method already (sort of).

Re: United Bot
 

I think it's not a thread nor a dedicated forum that we need. There are way too much concepts to comment here. We need a working wiki or something.

I'd be willing to write extensively about the API too, by writing a draft document. I don't believe in the DAPI concept but this would be lenghty to elaborate here.

Re: United Bot
 

I agree there will be many concepts to discuss and we will need a place to talk about this thing. Is a wiki the right tool for discussions? It may be the right tool for documenting the more or less final design decisions, but I did not think for discussing loose ideas.

For example, where can we talk about the API design if not in a forum? I'd love to hear what you have to say about a DAPI, etc, as we need something that is flexible enough for a multi game & multi plugin bot (if that's even what we decide to work on).

Re: United Bot
 

the wikki is working, only access controll does not (see my pm). so if you want it public, here you go :

http://server.bots-united.com/wiki/index.php

to be able to edit use your pop/imap username and password.
this is to keep nonsense away, i can change that on request to allow for editing w/o password.
(the login is in the lower right corner)

cheers

p.s. i love wikki wkki working, i now hereby declare www
a) beeing usefull again and
b) standing for wikki wkki working

Re: United Bot
 

I clicked on the wiki link but got this

The XML page cannot be displayed


Cannot view XML input using XSL style sheet. Please correct the error and then click the Refresh button, or try again later. Cannot have a DOCTYPE declaration outside of a prolog. Error processing resource 'http://server.bots-united.com/wikki/index.php/DeveloperWikki'. Line 4, Position 11

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"----------^

Re: United Bot
 

/edit
*rofl*

i changed the link to the start page, for IE users :-)

klick on DeveloperWikki to go to some prepared documents

edit/

/edit2
when loging in you will get some minor php errors, they should be harmless, just fyi.

edit2/

Re: United Bot
 

I still have the same error as botmeister.... and there are a lot of warnings too, especially at login :|

Re: United Bot
 

This is what I now get

lib/Theme.php (In template 'navbar') (In template 'top') (In template 'body') (In template 'html'):634: Warning[2]: dir(themes/default/buttons): failed to open dir: Permission denied



Fatal error: Call to a member function on a non-object in /home/bots-united.com/server/wikki/lib/Theme.php on line 635

Re: United Bot
 

/edit

ok, it was my fault, well kind off, this wikki is not able to run with restricted file access on the server (my script) so i disabled my script for the time beeing and changed the access rights.

it works now as expected, please retry folks.

edit/

cheers

Re: United Bot
 

still have problems with that page and IE, but opera rocks :P

Re: United Bot
 

use Netscape/Mozilla guys, they have selflearning spamfilter in the client, no world readable address book, default popup filter, java script controll, IRC or ICQ/AIM integration (mozilla irc/netscape icq+aim), callendar using webdav, tabbed browsing, gestures ,......

just to say it's slow ain't no reason :-)

Re: United Bot
 

I use IE for one single reason: it's integrated in Windows :)

Re: United Bot
 

the wiki is now named wiki, my mistake.

cheers anyway, and please ppl. remember to use it, i like that wikki stuff very much, its easy to edit and easy to link.
wiki wiki means fast :)

also i found out why .htaccess did not work, it the base server directives.. i will change that

Re: United Bot
 

ok, wiki rules, i will make e fully fledged wikki w/o edit restrictions (http://wiki.bots-united.com) and make a protected wiki for the internel server stuff.

the wiki now running will just be moved, so don't hesitate to used it, nothing will get lost.

Re: United Bot
 

I still get this error:



La page XML ne peut pas être affichée Impossible d'afficher l'entrée XML en utilisant la feuille de style XSL. Corrigez l'erreur, puis cliquez sur le bouton Actualiser ou réessayez ultérieurement. Une déclaration DOCTYPE n'est pas autorisée à l'extérieur d'un prologue. Erreur de traitement de la ressource http://server.bots-united.com/wiki/index.php. Ligne 4, Position 11

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"----------^makes me think there must be a problem with the style sheets maybe... or the wiki templates. The error says a DOCTYPE directive (the one above) is sent twice, after the HTML headers have already been sent.

Re: United Bot
 

looks like IE messes up the XML doctype and then refuses to work. i had this on the first requies with IE 5.5 too, but after hitting reload it woked.
perhaps w/o index.php ? im not shure.

i will check the page with validator tools to be shure what to balme ;)

well it's my one , as allways :-)

Netscape does not care about unclean html (i.e. a page w/o body and w/o closing head tag) i.e. does.
but the real problem is i.e. he makes the refresh (meta tag in the /wikki/index.html, to /wiki/) but continues to read the /wiki/index.php and interprets them together as if the where one document. this is not the intention of a refresh meta tag as i expected !?!?

anyways it should now work cleanly, no more error at all :-)

Re: United Bot
 

The idea with the "template bot" is great! Go for it!



p.s.
Memed is right: get the best browser in the world.
http://www.mozilla.org/products/mozilla1.x/

Re: United Bot
 

I guess all the links with a question mark in front are not active yet? In the Wiki... Is this a wiki thread or a united-bot thread?

Re: United Bot
 

this is the way you start a wiki:

klick on the question mark [and register/choose a username when ist's the first time],
then you can edit that wiki link. each word written like this WikiWordToBeEdited will become a wiki link, and until someone edit's it, it's grey with a question mark.
kick on the question mark to edit.

that it, there are no dead links, they are simply not yet filled :-)

p.s. the login is in the lower right corner, and you name must be a WikiWord, like OnnoKreuzinger, or PeterPan or BadBoy. this name is some kind of nick, w/o any special meaning, but it makes sense to see who wrote what.

p.p.s. some links to explain it broader:

how to add pages:
http://server.bots-united.com/wiki/i...hp/AddingPages

Re: United Bot
 

About the DOCTYPE issue:
IE expects the DOCTYPE declaration only in the first line of document, nowhere else.

@memed:
In one of the last issues of the c't the was an article about how different browsers/versions handle those DOCTYPEs...

Re: United Bot
 

yes, that fits my explanation, IE concanated the first document with the second, thus having the doctype not in the first line. anyways, a refresh should read a new document und not mess them up ...


cheers

Re: United Bot
 

I'm not sure but maybe the reason for this is using "1" instead of "0" as parameter to the "content" argument in
<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="1; URL=/wiki">.

Re: United Bot
 

no, i just stoped editing the html file after the refresh meta tag, so no and no body at all, both illegal html, but i wonder why that I.E. puts two different html files together, i expect that to cause security problems (i.e. context of the first page accessed while also loading and executing the second file and its scripts). maybe, maybe not anyone interessted to test 9_9

with mozilla that html worked as expected, and opera seems to work too, with broken html files.thats why i did not finish the first html at all. *g* im too busy in too many things at once.

b.t.w.
the value 0 indicates only to wait 0 seconds, thats a perfectly legal value. (selfhtml can be quite usefull)

oh and THX for thinking along (mitdenken), i just read your glibc2.3 debian thread

Re: United Bot
 

I stopped wondering about IE a loooooong time ago :P.