[ODE] documentation initiative

[Mike Wuetherick]

i disagree completely - we have integrated literally about a dozen 
different open-source packages into our game engine over the course of 
several years of development, and NONE have flat-out stumped me like ODE 
has.

if i can't just open a project or workspace, point the compiler at the 
proper includes & lib files then something is wrong with how the project 
is built.

i hate to say it but it's true.

the whole 'config.h' setup and cryptic build process is a MAJOR source 
of the problems with ODE, and as was pointed out previously, getting rid 
of the whole 'prebuild' steps, etc will remove a lot of the 'getting 
started' issues that are present.

what percentage of the games market is windows-based?  how many 
developers in that market use visual studio?

sure there is cross-platform development going on, but if you remove the 
one major platform that EVERYONE has to build on - if you are creating 
commercial games you are building for visual studio on windows pretty 
much - you remove a major source of difficulties for people getting 
started with the engine.

i haven't even gotten to the point of looking at the ODE internals and 
how to 'use' it because i haven't gotten past the building step.

i know i'm not the guru that most of you guys seem to be, 
programming-wise, but i'm also not unfamiliar with setting up and 
integrating other libraries.  ode is the ONLY one i've run into this 
situation with.

just my 2 1/2 bits.

cheers
mike w
www.realityfactory.ca

Jon Watte wrote:
 > If I may be perfectly honest, I think that most of the
 > recurring questions on this list (not all, but most) have
 > to do with linkage or compilation issues. Almost all of
 > those have to do with the tool set used by the asker, not
 > with ODE per se. It's un-clear to me how ODE tutorials
 > can solve THAT problem -- i e, people asking us how their
 > own, un-related tools, work.
 >
 > Unless you want to create a tutorial for every compiler,
 > linker, and project manager under the sun, that is. Maybe
 > you have lots of spare time :-)
 >
 > Cheers,
>