TDN is up with T2d Section

#1 Yeah, I popped over there after reading that plan. Still a few rough edges, and a lot of stuff doesn't seem to exist at the moment but it looks to be shaping up nicely.

The link to the top of the T2D pages gives me a 'only available to T2D owners type error' (despite logging in), so you might want to try this link: tdn.garagegames.com/wiki/Template:T2DScript

#2 Yeah I think that error might be the first time you visit it without it knowing who you are. I had the same error from following the one from bens plan. The link works for me but I am logged in now.

#3 I logged in fine when it was announced. I made the mistake of trying to change the skin of the site. And now it simply says 'you must be logged in' for everything. CLick login...loads for a while, goes back to 'you must be logged in'...It's beta, and they're probably tweaking it....but...I WANT IT! :)
So far I think TDN is the greatest thing to happen to me since T2d.

#4 I've found that sometimes I need to log-out, close my browser and fire it up again and log-in. After that, everything works fine. Yeah, it's just a beta, all these bugs will get ironed out quickly.

The potential for TDN is huge.

- Melv.

#5 Shame we don't have the latest version of T2D to go with the platform tut, Hint Hint :P

#6 If you browse TDN it's mainly empty outlines and partially written articles. Oh well maybe in a year TDN will magically transform into something better, but for now I am not at all impressed. I know I shouldn't be so cynical; I just had higher expectations I guess.

#7 And I know it's a "community driven" wiki type of thing;

but for some reason I was hoping for official garagegames Torque documentation to be unveiled with TDN but it's clear now that documentation does not exist.

#8 @Alex: I don't mean to be rude here, but have you noted the beta nature of TDN, as well as the fact that there are over 7,000 pages of documentation involved when you take into account all of the products GG provides?

Our options would be something like:

A) Charge 35 times the price of our products so that we could staff the 100+ tech writers needed to port all of that documentation to TDN in anything under a year.

B) Open TDN in a beta state to the community that has proven to be quite amazingly able to help each other on the forums can assist with the herclean task of moving and improving the existing documentation.

Finally, for T2D specifically, the documentation in the 1.1 update has been increased by more than 300%. Part of the 1.1 release is that documentation, and you can either use what's there in the format it will be released in, or we could delay the release of 1.1 another 3 months to put it into TDN for you.

#9 @Stephen, 100+ tech writers huh? So, how many technical writers ARE actually employed by Garagegames?

I don't mean to belittle what is certainly a monster of a documentation challenge, no matter how you slice it. Nonetheless I am dissapointed with the emptiness of TDN, BETA or not.

And I said nothing about T2D 1.1 update... T2D is shaping up to have much better docs than TGE or TSE especially if it has 3x as much documentation in the next release.

Alex

P.S.
Just back from Borders w/ copy of Advanced 3D Game Programming

#10 I have been in the GG's community for longer then most people. Apart from GG's employees and maybe some former Dynamix employees I have been using TorqueScript for longer then anyone else. I'm tired of seeing the same whine over and over about the lack of documentation.

There is documentation out there, it may not tell you how to do the feature you want... but it is out there. For reference, TGE documentation.. I hear the same complaint over and over... "There's not enough documentation". I figured it out one day. There were roughly 16,000 pages of documentation for TGE, enough documentation that if printed would be roughly 20 volumes and would cost several hundred dollars to print via Cafepress.

T2D probably doesn't have quite that much, but the numbers will be simliar. This doesn't include the Books that members of the community have and are publishing.

As for where is the "Official" GarageGames documentation? Umm that's what TDN is. Over the past 5 years the community has been the driving force behind the documentation. Either voluntarily, as an Intern or through commercial ventures.

#11 16,000 pages?! No wonder I can't find how inheritance works with ScriptObject it must be on page 15,999.

I hope the garagegames staff keeps editorial control over TDN enough to transform it into QUALITY documentation. Page count is not a very useful metric IMHO. Having quality (concise, complete, accurate, current) docs is what I am interested in.

For the record, I would happily shell out $ for quality docs on Torque. Printed, download, subscription , whatever. When I was a Blender user I bought the hardcopy of the Blender Manual (a fine technical manual btw ) when there was an .html version available for free.

Alex

P.S. Just back from Borders w/ copy of Advanced 3D Game Programming

#12 @Alex: Yes, I was being (slightly) sarcastic...and we understand the fact that T2D users don't currently have access to the core TGE documentation. In fact (as I've stated several times), this was one of the primary reasons why TDN evolved as a better solution.

And I agree with you as well: numbers are not a good metric for the useabilty of documentation. They are however an excellent metric for the amount of work that is required to move everything over into TDN.

Finally, there are zero tech writers on staff at GarageGames. See my (again, sarcastic, but only slightly) comment about the cost of Torque vs the cost of generating documentation of more than 500,000 lines of core TGE code, as well as the hundreds of thousands of lines in TSE, T2D, TNL, RTS-SK, and the various content packs.

And to your particular question about "how inheritence works with ScriptObject"---ScriptObject is a class within T2D, and inherits just like any other C++ class. If you don't understand how C++ inheritence works, I suggest you survey the hundreds of C++ reference books on the market.

#13 @Stephen, OK I am plenty familiar with inheritance, the concept. I have coded in Python, Objective-C and Java. Also I own TGE as well as T2D so I have access to all the existing TGE documentation. I have re-read this page a bunch of times
www.garagegames.com/docs/tge/general/ch05s02.php.

Torquescript constructors, destructors, and how to call a method of parent class from the child class are what I'm struggling with, but I am sure I will figure it out after I google garagegames.com some more. Labrat has probably explained it in the forums a dozen times.

Thanks

#14

Quote:There is documentation out there, it may not tell you how to do the feature you want... but it is out there. For reference, TGE documentation..

Please don't forget that T2D users don't get the full documentation. Also, keep in mind that T2D is targetting a different kind of user than TGE. T2D is meant to be an easy solution if you want to code a 2d game - having a good documentation is essential for this.

IIRC alot of new users tend to ask for better documentation. Then they are told that they should be ashamed to ask such a thing.
And the reason is even better... if writing such a documentation is such a big task - how is a new user supposed to work with that thing? The functions are still there - but he doesn't know about them and they aren't that well documented either.

Having a helpful community is always a good thing. But using that community as one of the main documentation resources for a commercial product isn't actually good a service.

Quote:Finally, there are zero tech writers on staff at GarageGames. See my (again, sarcastic, but only slightly) comment about the cost of Torque vs the cost of generating documentation of more than 500,000 lines of core TGE code, as well as the hundreds of thousands of lines in TSE, T2D, TNL, RTS-SK, and the various content packs.

Well, having a good or at least a better documentation would help you getting more customers. Or at least make sure that the potential buyer knows what amount of documentation he'll get when he spends the money to buy the product.

EDIT:
Also, since writing documentation afterwards is always a bad idea, I assume that T2D is now documented while it is developed, right? Just to make sure that there isn't such a huge pile of undocumented stuff to begin with?

#15 @Lennart : I mean no disrespect, friend. From what I understand. T2d is still an early adopter product, right? When you do decide to buy it, it is clearly stated that you're getting basic docs and that's it. If it is not covered in the docs, simply start a forum topic. Well...you know how to do that, obviously :)

So, of course the documentation is not final. The product is in its beta stage, although a very very very very advanced beta.

TDN is also in a beta form right now. Most of us are anxious to participate and help fill it with useful code, techniques and tutorials. When T2d will be final, TDN will be more than ready to answer every question anybody may have about it. Keep in mind that TDN also offers tutorials that you will probably never need : How to create a platformer, shooter, puzzle type game, etc etc. Imagine if the documentation was written by one guy, who had to cover every possible use of the engine in his docs? That would be completely impossible. This is why this community is so important.

#16 T2D is in early adopter and TDN is in beta... this is not the time to bring down and trash the engine or docs, these are phases to build it up and make posotive suggestions :)

Wish I could've gotten a lot of T2D docs on there but was just too busy with college final project, which never got finished to demo at IGC, (just got back from IGC, its 1:22 am and I'm about to crash to get up at 6:00am to start my final week of college classes)...

Really look forward to seeing us in this awesome community build up some killer docs like we've built up the community itself :)

#17 I swear, this must be exactly why GG have been so hesitant about releasing stuff to the community in early adopter/beta status.

"Check it out, guys, we've got a beta of the documentation out, take a look, see what you think so far."
"OMG the docos suck, there's not enough stuff in there, why doesn't it cover every possible permutation of everybody's possible issues?"

*sigh*

#18 Alex... you're right... I think I have posted a couple times about how to use the classes and superclasses with ScriptObjects (look for Namespace). It's also something that I or someone else will probably move over to TDN at some point. Right now I'm on a tiny laptop in Eugene coming down from an IGC high.. Otherwise I'd probably spend some time to dig out the post and give an actual response.

Look at how your posts evolved. You started out by simply stating "The documentation sucks"

Only after others replied did you actually point out WHAT you wanted information on. A topic which has been covered in the forums at one point.

#19 @Lennart, Alex, etc:

Teck pretty much nailed it, as well as LabRat: The short of it is that we know there are issues for the T2D folks, and quite frankly it caught us unprepared. In a perfect world, everything would have been ready at once, and every single bit of information you want/need would be at your fingertips...but T2D also wouldn't have been available to anyone in that "perfect world" for at least another year, and probably three.

We have absolutely zero problem with people asking questions (well, unless those questions have been asked and answered hundreds of times, and the new poster hasn't at least tried to search on a few keywords), and do our best to answer them as quickly and accurately as possible.

However, when the posts come as "this sucks, that sucks, you suck", who in their right minds would be willing to spend the time to get into the middle of that furball? When the expectation is already set by the tone of the original post, it's a hugely uphill battle to try and change it.

We want the information in your hands as quickly as feasible, and as accurately as possible. We recognize the issues involved, and the difficulties the EA T2D owners run into, and we are doing our best to resolve the situation.

Think about it for a minute: Ben Garney, the Torque Technologies Director, is the lead on the TDN project--that's the guy that develops and manages an extremely large portion of all of our Torque product line...that right there should reinforce just how important this really is to us at GG to you.

#20 @Labrat,

Quote:Look at how your posts evolved. You started out by simply stating \\\"The documentation sucks\\\"

OK now this is too much. I did not say the documentation "sucks", literally or otherwise. Thanks for putting words into my mouth. Did I have some critical feedback? Yes. Do you guys just want Torque cheerleaders or do you want honest feedback about your product (of which documentation is part of, believe it or not).

@Stephen, you are right, having a Ben Garney lead up the TDN project does reinforce how important docs are. If it were my decision to make (it ain't, obviously), I would throw some technical writers into the mix as well.