My new Love/Hate Relationship with Dist::Zilla

Dist::Zilla is a great release tool, code generator, and it just plain takes the boring part of doing a release away from you.That having been said, it does, imo, horrible things to your source repository. "But, Caleb, it cleans up your source repository you can remove a lot of excess stuff you don't really need to be storing there". Well... I disagree, to the point that I've used every explicative in the book to express my displeasure. Let me explain why I disagree.

First let me explain my use cases. I have only one package on CPAN, Template::ShowStartStop and it's relatively simple to the point that Dist::Zilla is almost overkill (but I still find it nice). I also maintain a sizeable portion of CPAN on Arch Linux's AUR. In addition to standard CPAN Packaging for my own package I created a -git package which allows me to install directly from my source repository on Github. That worked wonderfully well until I started using Dist::Zilla (note: I haven't gotten a poorly working (read hack that's buggy) version now).

So Dist::Zilla is great for CPAN, no problem for normal downstream packages, but makes things more painful for Version Control Users. "But Caleb, it does nice things for me for version control". Yes it does, but I think it also has some consequences that people don't realize. If you know how Dist::Zilla works pretend that you don't.

Look at my repo What License is my code licensed under? usually this is in the COPYING file. There's no COPYING file there. How do I install it? No README either, oh and the module isn't complete as is things like version are stripped so Dist::Zilla can generate them for me. This list goes on and on all basically leading back to my issue. Why does Dist::Zilla have to take these things out of my source repository?

The answer was... you wouldn't store .o files in your repository would you? why would you store these generated files... oh I dunno... because someone shouldn't have to install Dist::Zilla just to use my latest git? and they aren't like .o files because those are binarily specific to a lot of things and won't be useful on most other machines, unlike these files.

Let's say Dist::Zilla has a bug in what they generate for code. They fix it, I update, all is good for me. Someone else who hasn't updated Dist::Zilla downloads the code and builds and hits the bug... they complain to me. I explain it to them, they update Dist::Zilla, they're happy, I'm happy. But we could have avoided this, if I stored all the output in my repo they'd never have to worry about Dist::Zilla.

So I've been told this will never be fixed because they don't want to clobber the existing files, plus the whole... these are like .o files, thing. Ok, clobber == bad. So how could we fix it so I'm happy? and everyones happy. We should a directory src shall be the source of all non generated code. Much like when working with compiled code you have a src directory for source files and a directory for output. the lib that's still here will be the final generated lib. All the top level files will also be generated. Only the stuff in src is what should be worked on. And the generated README will give all these wonderful instructions that will now be presented to users visiting the github repo. And when I'm writing a -git package I won't have to include any dzil instructions because I don't need to generate this code all the time.

and you know what? if people don't want to store generated files in there vcs they can always use something like .gitignore. So everybody should be happy.

For backcompat just make it a configuration in dist.ini. We can have a [src] dir which could be . for those who want it the way it works now. and an [output] dir.

Will Dist::Zilla be worth this pain? I'm not sure.

Dawn of War: Soulstorm

To start I just got this game so I will be expanding this review throughout the next few days.

First the Bad.

The intro movie (to the game) feels more cartoony than the previous ones, I don't like the style. I don't feel that it is on par with Relic's previous movies. This is a trivial complaint and perhaps merely artistic preference.

There doesn't seem to be a race intro movie like there was in Dark Crusade. I really enjoyed these they made it feel more like freeform campaign than a large free for all. The campaign intro is there and very well put in setting the stage like there was in Dark crusade.

Interplanetary map navigation is clumsy (might not be the word I'm looking for). On my laptop at 800x600 resolution it is hard to tell sometimes what territory you are hovering over, and you can't zoom in on the planets first. you must select the territory and attack or zoom in (can't think of game term) on it, once there you can see the surrounding territories but not select them. The map is semi 3d it would be nice if it could be zoomed and navigated as if the planets were real. The close up planet maps are tacky looking too, they seem less high quality than Dark Crusade.

I have yet to find any maps with special objectives (and rewards, like Dark Crusade's Spaceport) outside of enemy strongholds. I don't believe they exist unfortunately.

The only maps with special objectives (outside annihilate and take and hold) are the enemy strongholds. And these maps are mostly accomplished with annihilate. I admit the take and hold maps are difficult, mostly because they require you to go on the offensive early as you can't allow your enemy to have control.

The enemy strongholds do contain somewhat of a story... however it is less than it was in Dark Crusade, as it seems one way. There was a dialog between attacking and defending races in Dark Crusade. Now there seems to be just the movie, and some occasional banter on the attacking side but I have yet to see it be between the opposing armies commanders.

I believe that the Dark Eldar may be over powered. They are giving my Space Marines a run for their money on easy, and this is after I stomped the Orks and Tau. They have managed to beat Chaos as well, I find this odd on easy.

The Deep Strike power for the Space Marines seems to be bugged. I only figured out how to use it on my assault of the Tau Stronghold and it hasn't worked since. The Ork Special power was very hard to find work and it's description should be more clear. It will add infantry units to your territories (I haven't determined how). But perhaps even more useful is that it will replace 1 infantry unit in your honor guard per turn. If there is only one to replace it, will replace that one, otherwise I think it may replace the cheapest first. The Tau special power is barely useful, it merely downgrades the territory you are attacking by one just before you commit to the attack. I highly doubt Chaos's power will be useful either I've yet to have anything attempt to cut my supply line...

Both the Dark Eldar and Sisters of Battle are interesting races to play, and you will enjoy them if you enjoyed races of the previous games. I found soul harvesting for the Dark Eldar confusing at first, however there is an upgrade the to the 'slave-torture chamber (?)' that will produce souls, have 2 of those upgraded and 2 harvester's a piece and I was set for any battle. The Sister's of Battle's Faith resource I still haven't fully figured out what generates it (I believe units) however I've never had a problem attaining it.

Air support has been added to the races, it seems like a hack they don't move like they should and don't seem overly useful, although they can hit fairly heavy and quickly. Without a full range air force (bombers, fighters, stealth, cruisers, etc), air strategy just isn't there.

To summarize, the new races in Soulstorm are a worthy addition, Air support is a bad hack, there's less plot, and movies, and the map interface is cludgy.

I give this game a C grade, because I believe the developers could have done better and chose not to.

10,000 B.C

First, I enjoyed this movie. I'd give it a B grade as far as movies go. However, it can't possibly survive it's own hype. The CGI in the movie is awesome. The story is so, so. Historically it's wildly inaccurate, but you should have known that from the trailer. I won't be buying this one, nore probably watching it again. However, I think it is worth seeing at least once, and probably on the big screen just for the graphics.

The Eye (movie)

imdb entry

I went to see this the other night. Because NCG was having problem's with Cloverfield... and we were already there.

I didn't find it scary at all. A little creepy. The blurry vision and screaming death shadows were just annoying.

I did think that it might be an interesting concept for a Mage Awakening in Mage the Awakening RPG. Not as is of course.

Jumper (movie)

IMDB entry)

Saw this movie yesterday. It was Ok. It wasn't great, it wasn't horrible. I can't really say anything, good about it. But I can't say anything bad either. I enjoyed it, I won't be buying it, or seeing it again though.