SoC People to bug on IRC

People to bug on IRC

We have prepared a list of people with their "area of competence". This is to give you an idea on which areas those people can be of help for you. Of course you should always just ask in the IRC chan, but those are the most likely ones to answer questions in the respective area. And here is the list:

boucman

As our "patch monkey" he accustomed to critiquing patches of every kind. Beside this, he knows many areas of the game due to working on applying patches. He is particularly used to answering question from new coders, and doesn't mind explaining trivial stuff. He was the one who started the "two patches, you're in" policy and the ReferenceWML part of the project.

Dave alias Sirp

Sirp started Wesnoth and is our lead developer. He is currently our C++ expert and is also the one that is working on the new Formula AI. Any questions regarding the formula AI should be directed to him.

Elias Pscherning (elias)

He wrote the original version of campgen and as such will know a lot about what is needed to to make such an editor work correctly. The work on a scenario editor might be based upon campgen and as such his knowledge will be really helpful.

Eric S. Raymond (ESR)

ESR is our project toolsmith; he has written several tools that semi-automate various aspects of WML maintenance. While most of our developers/designers concentrate on either the C++ core or WML but not both, he has a balanced understanding of both levels and may be helpful in helping students develop a grasp of the overall architecture. Finally, he did the last overhaul of the Wesnoth UI and understands UI design principles; he is well-equipped to guide students working in that area.

Karol Nowak (grzywacz)

Last year he participated at GSoC as a student, so he will understand the situation of GSoC students. Beside this he is our top expert on embedded devices, and is actively working on the gp2x support.

Mordante

Many of the possible projects involve the code for which he is an area expert. Also, many of the possible projects currently listed on the ideas page require GUI parts to work. Given that Mordante wants to tackle a rewrite of large parts of this, he will be our expert there as well as already being our area expert for the terrain engine.

Nils Kneuper (Ivanovic)

He is doing nothing special, he just does some "administrative work" like packaging fresh tarballs when it is time for them and works on setting up any kind of deadlines and timetables related to releasing. He has administrative powers in most areas, no matter if website, forum or IRC. Beside this he uploads translation updates, tries to communicate with the translation teams when it is required and translates a little bit himself every now and then. But in general he is not a real expert in anything, just has a look at things that come up and redirects people to the correct contacts.

Noy

Noy is an oddity among developers; he's got no coding skills whatsoever and possesses a limited understanding of computers, which is illustrated by his difficulty operating a Mac. Instead, Noy makes his contribution in gameplay and multiplayer design, drawing upon his background in social sciences research, military strategy and playing games online, to understand the effects of development on the playing community behavior. Along with Soliton, Noy is a useful conduit to discuss any issues in this area; just don't ask him about revising the level of randomness in the game.

Noyga

Another versatile developer, on the C++ side he doesn't concentrate on a particular area, did some tweaks to improve translations in some languages (like enabling the female forms for names in various place) but know quite well the C++ side of units, abilities and WML. On the WML side he's an expert.

Sapient

This developer started working on the GUI and widgets, but recently he focused more on improving the internal mechanics of the WML engine such as variable look-ups and filtering. Sapient is not very active anymore but he does come one IRC in the evenings (U.S.A.). He has touched-up many areas of the code in small ways over time, thus he has a good general knowledge of the C++ code and also has worked a little on some python maintenance scripts. He keeps an eye on the quality of incoming C++... especially if you plan on making any changes to GUI or WML, Sapient will be reviewing it closely and with a critical eye.

Shadow Master/ShikadiLord

He joined the development team very recently, but has enough knowledge to help newcomers with trivial questions about the code and/or the C++ language. His primary focuses are the various WML handlers, such as game events code. His knowledge of the WML language itself is also enough to answer most questions and solve most problems, but only if they are not related to multiplayer games. He also has some basic knowledge of the autotools machinery we use to configure Wesnoth for foreign computers.

Soliton

He knows our MP server setup best. Beside this he has already done a lot of work on the MP server himself. So he probably has most knowledge about it and, being one of our MP-developers, might provide important help from the perspective of the MP player community and what is needed there.

YogiHH or Piotr Cychowski (cycholka)

Since they are the two developers who know most about building under Windows, they will probably be really helpful. Either if the student comes from the Windows side, or to help test resulting work to make sure that it does work on Windows and, for the case that it does not, to show them where problems are.

zookeeper or Mythological or Rhuvaen

As our leading WML experts those are to be contacted when it comes to anything related WML problems since they know this stuff best. They do maintain most of the campaigns and improve them whenever they have a good idea for changes.

See also

Summer of Code Ideas - The root where all information regarding SoC is (or better should be) linked from.