Friday Facts #62 The automation of Factorio

[kovarex]

The report of me almost loosing my mind, but fixing bugs in the process is here:

https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-62

[DeathMoon]

Great

Update 4.11.2014?
But I cant find/download it xD

[Align]

You accidentally got 2 extra slashes when embedding the video: https://// instead of https://

Great

Update 4.11.2014?
But I cant find/download it xD

That's supposed to be 4-12-2014, which is Thursday next week

[WoodyDaOcas]

Can't wait, the game is already awesome and wehn MP will be more stable and playable (even with all the DyTech mods, which is not helping it, I guess ) it will be awesome ! Thanks and have a nice weekend )

[GewaltSam]

There are 8 desync bugs fixed already and when looking at some of those, I'm wondering how can people play the 0.11.3 for hours without desync, they are probably super lucky, or they are just byte magicians

Ah well... can't say it gets any easier, but if you love something as much as the factorio multiplayer, you also learn to live with all those desyncs in some way... I am really excited for the next patch, we got great things planned (that aren't possible right now).

[kovarex]

You accidentally got 2 extra slashes when embedding the video: https://// instead of https://

Great

Update 4.11.2014?
But I cant find/download it xD

That's supposed to be 4-12-2014, which is Thursday next week

Great

Update 4.11.2014?
But I cant find/download it xD

Thanks, both is fixed now.

[LordFedora]

When the automated tests are finished, will we (ever) have access to it, so when we are trying to (failing at) making mods we can see whats going wrong

Will it even load (eventually) new stuff added in mods? /will the mod makers be able to add tests?

Can i just run that myself so i can watch it, cause that's cool...

[SHiRKiT]

I hope it turns games with 3 people playable with 200ms =/ Currently we're facing some annoying issues, experiencing lag every so often.

[cpy]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Azz-6oT08c

[-root]

When the automated tests are finished, will we (ever) have access to it, so when we are trying to (failing at) making mods we can see whats going wrong

Will it even load (eventually) new stuff added in mods? /will the mod makers be able to add tests?

Can i just run that myself so i can watch it, cause that's cool...

I believe there is already a test of sorts left in the game folders???

[ssilk]

About loosing your mind: Kovarex, do you make regular pair programming?
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pair_programming

If not, or only very seldom, I would really recommend this. The reason is, that pair programming will help you to keep your mind together in such situations. And on the long run it increases the productivity. And it is a lot more fun, if doing it right.

In the beginning it is hard. You need to continuously check, if you are really doing it, or if you are doing something, which looks like pair programming. There are good articles about it in the Internet (can send a list if interested), which help in this process. But also books or videos are useful. The pain is, when the driver needs to begin to explain everything but is normally a very silent one, or the navigator doesn't understand anything and doesn't dare to say this or when both tries to sit 4 hours on keyboard and the other is only watching and playing with his mobile phone.

We hire on regular intervals an expert about PP, which makes a workshop for the company (whoever thinks he needs it) and looks into special situations. Comes next week again. That helped also a lot. I can procure, if wanted.

But I can from own experience say: PP rocks! We managed to bring developers, which are completely new to an expert level within 3 month on a 15 years old project with about 1 million lines of code and about 50 person-years of development. Code that is really, really ugly written and not understandable, even for me.

So my recommendation is
- read all into this theme,
- make checklists, what you need to look for
- plan the times you do PP
- change driver and navigator regularly within the times and much more such rules
- make party, if you found the bug together
- make a short retrospective with the partner after your PP session: what was good and where is the delta.
- hire someone, which looks at your special problems (you will find some)

PS: PP is also possible via Internet. But it is more complicated, cause you need special tools (ok, for the start a Skype with screen sharing might help, but what you really need is an editor where both can interact). I would try to make it with Cuba first and then see.

[BlackMarine220]

To be completly honest, I live in Slovakia and my friend has moved to Finland. We have usualy 120 ping between us. The game is in constant desync, in hour or so it desynchronize completly (+it has to download whole map again) about 2 times, but it happens in MP only. We have stopped to play it till fix. Hopefully, it will help a great deal.

[renea]

Good to hear the automation is moving forward
. Don't worry too much about the current state. There is something addictive about seeing the count/coverage numbers rise
Pretty soon you'll have decent coverage of the 'active' parts of the code.

we try to cover the most tricky situations and the most complicated parts of the code first, so it helped to find lot of problems already

That is my experience too, just adding tests to "working" code will find bugs...

You already found this out, but for developers reading this without automated tests in their work:
Tests force you to look at the code in a different way. You'll have to take a step back and look at the code from a different angle.
You effectively look over code twice (minimum): one time you are working on making it work, one time to make the tests.
right NOW you know that scenario X might fail, you coworker (or future self) will not...

[Xterminator]

Wow great job! Having all these tests automated is a huge step forward and will definitely help increase productivity. May I go as far to say you have created your own Productivity module? :p
Can't wait for the new build next week!

[Pouf]

I second pair programming, it works wonders and it is so enjoyable !

[Snakey]

That video of your automated test is so cool ... I wish our tests were only half as sexy as this.

[Zeeth_Kyrah]

I just wanted to say thank you, thank you, for doing all that work on optimization and multithreading! Now that the renderer runs in a separate thread from the world engine, my computer (which has weak CPU and cheap graphics card) can actually keep up with the game and not stutter except when a backup save happens. It is wonderful to see inserters running at full speed and feel the player avatar not slow down as if running in wet cement! Unfortunately, it also means the enemies come at me much faster, but that just make the game challenging again, so it's all good.

I haven't tried multiplayer yet, but my new favorite thing is the tank. It feels so GOOD to steamroll a base full of spitters, biters, and worms with a tank full of piercing bullets and shells, and a hotbar full of repair tools. It is like being a rampaging god sometimes and is very fun, except when I accidentally crush my own base with it! I had better drive more carefully.