Subject: What's up with REND386

From: Bernie Roehl <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 22 Jan 94 10:46:55 EST

It's been a while since the last release of REND386, and I've received
mail from a number of people who have been wondering what's up.

Several months ago, Dave Stampe and I were discussing future directions for
REND386.  We both noticed several things:

   - not very many applications were being written using REND386
   - not very many people (other than Dave and myself) were adding to REND386
   - it was difficult, even for us, to enhance REND386 in its present form

These problems could all be traced back to the sheer complexity of the source
code.  REND386 grew (and grew, and grew) and many of its features were added
as an afterthought, not part of the original design.  In short, REND386 had
become a messy program.

There are good reasons why this is the case.  Back when we first started
working on REND386, neither Dave nor I knew much about computer graphics;
we do now!   And knowing what we know now, there are a number of things that
we would do differently if we had it to do all over again.

Although Dave and I both realized what the problems were, we ran up against
a fundamental disagreement about how to solve them.  Dave felt that we should
build on the existing REND386 foundation, and spend time cleaning up and
reorganizing the existing code.  I felt that it would be better to do a
complete rewrite from scratch, using what we've learned with REND386 to
produce a better, perhaps even faster rendering engine.

Since it's impossible to follow both those approaches at once, and since both
Dave and I can be very strong-willed at times, we've come to a parting of the
ways.

[Another factor that entered into the decision was that Dave and I had
been having disputes about who wrote what, and the relative amounts each of
us had contributed; this created some strain in our working relationship.]

What does all this mean for the future of REND386?  Well, three things are
going to happen.  First, Dave is proceeding with his reorganization of the
code, and will be renaming it and putting his copyright on all the modules
he rewrites.

Second, I'll be finishing up my work on a simplified API for REND386, which
will hopefully make it easier to program with; this will be released in
about a month's time as REND386 version 6.  It's safe to say that this 
will be the *final* version of REND386.

Third, I'll be proceeding with developing a new rendering engine.  My own
goals are as follows:

   - make it easy to develop applications with
   - make it more portable than REND386 (to other compilers and platforms)
   - add new features that were difficult or impossible to add to REND386

Both Dave and I are eager to get other programmers involved with what we're
doing; if you're an interested (and *experienced*) programmer and have some
time to spend on a project, feel free to get in touch with either or both
of us.

At this point, some of you will be feeling a bit like kids in a divorce.  While
that can't be helped, keep in mind that both your parents will be happier
and more productive in the future than they have been lately.

Smile!

---

From: [email-masked] (Shawn Knight)
Date: Sat, 22 Jan 94 13:08:27 EST

> and more productive in the future than they have been lately.

Hi Bernie!   Uhh, I'm confused.  Does this mean there are going to be two
rendering packages now?  Vr-386 and Rend386 version 6.0?

--

---

From: Chris Kwasnicki <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 24 Jan 1994 11:10:18 -0500 (EST)

Bernie and Dave,

Thank you both for what you have done (the creation and release of REND386, 
not the splitting of ways :).  You've provided a way for people
to dabble in VR without great cost in terms of time and money.

Best of luck in your new projects.

Chris