Where I work, we develop / implement / maintain a respectably-sized disparate code base intent on monitoring all production systems and services, alerting based off several different types and scopes of alert criteria, and displaying them all in a web interface that allows for easy event correlation and case management. The monitoring spans every application you would expect a national ISP to provide, plus quite a few more, covers all server / switch / storage architectures, and multiple operating systems.
Various pieces to this massive puzzle consist of shell scripts using awk and sed, oracle stored procs and packages, java apps, an XML parser with advanced AI and thresholding logic written in Lisp by a Berkeley grad, cold fusion web app, multiple proprietary 3rd-party monitoring products hacked or contracted to be altered so that they will export their results in the necessary proprietary quasi-XML format we require, and more.
It's a nightmare.
The thought of making or being involved in the making of a Descent-like game in the future is what got my mind started down that programming road back in 1994, but I have yet to follow through on that dream. I still, even now, have this crazy idea of somehow getting the ball rolling on a professional-quality Descent-like MMO. Having said that, I have MASSIVE amounts of respect for what Diedel has accomplished. No matter the cultural differences, the personality conflicts, or the engineering disputes, nobody can diminish what he has achieved in my eyes. I just happened to be playing D2X-XL before I found this thread, and before I even read it, I thought to myself more than once that what I was doing and enjoying would not have been possible without his resolve and dedication.
While the thought of a complete rewrite is enticing simply because it resolves some issues and cleans up the code base so that it can continue on its own merits into the hands of the next generation, it's simply not reasonable to expect one or even two people to achieve that goal without things like an actual budget, a project manager, all the necessary art assets and level design man-hours, and the synergy of a solid, well-rounded, and sizable team working in tandem towards a common goal.
((Sorry to dig up the slightly-aged thread, but I had to respond.. ;p))
Rewrite the code!
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