Open Source Community Project [Unofficial] [CMS] [EMU]

[TheJacob]

Though I have not been the most active member of this section over the past 5 years, it is clear to me -- and should be to anyone who's spanned more than a year -- that the section is having trouble keeping up with the official Habbo Hotel. Recently, I have been speculating with @ησвяαιη about some of the details surrounding an unofficial open source community project. That being said, for this project to succeed in the long run -- similar to Ion/Deltar, uber, and butterfly -- it will need to standardize all of the development moving forward for the next couple years; this is not an easy feat.

To my understanding, if this project is to achieve that feat then it will at least need to contain the following -- this list is not exclusive:

• a SDK containing: a swf ripper, Habbo.swf cracker, and a packet logger.
• a CMS.
• an emulator.
• a style guide for both the CMS and emulator.
• online documentation for the CMS and emulator (see www.cplusplus.com or www.cppreference.com) -- both client and developer documentation.
• scripts to test each package (see this).
• a repository to centralize all of the changes made and issues filed.

Furthermore, as a group we'll need to carefully consider implementation-specific details such as: programming language(s), tools used, contribution rules (i.e. enforcing a style guide), platforms supported, etc. In particular, if this project is to succeed then those that are involved -- or are looking to be involved -- will have to put aside all differences and find a balance so we can contribute to one project as a group. This will be difficult when determining named contributors because everyone in this section is at a different level of understanding when it comes to software development.

In short, there's a lot to consider. The purpose of this thread is to get input on the following topics:

1. does this project need to contain anymore packages (see the first list)?
2. what implementation-specific details will we need to consider moving forward?
3. how should the project be organized?

Deadline #1 (March 30th, 2015 at noon -5 GMT): [*done*]

Determine the initial list of interested parties (indicate your state accordingly on the poll). From there we'll have an open discussion with all interested parties about how the project is being organized and various implementation-specific details; should this discussion go well then we'll move forward with proposing a detailed project plan.

Deadline #2 (March 31st, 2015 at noon -5 GMT): [*done*]

Please indicate your availability for the open discussion on this doodle pool. Time slot is TBD. I am estimating that the open discussion will consume roughly an hour and a half of your day starting at any of the provided time slots.

** Please provide your input on all three of the above topics. This thread will be maintained for up to 2 weeks as the topic is discussed (see deadlines above). **

Discussion Time #1 (Monday 6th April, 2015)
So far only very little has been discussed and we are in the early stages of the development process, no code has yet been written. What has been discussed is below. None of this is finalised just yet, things may change and we have yet to decide properly on things.

Emulator Language: Java, C++ or C#
Emulator Team: Adil, Leon, Steph, The General

CMS Language: Node.js or PHP
CMS Team: Joopie, Kryptos, nobrain, CodeDragon

Overview: martinmine, Moogly

Voting Table - Emulator Language
Those with only dashes represent that they haven't voted yet.

Person	C++	C#	Java
Kryptos	-	-	x
maritnmine	-	-	x
TheJacob	x	-	-
Adil	-	-	x
Leon	-	-	x
nobrain	-	-	x
The General	x	-	-
Joopie	-	x	-
CodeDragon	-	x	-
Moogly	x	-	-
anb505	-	-	x
Steph	-	-	x
	3	2	7

Voting Table - CMS Language (Restarted, closes 11th April at Midnight)
Those with only dashes represent that they haven't voted yet.

Person	Java	Python	PhP
Kryptos	-	-	x
maritnmine	x	-	-
TheJacob	x	-	-
Adil	x	-	-
Leon	-	-	-
nobrain	-	-	x
The General	-	x	-
Joopie	-	-	-
CodeDragon	-	-	-
Moogly	-	-	-
anb505	-	-	-
Steph	x	-	-
	4	1	2

[MentaL]

[Arachis]

Can I join, can I join;
.NET Library for habbo related stuff/tools: https://github.com/ArachisH/Sulakore
Packetlogger for official habbo hotel: https://github.com/ArachisH/Tanji

I can't really contribute more than that, sadly.

[Kryptos]

1. does this project need to contain anymore packages (see the first list)?
Not really other than that we have to agree on a database structure, but that's kind of obvious.

2. what implementation-specific details will we need to consider moving forward?
Languages and frameworks to be used.

3. how should the project be organized?
- Two "sub-teams" -- Emulator & CMS.
- Making a thread and vote on who the community wants working on the project, and agree on a # of votes necessary to participate.
- Establish team rules and limitations.
- Try to make this as democratic as possible -- Everything up for voting.


If it's done this way, then I would be up for it.

[NoBrain]

1. does this project need to contain anymore packages (see the first list)?
Not really other than that we have to agree on a database structure, but that's kind of obvious.

2. what implementation-specific details will we need to consider moving forward?
Languages and frameworks to be used.

3. how should the project be organized?
- Two "sub-teams" -- Emulator & CMS.
- Making a thread and vote on who the community wants working on the project, and agree on a # of votes necessary to participate.
- Establish team rules and limitations.
- Try to make this as democratic as possible -- Everything up for voting.


If it's done this way, then I would be up for it.

TheJacob and I were discussing this and we both agree that everything should be up for voting including; Project Leads on both EMU & CMS, what languages each should be written in, who participates in the development, the team size for each. Potentially more to vote on. As for the Project Leads, I believe they should be in constant discussion updating each other on their progress so the others that are developing can focus on that part more than the administrative side of things.

EDIT: And that all new commits / code goes through the Project leads, just a random thought on this however. Dunno if you agree.

TLDR; Everything will be up for voting.

[PR0]

Yay a Habbo project with some decent project management! :)

Good job

[NoBrain]

Yay a Habbo project with some decent project management! :)

Good job

There is no project... yet.

[Taiga]

I would suggest keeping performance and scalability in mind if you're going to build an emulator.
I've read a rapport of an old developer of Habbo hotel, their bottleneck was database performance so keep that in mind for your own emulator and website.

My suggestion for programming languages:

• Java for the emulator
• PHP for the website

As for the documentation, you can add add comments inside the code when you write it so that wouldn't be a big problem. If possible, I would like to get feedback on this project since it really looks interesting.

[Jangan]

If you decide on java or c#, i will get involved And contribute.

I have never worked with habbo, and i only care about the code/community

[NoBrain]

As far as I know, the people that are willing to work on this project are as follows;

• Kryptos
• TheJacob
• Jangan
• nobrain

If anyone else wants to be added to the list feel free to reply to the thread saying you're interested.

[TheJacob]

My suggestion for programming languages:

• Java for the emulator
• PHP for the website

If you decide on java or c#, i will get involved And contribute.

There will definitely need to be a thorough, objective discussion on what development environment and programming languages will be used -- that discussion will be most difficult to discuss. If we exclusively look at the programming languages used by this past generation's projects then we'll see it's split between C# and Java for the emulator and any third party tools; furthermore, it's exclusively PHP for the website. That being said, this project presents us with an opportunity to move forward without worrying about backward compatibility. In particular, I wouldn't say it's unreasonable for languages such as C/C++ and Python to be on the table during that discussion. However, introducing a new environment or language wouldn't be without its own ripples -- both positive and negative ones -- and they would need to be equally weighed in that discussion.

For example, both C# and Java have standard libraries for pooling worker threads, whereas a language like C/C++ does not. However, implementing your own thread pool in C/C++ presents one with an opportunity to optimize with application-specific knowledge and facilitate OS-specific API calls. Furthermore, a language like Python is shipped with great C libraries and facilitates access to user-developed C libraries whereas PHP does not necessarily facilitate this. On the flip side, the standard libraries that C# and Java ship with for pooling worker threads are thoroughly tested and optimized for their VM, whereas if one poorly designs or implements the thread pool in C/C++ then it will do more harm than good. Furthermore, PHP has a huge open source community to consult, whereas Python does not. Lots of pros and cons.

Here's an example of a simple thread pool I recently wrote in C/C++14:

• driver_threadpool.cpp
• threadpool.h
• threadpool.cpp

Remark that their counter parts in C# and Java are already implemented -- shipped with the development environment; however, they add a lot of unnecessary functionality that convolutes their interface. That being said, the C/C++ implementation is not optimized and limited to specific OS environments. Furthermore, the C/C++ implementation presents plenty of opportunities for the developer to shoot himself in the foot, whereas C# and Java protect their developers. Lots of pros and cons.

[seanrom]

Moving from Flash to creating our HTML5 client could be something interesting

If you want to use a flash client, there are so many options out there already that can be used. No need to start a new emulator from scratch. Especially think that there is already a community project out there, they call it "Azure Emulator".

[NoBrain]

Moving from Flash to creating our HTML5 client could be something interesting

If you want to use a flash client, there are so many options out there already that can be used. No need to start a new emulator from scratch. Especially think that there is already a community project out there, they call it "Azure Emulator".

Let's be completely honest though, it's a good attempt a community project but its organisation is a mess and it's not exactly stable. On top of that whenever they release an update they never tell you what's changed or new.

[seanrom]

Atleast its something.

[The General]

The fact that you promised to write an emulator in C++ and never released anything more than a simple socket server makes me think this is just another project that will die eventually, if it ever gets started which is also quite questionable. People forgot that you got unbanned (From a permanent ban after running away with the money from RaGE Hotel) in order to bring a new emulator to the community which you failed lol.

I doubt this is going to work as many people don't understand simple moddeling languages in order to properly talk to eachother in 'programmer language'. The fact that most people want to write code and see where you end up makes 99% of all projects fail. You need to think about your structure and architecture upfront and should be worked out before you've written a single line of code.

- - - Updated - - -

Especially think that there is already a community project out there, they call it "Azure Emulator".

I wouldn't call that a community project as they don't take any community based input. There are enough DB examples where they simply make the wrong mistakes without thinking and bring a lot of work to other developers. For example, look at what they did with the furniture identifiers. They put everything to -1 in the database and loaded everything from the XML...

[NoBrain]

The fact that you promised to write an emulator in C++ and never released anything more than a simple socket server makes me think this is just another project that will die eventually, if it ever gets started which is also quite questionable. People forgot that you got unbanned (From a permanent ban after running away with the money from RaGE Hotel) in order to bring a new emulator to the community which you failed lol.

I doubt this is going to work as many people don't understand simple moddeling languages in order to properly talk to eachother in 'programmer language'. The fact that most people want to write code and see where you end up makes 99% of all projects fail. You need to think about your structure and architecture upfront and should be worked out before you've written a single line of code.

- - - Updated - - -



I wouldn't call that a community project as they don't take any community based input. There are enough DB examples where they simply make the wrong mistakes without thinking and bring a lot of work to other developers. For example, look at what they did with the furniture identifiers. They put everything to -1 in the database and loaded everything from the XML...

As stated earlier, every detail will be discussed prior to writing a single bit of code. The database structure, the folder structure, the languages used, who will be the project leaders and a lot more will all be discussed inside the team who have been selected by the community.

As for the updated part, I lol'd at that more than I should have.