Flightgear Airports

[legoboyvdlp]

BIKF might be a suitable airport to update at some stage as some planes seem to take rather inventive routes to get to the runway

[gooneybird]

I uploaded an updated groundnet for BIKF about a year ago with the new apron layout (not yet in FG) but it's not the one currently in terrasync

[legoboyvdlp]

Oh, I see; pity that nobody ever got back about adding those.

[portreekid]

Oh, I see; pity that nobody ever got back about adding those.

Yes sadly every try has stalled. I have done all of the smaller Scotland ones, Manchester and Leeds. Now going on to Poland. We are now in the position, that Terrasync can be regarded as deprecated as far as groundnets are concerned.

[wlbragg]

Why? Mechanically speaking, what is not happening that could be happening?

[wkitty42]

i think it is the same as what is being seen in other terrasync areas... the newer stuff isn't being pulled/pushed in and applied so it is available via terrasync... i don't know why... i think that the terrasync updating methodology is different than simply updating a git repo and sending a pull request but could be very wrong about that...

[Thorsten]

My understanding is that terrasync takes by far more bandwidth than any other FG-related infrastructure since the scenery data is really substantial, which is why the servers are not organized as repositories, which means they require special knowledge to maintain, which creates a bottleneck in that only one person (Torsten Dreyer) is doing it, and he is increasingly marooned with other obligations.

[portreekid]

My understanding is that terrasync takes by far more bandwidth than any other FG-related infrastructure since the scenery data is really substantial, which is why the servers are not organized as repositories, which means they require special knowledge to maintain, which creates a bottleneck in that only one person (Torsten Dreyer) is doing it, and he is increasingly marooned with other obligations.

I'm prepared to use ANY tool to get this done. I might sound like a show off but bash, TCL, Perl, awk, sed, azure. all wouldn't shock me. We need more automation.

[wlbragg]

in that only one person (Torsten Dreyer) is doing it, and he is increasingly marooned with other obligations.

I was pretty sure I already knew that answer. Sounds to me like we need a few more chefs in the "place where food is made". This stuff isn't rocket science, but it does require people you can trust. I think it's way past time the reins are handed to more individuals that are willing to take on some of the load. None of this infrastructure stuff should be up to one person, never should have been allowed. We are falling so far behind in these areas, and if it's just a matter of bodies, there's no excuse. Those that can, need to let go and ask for some help.

Seriously, see my quoted text above about "preparing food". It wouldn't allow the word kitc......

[portreekid]

in that only one person (Torsten Dreyer) is doing it, and he is increasingly marooned with other obligations.

I was pretty sure I already knew that answer. Sounds to me like we need a few more chefs in the "place where food is made". This stuff isn't rocket science, but it does require people you can trust. I think it's way past time the reins are handed to more individuals that are willing to take on some of the load. None of this infrastructure stuff should be up to one person, never should have been allowed. We are falling so far behind in these areas, and if it's just a matter of bodies, there's no excuse. Those that can, need to let go and ask for some help.

Seriously, see my quoted text above about "preparing food". It wouldn't allow the word kitc......

We should be careful with words. I'd hate to have a repeat of the shapefiles situation.

Keith

[wlbragg]

I have mad respect for every developer in FlightGear. I'm not putting anyone down or purposely trying to critique any individual. But if one person is in charge of anything and that person is overloaded those responsibilities need to be moved on to other people and shared.
What I don't like to see, and I don't care who it is, be the soul failure point in a system. We as a whole, and as an organization, can work a lot smarter than that. All of the people that we might be talking about are extremely talented people.
Our scenery resources are a good example of what can go wrong when only one person holds the key. That may sound like I'm putting down an individual, I'm not, we're talking about some of our best contributors, but things change, people move on, people's priorities change we should safeguard against that affecting entire chains of organization.

[wlbragg]

Oh, I think I see what your concern was. You should have just spelled it out. "People we can trust", that was not meant towards the person that has the overload. That was meant as, to fill that gap we have to have people we can trust. As in people that take on these jobs need to be able to be trusted to do them correctly, not the person that's already doing it and is overloaded but the new people that take on the responsibility to help. I hope I clarified that.

[wlbragg]

Torsten needs to hand off some of that burden to people he can trust.

[portreekid]

We have to distinguish a bit here. Flightgear is free, but there are parts that cost real money and are paid for by different entities. Each one can rip a hole in the boat so to speak. Either "we" make sure it is funded by "us" or we have to accept the individual can grab his stuff and go. Talking in the sense of a aircraft terrasync is not mission critical nor can we actually loose too much should the current infrastructure cease to exist. The move to http/dns certainly has lowered the bar. You could have your local DNS answer with own local NAPTR records and your good to go. Nothing like the shapefiles. That's why I built groundweb as a frontend for GIT. Anyone has access to the groundnets. So with avoiding the shapefile situation I was meaning, that I don't want to disgruntle a fellow FG dev, because I think my issue is more important. We are all here for the fun or the chance at being crazy and coding a Taxidraw alternative In my opinion we should be grateful for all individuals, that enable us to have something to waste our time on It's far more complex than simply buying a violin and notes and off you go.

[wlbragg]

Bottom line, it's upsetting to see flightgear become less authentic because of outdated data. In the area were talking about it's been going downhill for quite a while and it is something that could be fixed with some extra effort by more manpower or possibly better infrastructure.
In this instance, it sounds like better than half the work needed was already completed.

I suppose I could look at a different way, if your fixes are accessible an individual could incorporate them into their local data. Nothing stopping that from happening, right? I mean you have those updates, right?