Releases

[NaN]

branch the data repository when new code branches are made that will affect data format.

OK

make sure new settings in data files take on good defaults, so that loading old data files still works, but without new features.

embed a revision number or version number in the data files to indicate which format they were created with. this will help with both the previous bullets.

If we had a dozen of active developers and not 1-2. I've actually dropped data versioning to be able to implement things in time, not having to write/maintain revision glue code.

write migration scripts to automate changes to data file format.

This is what I am doing wherever possible.

come up with a regular release schedule and) only make major changes to data file formats at major releases, so that the "data API" is known to contributors at every release, and publish a list of changes (as well as a data format migration script, perhaps) to this API to make transitions easy.

Data changes are documented in the Wiki. How would you qualify a major release?

ensure that data contributors are up to the task of performing updates on their contributed data before data format changes are made.

choose a small number (10 or less) of "reference" cars and tracks to include in every release, which the developers will maintain as they make changes to the data formats, and which data contributors can use as examples to update their community maintained data.

Lets face it, how many active contributors do we have? It looks like the graphics and physics rewrite has frustrated/scared the leftovers. Not sure if my contributions to VDrift have been for good at all.

The latest two releases had problems, no fun

What features/functionality have to be fixed/changed to make it fun again? It would be great to have a list(maybe on the issue tracker).