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Can we please have a DCS API Bug Reporting Forum


OzDeaDMeaT

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8 hours ago, OzDeaDMeaT said:

Can we please have a DCS API Bug Reporting Forum?

hello. i would post this topic in this forum since it is a Wish List item.

https://forum.dcs.world/forum/207-dcs-core-wish-list/

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On 12/31/2023 at 5:49 AM, OzDeaDMeaT said:

Can we please have a DCS API Bug Reporting Forum?

Not to be too subtle about this: wouldn't that require a proper, maintained API and API documentation first? What we have is an (excellent) third-party API documentation, and an ED-supplied "API" of unknown quality that apparently is poorly maintained (example: the country enum lists 19 countries (that's pre DCS 1.5 time). The privately maintained (at great effort, thank you so much, @Grimes!) Hoggitworld lists some 90 countries and appears to be current. I can't find any info on the (existing) outTextForUnit() method in ED's documentation. The new warehouse class isn't documented there at all (or rather: I was not able to find it in their class documentation). Neither are the new airbase methods to control ownership. 

What good would a bug report form do if ED's underlying API documentation itself can't be relied upon? Currently, anyone who would want to do some non-trivial mission development cannot trust the information provided by ED - which is something that I find lamentable.

So my wish-list item to ED: please provide an up-to-date and accurate API. And an on-line bug-report form (if possible with status tracking) so that we can contribute when we discover discrepancies.  


Edited by cfrag
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  • ED Team

I will ask the team about adding a API / Script bug forum section. 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...
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On 1/2/2024 at 4:24 AM, cfrag said:

Not to be too subtle about this: wouldn't that require a proper, maintained API and API documentation first? What we have is an (excellent) third-party API documentation, and an ED-supplied "API" of unknown quality that apparently is poorly maintained (example: the country enum lists 19 countries (that's pre DCS 1.5 time). The privately maintained (at great effort, thank you so much, @Grimes!) Hoggitworld lists some 90 countries and appears to be current. I can't find any info on the (existing) outTextForUnit() method in ED's documentation. The new warehouse class isn't documented there at all (or rather: I was not able to find it in their class documentation). Neither are the new airbase methods to control ownership. 

What good would a bug report form do if ED's underlying API documentation itself can't be relied upon? Currently, anyone who would want to do some non-trivial mission development cannot trust the information provided by ED - which is something that I find lamentable.

So my wish-list item to ED: please provide an up-to-date and accurate API. And an on-line bug-report form (if possible with status tracking) so that we can contribute when we discover discrepancies.  

 

 

I completely agree that the team over at Hoggit do a fantastic job. To my understanding, they do rely on information from Eagle Dynamics developers on changes or new features like the warehousing system. (I understand @Grimes was involved in the development of these features as well which is a fantastic nod to someone so dedicated to the DCS scripting community). 

I also agree that the documentation supplied by Eagle Dynamics (ED) is subpar, out of date and in dire need of some love and possibly a restructure. We can all get on the "Please suck less at documentation ED" train but frankly I don't think it's constructive and will change nothing. I love this sim, I taught myself Lua over the last 6 months with a laser focus on getting good at DCS Scripting so I could make my idea of what a persistent mission should look like.(with patience from the Hoggit guys and other people in the DCS API community)

We also need to acknowledge the elephant in the room. Writing DCS API documentation does not make ED any money. We have "managed" with what we have been given, and it has been deemed "good enough" for 15 years now. It is up to us to show we are mature enough to provide meaningful and productive feedback. I believe the best way to do this is with a centralized forum location for us all (including ED Staff) to have these conversations.

I have also experienced first hand several times the inconsistency between patches of API commands. This is quite frustrating but lets be honest, mistakes happen and bugs are introduced. One of the big things I think a Forum could help us with is calling out undocumented API changes that break functionality. There are API inconsistencies, the EventHandlers are a fantastic example of what I can only describe as Russian Roulette every time a patch comes out. This really does need to be addressed, but those are internal engineering and code versioning issues, not really the scope of what I am trying to put forward.

This also isn't my first rodeo, I was a community contributor with Bohemia Interactive from the Operation Flashpoint days all the way through to Arma 3 and even did work for my Government using the Military Simulation product VBS and VBS2 and VBS3, all are amazing success stories. Bohemia IMO are the benchmark in community interaction and support with both great documentation but even more critical to that, they listened to their community when shortfalls and gaps where discovered in their API. It's important to remember that Bohemia Interactive didn't have a wiki for their commands in the beginning and the company produced Command Reference wiki really only came online around Arma 2 's release. The early 'command references' were maintained by us 'the community' for YEARS before they saw the value in it maintaining it themselves.

Long story short, lets start an honest dialogue and get some support from Eagle Dynamics to make the DCS API environment(s) better for everyone. Better documentation, code examples, open up some conversations with developers about some of the holes in the current API's that us as a community would like to be filled or fixed. 


Edited by OzDeaDMeaT
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