I just built 2.5 from source (rev 23440) on Mac OS 10.6.1/Intel for the first time last night by consulting the “Building 2.5 on Mac” wiki page. After I figured out the proper SVN URL, which was a PEBKAC error, the whole process was flawless. Just wanted to toss out a “thank you” to the devs and others who maintain both the source and the documentation. I’ve had a lot of bad experiences with poorly-documented and extremely quirky build processes, so this was refreshing.
Also, my understanding of 2.5 is: “The original core code is 10+ years old, and has been expanded continuously, creating a pretty messy structure that gets more and more challenging to modify without introducing bugs. As a result, the core dev team decided to more or less rewrite it from scratch to account for current best practices, plus everything they’ve learned over the app’s life so far. As a result of the core rewrite, we get a bunch of cool new features like customizable UI and a better python API for very little extra effort!” How does that stack up?
Alterscape, pretty much right except for the ‘total rewrite’ part.
Its more like a few problem areas (events, context, interface, tools, python api, animation) - have a new architecture.
This doesn’t mean even those areas are rewritten, that would take way too much work, just that all the old code has to be plugged into the new api’s.
Some of the old code is very good, no need to rewrite it, just the way it was accessed in 2.4x was nasty at times.
Fair correction. I should’ve said “rewrite of the painfully messy bits.” I lead a development team on a (university research) project, so I know a thing or two about painfully messy bits and the need for the occasional rewrite/refactoring, despite the time expense.
Ive been using the 2.5 build for a bit and I do find it hard to go back to 2.49. Everything is so well laid out and organized, I don’t have to keep flipping to different buttons to find what i’m looking for…
CD, I also didn’t read the thread. you really submit so much unnecessary posts to the forum about development, it might be better for you to start learning python and do some work on 2.5 in your spare time…
Yeah I know but somehow I never checked them out. I took at look at them a long time ago and the whole formatting seemed so confusing so I never visited the mailing lists again.
You could subscribe to the list so you can read them from the comfort of your favorite email program.
OR we could just let CD inform us of the latest developments. Apart from the odd time that he flips out and creates a thread like this, he serves a useful purpose.
I’m sure we’ll miss you on the other side. :rolleyes:
M@dcow: yeah, thats how I use him too, as a development updater with built-in techno-jargon filtering capabilities. :eyebrowlift2:
Otherwise, he’s more like a pet - sometimes annoying, often amusing … just wish some people would stop feeding him (political, religious, conspiracy) crap and causing him to wet all over the forum.
Interesting. Personally I quite like it (although I feel it could be more compact and use less space). It’s clearer. Better laid out and generally seems to make sense. It also looks reasonably 2009 (where 2.49 is circa 2000).
Funny thing is that we keep hearing that it’s not the real interface and that most of the interface work will come towards the end of the refactoring etc. etc. but it sure feels to me like enough work is going into it, and people are getting used to it enough that it will be the final interface (barring minor tweaks here and there).
Are we seriously likely to see any interface changes in 2.5 as large as the ones going from 2.49 -> current 2.5 builds? Let the prognostication, speculation and heresay begin!
My impression is different.
2.5 is nice to see,but it seems hard to find things,the eye doesn’t go where it should be.
Maybe I need to get used to it,but visually it’s not so comfortable.
personaly , i will not use 2.5 because i hate the new interface design.
Whatever floats your boat mate. Too bad that’s the interface Blender is going forward with…
I’m glad to see I’m not alone in feeling that 2.5 has come a loooonnnng way from the “purple & green” build ton released some time ago. Each time I go back to 2.49 for a project that requires it, I find myself yearning to be able to work in 2.5. I cant wait to use 2.5 as opposed to 2.49 for production work.
no disrespect to 2.49, but IMO nearly every element of 2.5 is more accommodating to my workflow, I enjoy working in 2.5 and EAGERLY AWAIT a build with a feature"lock" so I can begin converting 2.49 blends/working in 2.5 for my main project work.
Thanks to all the dev’s you are all doing an outstanding job. And anyone who is going to be critical/paranoid about a pre-beta build of a (semi)major rewrite to an app might want to take a breath and consider such criticism after at least a feature/build freeze has been agreed upon. Just my opinion.
Thanks to ideasman42 and theeth for their words on the thread((and their great 2.5 dev work).
2.5 is MUCH better than 2.49 IMO. The new interface rocks, the new animation system rocks, the context sensitive buttons rock, the new window manager rocks, the new keymap system rocks, the graph editor rocks, I cant think of nothing in 2.5 that doesn’t rock (except the bugs, that will soon be fixed :)). I will never go back to 2.49 when they finnaly release 2.5. I think it is a huge step forward in the saga of blender, so stop doubting it before it is even released.
