Evolve vs Exsto, a comparison by Overv

[Megiddo]

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:QyvXE8TyXVoJ:ip.overvprojects.nl/evolve/stats/+exsto+svn&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a

Check it out before the cache dies! I wonder why it was removed? I've been thinking about tagging our servers too, but I'm not sure I want to open the door to this kind of thing.

[JamminR]

Interesting.
One thing you may not notice outright.
Seems more (~60%?) went from Exsto or Evolve to "Other" than either combined.
I'd be willing to bet a majority of those others are "ULX".
One listed I'm reasonably sure, considering he's been back here more recently.
"Lavacano's Madhouse [ http://www.netswim.net/forum ]   Evolve   ->   Other"

[Megiddo]

I did notice that JamminR. Disco's server is listed among those than left for 'other', as well.

[Stickly Man!]

Evolve vs. Exsto: A comparison by Stickly Man!

---
So, I decided to check out these two admin mods to see what the buzz was about, and to see mainly how their GUI's functioned. In a few sentences I will briefly describe what I found out:

Evolve is better than Exsto by far.
They still both suck. Horribly.

Here are some brief sentences describing my experience of both:
(It's also something to note that I was unable to test the ban menus because neither mod would let me ban by a random STEAMID. I had to ban a player who was currently in-game, of which I had none. Looks like ULX has a missed feature there that could be advertised more )


Evolve:
*Fancy site with lots of good information. Nice.
http://evolve.overvprojects.nl/

*Overrides default scoreboard, at least the scoreboard looks nice.

*Built-in chat command autocomplete in the chatbox, without creating a whole new chatbox. Definitely is a nice feature.

*No console autocomplete, must rely on chat commands.

*Chat commands provide no real help whatsoever as to what the selected command does, or what parameters are valid or not.

*GUI goes right over the chat box. Really annoying. You also have to hold a key to keep it open.

*Nice GUI animations, but they seem really choppy, even when I'm getting 120 fps. (Also, there's a 75ms-100ms spike when it's opened)

*Sandbox limits page looks almost *exactly* like ULX's old admin menu. (Just switched the sides of the sliders and checkboxes)

*Executing commands on players is a tedious process: Unlike the old animgif showing the process below, you now have to double-click or click a seperate button in order to get to the commands list. Also, you can't go *back* a menu in case you selected the wrong command, you have to go all the way back to the players list, and reselect your players. Also for things with numbers, (like ban time), he lists them in set intervals in a list like the rest of the commands. Not a smart move.
(old): http://i26.tinypic.com/2rnimqa.gif

*Overall, GUI, although looks nice, seems slow and choppy, despite it's look to be sleek and smooth. It's also mostly unintuitive and annoying to use for some reason.

*At least it functions like a decent admin mod . I still would not recommend using it for a running server, seeing as how uninformative chat and iffy GUI are the relied methods for executing commands. With lack of good console support, it just doesn't cut it.

Exsto:
*Has bugs left and right, console spams like none other (with mostly pointless information), and is horribly inefficient. (Expected of betas, but.. This is not something I would run or rely on an operating server). Attached is a startup console output.

*Dumps a bunch of data files, and who knows how much stuff he's stuffing into the sv.db (Luckily, I was testing this on a separate vanilla server)

*Still is stealing (at least) the teleport code from Megiddo, Has an immunity "rank" by number that's very similar to Evolves.

*Prefan brags: "Protected loading and calling of plugin functions. Ever had a moment where you call !kick in ULX, and it errors out and breaks the chat hook? Yeah, this isn't possible in Exsto, its protected."
  --Not only has that never happened in ULX, but Zyklus managed to break the !whip command for himself while he was playing around with it. Touché.

*AUTOMATICALLY enables a custom chat box, which has autocomplete for chat commands, but also (at least for me) drops your FPS significantly, and is actually really annoying. You can disable it, but then you have absolutely no autocomplete for chat commands.

*NO autocomplete console commands. You have to rely on the chat for figuring out how to use commands. If chat is disabled, then you're outta luck.

*GUI has nice animations, but.. The rank window requires automatic refreshing in case someone ELSE updates something. GUI takes control of keyboard/mouse input, and the only way to close it is the 'x' button in the corner (even when using "+Exmenu")

*The "quick" GUI menu shows some pretty pointless statistics, like number of packets Exsto has sent (which seemed really high, 5,000+ after a few minutes), and number of lua errors caused by Exsto (which somehow managed to remain at 0, even though I saw at least a few errors in the console).

*Executing commands in Exsto is very similar to Evolves.. With one of the most annoying problems being for any "number" argument, like ban time, Prefan has hand-coded set options in his GUI and shows it as a list. 5 minutes, 10, minutes, 15 minutes, etc. Very limiting.

*Can enable/disable plugins on the fly, which is cool, But if you enable/disable them too quickly, you get flashed a warning message.. What if 5 admins all disable various plugins, or even the same plugin at the same time? Not likely, but could cause serious issues if not handled properly.

*Overall, Exsto seems big, bulky, gui is hard to manage, and just.. buggy.


Brief Exsto console output, as I finished this post:

Code: [Select]

This server is proudly protected by Exsto           --And people complain about our advert? Ours doesn't make a viewpoint for our end users.
:156: attempt to index local 'self' (a nil value)   --This error appears any time I use +ExMenu
] disconnect
Unknown command "_ChatState"                        --.. Considering I wasn't chatting, I don't want to know how he coded the detection for chatstate..


</rant>
And to think I was worried about either of these GUIs being better than XGUI 

[JamminR]

As far as I'm concerned, Prefan lost any respect he could have had with me when we posted just how incorrect his "exclusive" features were on the 2nd or 3rd page in of his beta release and he ignored it, two or three times.
As for Overv, well, I like his online presence better than Prefan.

I really look forward to our next release.
It's been too long in coming imo. We've all been busy with life, but it's been too long.

[Stickly Man!]

Agreed. 

Yah, Prefan is a total idiot-- He seems worse than the average gmod coder.. Oh well, hopefully people will eventually realize how crappy his code is, and eventually lose interest.

I start school next Monday (23rd) and I'll be in much trouble if XGUI is not finished by then. I'm hoping to have the last major module finished by tomorrow or Monday, then from there it's bugfixes (if we find any) and any last major things that *should* be finished for a proper release. There will definitely be many updates, though!

Here's hoping for a next week release! 

[Megiddo]

Tell me if you can spot the ripoff here!

ULX:

Code: [Select]

-- Utility function for bring, goto, and send
local function playerSend( from, to, force )
if not to:IsInWorld() and not force then return false end -- No way we can do this one

local yawForward = to:EyeAngles().yaw
local directions = { -- Directions to try
math.NormalizeAngle( yawForward - 180 ), -- Behind first
math.NormalizeAngle( yawForward + 90 ), -- Right
math.NormalizeAngle( yawForward - 90 ), -- Left
yawForward,
}

local t = {}
t.start = to:GetPos() + Vector( 0, 0, 32 ) -- Move them up a bit so they can travel across the ground
t.filter = { to, from }

local i = 1
t.endpos = to:GetPos() + Angle( 0, directions[ i ], 0 ):Forward() * 47 -- (33 is player width, this is sqrt( 33^2 * 2 ))
local tr = util.TraceEntity( t, from )
while tr.Hit do -- While it's hitting something, check other angles
i = i + 1
if i > #directions then -- No place found
if force then
return to:GetPos() + Angle( 0, directions[ 1 ], 0 ):Forward() * 47
else
return false
end
end

t.endpos = to:GetPos() + Angle( 0, directions[ i ], 0 ):Forward() * 47

tr = util.TraceEntity( t, from )
end

return tr.HitPos
end
Exsto:

Code: Lua

1. function PLUGIN:SendPlayer( ply, victim, force )
2.  
3.         local isvec = false
4.         if type( victim ) == "Vector" then isvec = true end
5.  
6.         if !isvec and !victim:IsInWorld() and !force then return false end
7.        
8.         local pos
9.         local forward
10.         if isvec then
11.                 forward = 0
12.                 pos = victim
13.         else
14.                 forward = victim:EyeAngles().yaw
15.                 pos = victim:GetPos()
16.         end
17.        
18.         local locations = {
19.                 math.NormalizeAngle( forward - 180 ),
20.                 math.NormalizeAngle( forward + 90 ),
21.                 math.NormalizeAngle( forward - 90 ),
22.                 forward,
23.         }
24.  
25.         local trace = {}
26.         trace.start = pos + Vector( 0, 0, 32 )
27.         trace.filter = { victim, ply }
28.  
29.         local TraceData
30.         for I = 1, #locations do
31.                 trace.endpos = pos + Angle( 0, locations[ I ], 0 ):Forward() * 47
32.                 TraceData = util.TraceEntity( trace, Entity(1) )
33.                 if !TraceData.Hit then return TraceData.HitPos end
34.         end
35.        
36.         if force then
37.                 return pos + Angle( 0, locations[ 1 ], 0 ):Forward() * 47
38.         end
39.        
40. end

Seriously, refactoring code does not make it his code. He could have at least mentioned where he got the "inspiration" for his function from.

[jay209015]

Wow, nearly a perfect match.

[Megiddo]

Against my better judgement, I spoke to Prefan about the theft of code. My opinion of him dropped even lower through our interaction, it's very clear that he's just out for a free lunch... and I think he felt insulted that I insinuated that he'd use anything from ULX. He flat out lied to me during the conversation on several points (no way he could have thought he was being truthful). Long story short, he promised to recode that bit. He also promised that he didn't take any more code from us, but spending five minutes browsing suggests otherwise. Oh well, I don't want anything more to do with the man, let him have his free lunch.

[MrPresident]

LOL! Let the kids have their fun. We all know that in the end.. those guys don't have the dedication or maturity to continue to update and support their "projects".

When the dust settles.. there will be one victor.. and we all know who that will be.

[JamminR]

Against my better judgement,

Megiddo, you're still young. You'll learn. I thought you saw my conversations with him.
It's was quickly apparent just how much he didn't care about correcting his false advertisements.
He admitted he may be wrong on them, once, but never did anything to correct them.

[Megiddo]

Trying to stay calm, trying to stay calm... what should we do about this? http://code.google.com/p/exsto/source/browse/trunk/lua/exsto/plugins/sv_goto.lua

[Stickly Man!]

!WARNING! Negative maturity levels detected. To protect your sanity and brain matter, please exit the sourcecode in a timely manner.

[Megiddo]

Okay, anger's simmered. In the end, besides his lie of "I was told to rewrite this by Megiddo" (I only told him to follow the license or make an alternate arrangement with us), I don't see this doing anything but further dragging his reputation through the mud.

[JamminR]

Though I chuckled at his colorful use of variables names, I'm actually more concerned with this particular bit.
"local lol_creative_commons_on_code = {}"

Karma is a pain. God forbid he ever become a programmer of an actual good open project using Creative Commons (any flavor) or GPL (any flavor), and a commercial entity actually rip his code off and make millions leaving him nothing. GLua projects aside, it's just ethical to do the right thing.