WORK IN PROCESS WRITTEN BY PREVIOUS pG TECH
Technical Team
The Technical Team is the backbone of the community - it is what makes ideas come to life, whether it be adding a new server, feature, map, or even squashing bugs, it all derives from the technical team.
1. You must pursue your mission.
"To proactively complete your assigned tasks and seek further tasks to further the community through a solid, secure, optimized and ever-developing infrastructure."
2. You must abide by this policy.
All code is confidential and must not be sold or distributed in anyway without prior consent from Community Managers. You may only share code snippets with those in the Technical Team that have a similar area of expertise for the purpose of getting help to complete a task.
3. You must understand the structure.
The following structure will help you understand briefly who is responsible for what - so that you will always know who to go to when you need someone.
- Division Leader
- Management of the Technical Team
- Ensure all advisor positions are filled.
- Ensure all servers have someone assigned to them.
- Ensure the team is actively growing.
- Ensure everyone is adhering to their responsibilities.
- Address any disputes, or concerns.
- Processing applications.
- Management of the 'Bugs & Suggestions' forum
- Ensure everything is addressed within a reasonable time-frame.
- Management of the 'Leadership Requests' forum
- Ensure everything is addressed within a reasonable time-frame.
- Ensure proper communication with the requesting Leadership Team.
- Management of Access
- Ensure everyone has the appropriate access needed.
- Ensure access is removed and/or changed when necessary.
- Advisor
- Proactively recruiting people into the team.
- Training new members to the team.
- Managing Technical Team
- Ensure members of the team are always assigned a task and are completing said tasks correctly.
- Ensure members are correctly following process and procedure.
- Discipline members failing to complete tasks or doing so incorrectly.
- Addressing concerns, suggestions, and project requests of the Technical Team (forward to your upper Leadership if needed)
- Coder
- Process coding tasks assigned to you; ensure you're always assigned to a task.
- Test your changes locally to ensure it will not cause issues/damage when pushed to the live server.
- Pull code from the GitLab repository before making changes, and when you finish, push your changes.
- Inform the respective Technical Team Advisor or Leadership when a task has been completed.
- Mapper
- Process mapping tasks assigned to you; ensure that you're always assigned to a task.
- Test your changes locally to ensure it will not cause issues/damage when pushed to the live server.
- Inform the respective Technical Team Advisor or Leadership when a task has been completed.
4. You must follow the process.
It is important to follow the process(s) below to ensure everyone knows what needs to be done, and who is working on what.
4.1 Bugs & Suggestions
- A suggestion/bug is posted.
- A Technical Team DivLeader and specific game Leadership+ will decide to acknowledge or reject a suggestion.
- If rejected, add the thread prefix and reply to the thread stating that is has been "Marked as Rejected.", briefly explain why and lock the thread. (Do not go to the next step).
- If acknowledged; it is to be marked as "Processing" and someone will be assigned to the task.
- Reply to the thread stating that it is "Marked as Processing".
- Tag the Technical Team member using the @ prefix to let them know they are assigned to the task.
- Once completed, the person who completed the task will:
- Reply to the thread stating "Marked as Completed" or "Marked as Fixed" (you can also include notes if necessary).
- Add the prefix "Fixed" or "Completed" respectively and lock the thread.
4.2 Technical Team Projects
- A project is created by a Technical Team Leadership+
- An authorized person will then process, or assign the task to an individual by replying to the thread, and mentioning/tagging the assigned Technical Team member using the @ prefix.
- Projects can also be requested by non-leadership in the 'Project Requests' sub-forum.
4.3 Communication (Steam/TeamSpeak...etc.)
- All verbal tasks must be 'development' related of an existing bug, suggestion, or project. If it is not, then you should not complete it unless it is verbally assigned by a Technical Team DivLeader or above.
- All tasks, projects, and development should have a paper trail or documentation showing exactly what it done, as it is done. This is to keep record of everything and to stay organized.
4.4 Troubleshooting and Testing on Live Servers
Sometimes testing on live servers is necessary, especially when the troubleshooting or testing requires multiple players to do so adequately. If this is the case, you must follow the procedure to ensure everything is done correctly and no harm can come to the live server during testing.
- Schedule downtime with the respective Leadership+ overseeing the server you will be working on.
- Make a back up prior to making any changes.
- After securing a backup, you are free to do your testing.
- Find your fix and implement; if no solution is found revert any changes or revert to the backup made prior to testing.
- Contact the respective Leadership+ upon completion, let them know that you are done.
5. You must always be assigned a task.
Each person is responsible to pull his or her own weight and complete tasks.
5.1 Who will assign me tasks?
Your tasks are assigned to you by the one(s) by your Technical Team Leadership+.
5.2 What if I don't have a task?
You must speak with your Technical Team Leadership to assign you a task; you can also ask to do a specific task that you can find
(e.g. if you think you can process a specific bug or suggestion, then you can ask to be assigned that task). If they fail to assign you any tasks, then speak with a Technical Team Advisor+.
5.3 I cannot fulfill the task assigned to me, what do I do?
You must tell the one who assigned the task to you with why you cannot do it. For example: you may not know how to code it; or you are too busy to handle it (real life); or you have too many tasks as it is.
5.4 Can I ask for help with my task?
Yes, it is often encouraged - you should always look to ask help from the one who assigned the task to you, and the ones who have the same area of expertise. However - avoid giving too much code out to someone who does not have access to the repository (a snippet of code is fine).
5.5 What is "repo-access" and how do I get it?
"repo-access" is access to a gitlab repository. It is where we store and edit code so that all changes can be seen per-commit, and specifically see what was changed. It will allow for backup, for reversing changes where necessary, and understanding each others changes.
You can request repo-access, and/or it will be granted to you by a Technical Team DivLeader or above.
5.6 What is "server-access" and how do I get it?
"server-access" entails you having FTP and/or terminal access directly to a server box to upload changes accordingly. You are the main person responsible for the technical side of the server, and this provides much more access than is visible to repo-access. Be careful, if you change something through server-access that can be changed through the GitLab repository, the GitLab Runners will overwrite whatever change you made with what is currently on the repository.
This is very important, you must keep this in mind when using server-access.
Other Useful Information
Getting our Server Files
- Register with GitLab.
- Directly request from a Technical Team Division Leader+ to provide you with an invitation to the server repository files (via Forum PM).
- Install SourceTree.
- Fetch the files to your local machine.
- You are now ready to get started to edit code.
Getting a Local Source Server for testing
- Create a SRCDS server on your local machine so it can be used to test code and maps.
Learning Tools for Coders
- Garry's Mod (Lua)
- Team Fortress / Counter-Strike (SourcePawn)
