Why bother?

No one said that you have to bother personally, but I'm sure there are plenty of others who still want to be able to run it, especially with the 2009 timetable era which has far fewer issues.

I'm fairly sure if you ask around, theres plenty of users who would like to run South Humberside or Bristol warts and all but no longer have the opportunity to do so (pending any future development of replacements which may well be unlikely for South Humberside).

There are currently 6 open bugs on Derby, only 2 seem to me to have a material impact on the sim operation and those were reported about a week ago.

Peter

jc92 in post 148621 said:

No one said that you have to bother personally, but I'm sure there are plenty of others who still want to be able to run it, especially with the 2009 timetable era which has far fewer issues.

I'm fairly sure if you ask around, theres plenty of users who would like to run South Humberside or Bristol warts and all but no longer have the opportunity to do so (pending any future development of replacements which may well be unlikely for South Humberside).

Agreed, I'd be delighted with the opportunity to run Peak District given the chance!

Peter Bennet in post 148627 said:

There are currently 6 open bugs on Derby, only 2 seem to me to have a material impact on the sim operation and those were reported about a week ago.

Peter

However, there is a difference between the listing of open and closed bugs on Mantis and the state of the released sim. How many of the closed bugs have had the solution actually carried over to the released version of the sim? According to the copy on my hard disk the current sim file was created on 14/03/2019. There are three pages of Mantis bugs which were closed after that date. Were these actually carried over to an updated version of the sim it may resolve a lot of the issues that Vince raises. If there is not going to be an updated version of the sim then there is a lot wrong that detracts from the quality and reputation of SimSig and Vince makes a valid point about withdrawing it from public release.

Well I can categorically state that the issue with trains not entering from Denby was reported many years ago by me and I was told then it was already on mantis. The problem still exists on the current sim.

There were also many issues with missing routes and locations and trains not stepping correctly on the Coalville line which were reported many years ago.

There are also issues with missing routes in the station area which was reported by me several years ago and still exists.

Again I ask since no work is going to be done on the sim what is the point of having it on the system. As someone else said what good does having a sub-standard product like this do for the reputation of Simsig.

I also believe that Pascal (58050) had a timetable ready for release but would not release it while there was so much wrong with the sim that it prevented the timetable working correctly. I'm sure he will be aware of the Derby sim's shortcomings.

Vince

Alas, i'm sure the 'Inner Circle' will be along quite soon to jump to the defence of Simsig...

Well said Vince.
This, once again, highlights some of the poor ways Simsig operates which both infuriates me as a long time user but I also find laughable = With Developers holding the keys to the older Sims and then Simsig (Geoff) not able / refusing to fix issues.

Eg, Trent, South Humberside, East London Line (scrolly) > All are excellent sims and are now just dumped by the wayside. Now looks like Derby can be added to the list as well.
I just find it incredible that this has been allowed to happen... Or was it a very misguided business decision years ago that when the developer walked away from Simsig (not the first time!) the sim then becomes orphaned??!

Alas, i'm sure the 'Inner Circle' will be along quite soon to jump to the defence of Simsig...

This is deliberately antagonistic language which helps nobody. You didn't have to say this.

The work required to produce sims (and to update old ones) is intense, the development and testing process is a slog, and it's nobody's full time job. The more sims that exist, the more work is involved to keep old sims and their obsolete code working at all.

ANOTHER developer has walked away > This shouldnt happen.

Even if the original developer consents, its still a case of untangling the original data and working out how they've put stuff together in order to then alter it. Trent was written before a lot of common features existed and used custom code for things like ground frames and crossings. That would all need nuking and replacing with the current equivalent. From what I understand, this was the case with Carlisle where a lot of time was spent understanding the raw data before being able to tackle what would normally be standard bug fixes for the "new" version of it.

or to start making hard decisions about taking sims out of circulation which do not meet the high standards we all expect.

A loader sim can most definitely be obsolete, in the way that it is programmed. New features, changed features, custom code that is interpreted differently by the newer code, you name it. No trivial matter to update an aged loader sim.

flabberdacks in post 148649 said:

A loader sim can most definitely be obsolete, in the way that it is programmed. New features, changed features, custom code that is interpreted differently by the newer code, you name it. No trivial matter to update an aged loader sim.

There is no custom code in loader sims. Geoff and I try very hard to make sure that the sim file will always behave the same as when it was first written. But new functionality means that you want to do a better job the second time around because you no longer have to accept compromises that you made the first time.