CONTRIB

pMARS is a team project, and we're always glad to see it ported to new
machines, operating systems and graphical environments. If you want your
code contributions to be incorporated into future pMARS release, please
follow these simple guidelines:

    * before you start changing the main files, request a copy of the most
        recent code. pMARS is constantly changing, and we likely have
        "unreleased working code" that outdates the archive you downloaded
        from the corewar ftp site. We can merge updates to old pMARS code
        with our current working code, but this is error-prone. Another
        reason for letting us know about your changes ahead of time is
        that someone else may already be working on it.

    * don't send patches or diffs to the main files, but rather the entire
        file. This is related to the previous point: you are unlikely to
        have an up-to-date copy of the source.

    * new display code should go in seperate *disp.[ch] files to keep the
        source modular. For consistency, try to maintain the "look-and-feel"
        of preexisting displays and user-interfaces and use similar variable
        naming and formatting conventions.

    * use a descriptive preprocessor symbol to bracket your code additions
        to the main files. Try not to use a compiler-predefined symbol
        (__SYMBOL__), but rather come up with a name yourself and add a
        section to config.h that automatically #defines your symbol if a
        compiler-predefined symbol is defined. This makes it easier to adapt
        your code to a different compiler that happens not to predefine the
        same symbol.

    * in general, follow the examples of previous contributors, and if you
        have any questions, let us know.

Contact Stefan.Strack@Vanderbilt.edu if you plan on contributing code
or if you would simply like to know who is doing what.