hexops
website: Update FAQ
Much of the confusion in the discord server could IMO be remedied by updating the FAQ. Here are my thoughts, sorted by heading.
Experimental
Add a hint about the consequences of Mach being experimental: There are some sharp edges and you'll potentially need to debug Mach itself. While this can be a bit off-putting, I feel that being a bit more straight-forward here isn't a bad thing.
As this is a FAQ page, I'd suggest changing the header to "What is the state of the project?" or something similar.
(NEW) Is the project dead?
Add the post in the announcements discord channel about mach being undead to the FAQ. IMO it does come off as a bit sarcastic; maybe a bit of rephrasing could help? Not sure...
(NEW) Is there a roadmap?
Note that we don't have one. Pointing people to the #contributing channel in the discord instead is a good idea, as this appears to be the best resource we have on current dev effort.
(NEW) Does Mach use an ECS?
There should be a sentence or two about how Mach used an ECS until v0.4 and a short list with the main points as to why this was changed (less complexity, better multithreading etc.), along with a link to the object system docs.
I feel like this is one of if not the more asked question in the discord, so there should definitely be something in the FAQ. Telling people to search #contributing is not a good way to go about this.
Can I use Mach to make a simple {2D|3D} game?
This could be merged as it feels like the questions have the same answer: Yes, if you're comfortable with low-level graphics APIs and with bringing your own utilities. There are some utilities (2D sprites, 2D collision, generic vector math), but it's far from the full "batteries included" feel people might expect from a game engine.
(NEW) Are there any projects using Mach?
I'd suggest mentioning LoZ and Pixi here. I think it'd be nice to see that things have already been built with Mach and it's also helpful as a reference.
Is the project dead?
I was looking around for just this. I'll cross-post emidoots' message here for anyone else that also are a bit reluctant to joining yet-another-discord-server for just reading a single message:
emidoots — 05/06/2025, 20:02 Hey everyone, bad news: Mach is officially undead.
I've gotten non-stop questions from people, DMs from people, and elsewhere asking me 'Is Mach dead?', 'there haven't been commits in a few months, is the project dead?' - and the official answer is now yes, Mach is officially undead. The grimbles got Wrench and it's gg.
What does that mean in practice? Well..
- Website will continue running
- Applications written in Mach will continue to work
- Nominated Zig versions will continue to be nominated
- We'll still accept PRs when they are high-quality, complete, etc.
- Contributions in any form are still welcome.
- I'll still continue to develop Mach, and games in it, in my free time - and may write about it or improve docs as I see fit.
- I'll still hang around the Discord and continue to answer questions from people using it, etc.
- But, since it is undead, there is no promise of it ever being a living project again.
Make sense? If anyone asks 'Is the project dead?', the official answer is now 'Yes, Mach is undead. '
Please help me in spreading the word by answering that question when it comes up: I don't want there to be any confusion about Mach being alive: it is very, very undead and will remain that way for a long time. Peace :wrench~1:
So on that note, what does "undead" mean? Has the project entered some sort of zombie phase? Or is this just some tongue-in-cheek way of saying "don't worry about the stale repo, it won't stay that way"?
I think it's more around "Yeah, it's not being super duper active, and it is not abandoned, but super slow on progress" that's how I read it
