RE: Why Eric doesn't like my personal style

["Brandon J. Van Every" <vanevery@indiegamedesign.com>]

Mark A. Flacy wrote:
>
> Brandon> He is somewhat correct, and I'm not going to change how I do
> Brandon> business for him.
>
> No doubt that's the secret to your success.

Do you want to define "success?"  You're working on a hobby project with
a small number of developers.  What do you know about "success" in game
development?  You some kind of principal at a well-known and
well-respected game company, just moonlighting here?

> Please find something else to do or simply DO something and
> shut the fuck up about it.

Well, it is true that I am looking around for codebases where I don't
actually have to convert people about what to do.  That are in better
shape from an OO and higher level functionality / make major changes
standpoint.  People like you make it easier not to worry about
"generosity" as one of the factors.  It's as though you think people
should just gladly do things for Xconq, without regard for basics like:

- whether anyone would actually use, desire, or test the Python code.

- whether it would actually get checked into CVS in any timeframe of
relevance to me.

Without even these basics, why would anyone with my priorities develop
anything for you?  Nevermind all the flat C code.  Sure it works, but in
2003 it's not an attractive development platform.  You know this; the
question is whether you have any energy to change it, or if you're
satisfied that "it's working for you."  If it works for you I don't
begrudge you that fact.  But it doesn't work for me, nor a lot of other
OO developers out there.  We simply couldn't do the things we want to do
in Xconq without changes to the infrastructure.  We are disinclined to
write major, painful buckets of C code.

FWIW the conversation with the Freeciv guys has been nicer, because I
had already gone over the personality land mines here and I didn't feel
the need to repeat them there.  I never expected the Freeciv guys to
change their ways, so I didn't set it as a goal to try.  Rather, I
thought I'd check to see if I might be pleasantly surprised, and I'd try
to understand something about why C coders stick to their guns.  Turns
out someone did do some Python once upon a time, and it fell by the
wayside.  Guess if you build it, people don't come eh?

Since you've seconded Eric's attitude, I'm outta here.  Some of you will
be glad; I'm glad, because at least it's a resolution.  What I've
learned from this experience, is team dynamics (or lack thereof) is as
important a factor as anything else.  Some kinds of people, with some
kinds of priorities, I simply cannot work with no matter how many
appeals to altruism or freeware do-goodery people might try to hide the
problems in.  What it gets down to, is you have your agenda, I have
mine.

"Thanks," at least, for helping me to clarify my agenda.  I'm pretty
clear on what it is now, this has been a good exercise for me, if not
for you.  And hey, you got VS 2003 files out of the deal, I've paid my
bar tab.  Next move is I'll either find a project that intersects with
my agenda, or I'll start my own.  Maybe I'll ping you guys about what
happens at some point.  Some of your lurkers I think would actually
prefer to work on something ala Python.


Cheers,                         www.indiegamedesign.com
Brandon Van Every               Seattle, WA

"We live in a world of very bright people building
crappy software with total shit for tools and process."
                                - Ed Mckenzie