Developer issues discussion (GZDB split)

[Rachael]

You should praise him for maintaining an otherwise dead editor for you to use and make your life a lot easier.

You do not need to praise him for the attitude he started to show in the process. He needs to know that's not okay, and I think the community has done the best they could at showing him that.

There's a difference between worshipping someone and being honest. If you let all their bad taint whatever good they've done, it's because of your own attitude that you'll never give anyone decent a chance. (Do you honestly think there exists such a thing as a perfect person?!)

I'm not saying you have to kiss his feet for creating a better editor. I only believe in giving credit where credit is due - despite all the bad that goes with it.

[kodi]

I'm still giddy about him implementing the amazing slope shading like a day after I suggested it

[Nash]

I still feel this way today, almost 5 years after he even made this thing. :D

[Graf Zahl]

Attitude issues nonwithstanding, this unpleasant episode highlights a very troubling side of the community, which I also have seen during the ZScript discussion, and that is some people getting worked up over trivialities and then accusing the developers of laziness or ignorance if they are not interested in this stuff and don't act on it.

Let's not forget: If you piss off the developers with your pedantry over details the very product you seek to improve may go down the drain.
Sometimes it may really be advisable to just shut the fuck up if you start to notice that the developer is starting to get pissed off and any further action may just cause more damage.

[ZZYZX]

Let's not forget: If you piss off the developers with your pedantry over details the very product you seek to improve may go down the drain.

MaxED pisses me personally off by not providing the stuff that I coded in 15 minutes without even knowing anything about the program in the first place, because he personally doesn't need it in his workflow.
Besides, his seemingly random irreversible Microsoft-style UI edits often result in completely unusable interface for nonzero and noticeable amount of people.
Last change as bad as the current one that I remember, was the ok/cancel button order swapped around for the lulz. That one was fixed though.

It's as if someone like Major Cooke (sorry for personal references, not meaning anything bad here ) would be the main developer of GZDoom and altered the port to suit his own needs for AeOD or D4D, and would tell everyone who doesn't like it to either adjust or do pull requests (note: the pull requests part only appeared after we, while dealing with huge opposition from his side, actually convinced MaxED to use Git).

Anyway, the point is that the reason to complain is solid enough to ignore the risks.

[Graf Zahl]

Let's not forget: If you piss off the developers with your pedantry over details the very product you seek to improve may go down the drain.

MaxED pisses me personally off

To be honest, I often find him just as irritating. His attitude frequently leaves a lot to be desired.

But that doesn't change anything about the fact that the community needs him to develop the editor, because you can bet that nobody else will.
As I said, if you have to step back to keep him in, that's the way any smart person should behave. To the community as a whole it doesn't matter one bit if it is you or him who wins your pathetic pissing contest, but it matters a lot if you drive him out.

If you have an axe to grind, do it via PM, and not in a public forum where you only stir up emotions and hostility.

[Rachael]

To be honest, I often find him just as irritating. His attitude frequently leaves a lot to be desired.

But that doesn't change anything about the fact that the community needs him to develop the editor, because you can bet that nobody else will.
As I said, if you have to step back to keep him in, that's the way any smart person should behave. To the community as a whole it doesn't matter one bit if it is you or him who wins your pathetic pissing contest, but it matters a lot if you drive him out.

If you have an axe to grind, do it via PM, and not in a public forum where you only stir up emotions and hostility.

This is so true. In the end, it matters not who is right. It matters who is being more helpful. And pretty much as implied here, being "right" about something is not helpful! Now we have one less GZDB developer - which pretty much leaves us at zero.

Remember - it's the developer who spends hours upon hours toiling and sweating over this work that has the power to completely stop development. Your little "issues" mean absolutely nothing compared to that.

Anyway, the point is that the reason to complain is solid enough to ignore the risks.

Sometimes it's better to fork than to complain. MaxED probably was on his way out anyway, but at least you won't have this to look back on if you had handled it differently.

[ZZYZX]

Now we have one less GZDB developer - which pretty much leaves us at zero.

Like I stated above, I could fork and continue with certain stuff that I personally see necessary to implement in order for the editor to continue being useful (first off: unified DECORATE+ZScript parsing system, ability to have DoomEdNums stored in MAPINFO).
I'm interested in the topic (programming of a Doom map editor that is, even tried to implement my own, however I'm horrible at 3D optimizations so that one didn't go really well )
I obviously can't take the epic title of a GZDB developer, but at least it won't become horribly outdated, if MaxED actually stops developing.
In fact, was going to wait for few days and see what happens. If MaxED continues to be silent, I'm going to create an official fork project and try to do useful stuff on there.

[Kinsie]

Remember - it's the developer who spends hours upon hours toiling and sweating over this work that has the power to completely stop development. Your little "issues" mean absolutely nothing compared to that.

I'm gonna have to remember this one for the next time someone reports a bug in my mods.

[Gez]

Please make a campaign mode in Reelism

[Rachael]

In fact, was going to wait for few days and see what happens. If MaxED continues to be silent, I'm going to create an official fork project and try to do useful stuff on there.

If you decide to go through with this, you have my full support.

[Kinsie]

Please make a campaign mode in Reelism

I wanted to do this as a "Reelism 2" at one point. It would have been themed on Oregon Trail. But that's neither here nor there...

[dpJudas]

Besides, his seemingly random irreversible Microsoft-style UI edits often result in completely unusable interface for nonzero and noticeable amount of people.
Last change as bad as the current one that I remember, was the ok/cancel button order swapped around for the lulz. That one was fixed though.

I'm sure that MaxED truly believed those would be improvements. You really need to keep that in mind when criticizing someone's work. Even when an idea doesn't work out there has to be some level of respect for someone that is at least trying.

[TerminusEst13]

Look - I know the texture browser thing wasn't that great but at that point at least the program was still being maintained. Simple as that.

You should praise him for maintaining an otherwise dead editor for you to use and make your life a lot easier.

I don't believe that just because something exists, we should reign in our criticisms about it.
There shouldn't be demands, but open discussion about things and why they're good or not good is nothing but beneficial--developers rarely are the only ones with the absolute 100% best view of anything being made.

Am I grateful that he worked on it? Yes.
Were there a lot of issues with it? Yes.
Should he be made aware of these issues? Yes.
Did he handle criticism in a really bad way? Yes.
Does the fact that he worked on it for free negate that there were issues and he handled them in a really bad way? No.

Remember - it's the developer who spends hours upon hours toiling and sweating over this work that has the power to completely stop development. Your little "issues" mean absolutely nothing compared to that.

This is an incredibly autocratic statement.

[Rachael]

This is an incredibly autocratic statement.

I'd really prefer it not to be.

But it's the simple truth. As soon as more developers start appearing that can do the kinds of things he did - that will be a non-issue.

I think it's a simple fact that if this community had more C++/C# developers than it does now, - actually, every project, in fact, would be much further along than it is right now. So there is that.