RE: My apologies

[Eric McDonald <mcdonald at phy dot cmich dot edu>]

On Sun, 16 Nov 2003, Brandon J. Van Every wrote:

> Well, I know "The Internet is great, nobody knows you're a dog!" as the
> old New Yorker (?) cartoon goes, but I think you're expressing an undue
> level of paranoia here.  

I think tomorrow will tell. And the days after that.
Given your past behavior on this list, I think the burden of proof 
is squarely upon you.

> > Also, I think you do need to settle
> > down, study the information available to you, and be less reliant
> > on others (for approval and for information). Actions speak louder
> > than words.
> 
> Ok, let's at least discuss the clash of developer culture between us,

Hopefully this won't turn back into a flamewar. If it does, you'll 
be seeing a stone wall again (at least from me).

> I'm not worried about whether or not I take action.  I do.  I have a
> working VS 2003 build system that proves I take action.  

Well, if you want to contribute to the Xconq project and show a 
bit of goodwill, you could show us your project to see if it is 
something worth adding....

If we do accept it, then you will have done at least two things:
(1) You will have made a contribution. (And that is something to 
feel good about.)
(2) You will have paved another path for future Windows 
developers.

>And, it wasn't
> "a few minutes" of work as Hans claimed.  It has taken a week, that's
> the more realistic scope of the project for someone who isn't intimately
> familiar with the Xconq code.

Not really.
When I joined this project about 5 months ago, the Windows build 
process was much rougher than the state in which you found it. I 
first attempted a Windows build maybe a month and a half after I 
had joined; I was by no means intimately familiar with the code. 
Most of my work up to that point had been documentation (I also 
did track down a segfault and fix that, and I fixed some X11 
errors with the Tcl/Tk interface.) Back then, there was a 'win' 
directory and it had a makefile template (Makefile.in). There was 
no INSTALL-win. To build Xconq and get it to actually link, I had 
to copy over tkwin32.o from the 'tcltk' directory and rename to 
'main.o' (iirc), plus I had to provide a working Tcl/Tk. I 
initially tried the one that came with my Cygwin. The results were 
not pleasant, so I got the ActiveState Tcl/Tk, and linked against 
those libs. I managed to figure all of this out in what amounted 
to an 1 hr 20 min of my time, not 2 weeks. Furthermore, I did not 
bitch out everyone on the list because it didn't automagically 
just build. All it took was some thinking and a little bit of 
work....

> weeks, when / if I incorporate a Windows packaging system.  I haven't
> looked at that yet.

By Windows packaging system, you mean what?

> As I take action, I want others to facilitate my action.  That, in my
> view, is the point of working with other people.  

It is also a two-way street.

> What facilitates my action?  Taking 2 minutes to answer my easy
> questions in a timely manner.  

Some of your questions looked very much like troll bait, given 
your past outbursts on this list.

>What does not?  Poring over archives of
> ancient / meandering discussions

Many of which are still quite relevant and useful. Again, use the 
list search engine and the 'Thread Next' links.

> and haphazardly placed 

If you are referring to the fact that the INSTALL-win.txt mentions 
the SDL interface and its status, then you should know that I did 
not intend that to be the _only_ place that one could find such 
information. Again, RTFLA. I merely mentioned it there to aid a 
new developer in deciding what to build.

> Succinctly, I do not believe in the "Why don't you just bang your head
> against the wall harder?" school of programming.  

Nor do I. Nor is that what we are about.

>I believe in asking
> easy questions that people can promptly answer.

You should not necessarily expect a prompt answer. We have other 
things to do, like working at our jobs, for example. Also, I think 
it is rather egocentric and selfish to basically tell people that 
they are your personal encyclopediae, especially when you can get 
a more comprehensive view by just sitting down and digesting the 
information available, and doing this rather gratifying thing 
known as "problem solving".

FYI, I was a commercial Windows developer for a few years, and I 
worked with guys who actually liked Microsoft. Even there, the 
culture you are pushing did not exist. People were generally 
expected to solve their own problems.

Eric