By the way, I didn't say what I said to garner sympathy or anything like that, but to educate you, or at least I hope to. I see in you, Casey, what I could have been. Then I see you whine about whatever you're whining about and I get mad because you have the ability to shape the world around you better than I ever will. And from my chair, I see you shaping virtually nothing outside of the handmade hero project. I hear you saying that everything sucks nearly every episode.

It is just so frustrating.

naikrovek
I know why I'm muted.

OK good, we're all on the same page.

If gdb isn't a good example, pick another.

What kind of examples do you want? How about game development libraries? I spent five years doing that, and we pioneered and publicly advocated what I would consider to be the first coherent framework for API design. How about user interface libraries? That whole IMGUI concept and movement was started by me. How about improving open source game engines and learning materials? That's Handmade Hero!

The reality is that, much as you might like it to be otherwise, I am actually a mortal human with a finite amount of time in the day. I can only take on so many projects. I can't fix everything and part of the reason that I'm so pissed at modern software companies is because it's looking like I pretty much have to because they continue to ship increasingly useless software. These days I basically can't even buy software anymore that does anything useful. It's gone from a world where I would gladly pay, say, Borland for a great C compiler and debugger circa 1990 that saves me time and makes me way more productive, to a world where literally no amount of money will buy you a great compiler and debugger for any platform anywhere. It's a huge disaster, and only people who were around to see Turbo C can probably relate to just how much of a tailspin this type of software is in.

I see that in you sometimes, and it frustrates me because I know you can effect change with this kind of thing. You complain about Microsoft Whatever, but if you spoke to them you would be able to express your concerns with them. Maybe you have done this, but I've never heard you say so. I've heard you complain a lot.

Are you kidding me? I've been asking Microsoft to change things for over two decades. They have never listened even a single time, and every year their policies get worse. This is hardly secret. You can even find me doing this in the public record all the way back to 1997, and as recently as 2012. The actual truth of the matter is you just didn't bother to look.

The truth about Microsoft is that I actually know a great deal about their internal politics because I've known many people both low and high in their org. Organizationally speaking, their decision making has traditionally been driven almost exclusively by what makes them the most money, no matter what the collateral damage is for the development community. As a simple example, if you'd like to know the ending to the story about that 1997 open letter to Microsoft I just linked to, two personal friends of mine (who shall remain nameless) argued the case for OpenGL all the way up the chain of command until eventually they were told flat-out that it didn't matter what was better for developers or for graphics, what mattered was that people should be using Microsoft-exclusive APIs, and that was why Direct3D should be pushed and OpenGL pessimized.

The person who told them that was Bill Gates.

So yeah, do I hate Microsoft? Absolutely. But it's not because I'm some random dude who just decided they hate Microsoft. I hate Microsoft because while I am trying to do what I can to make computing nicer for developers with what little resources I have, they are busy spending billions of dollars to actively ruin it, just so they can maximize their profits and lock people into their increasingly shitty platform.

And that really f'ing pisses me off.

- Casey

naikrovek
And from my chair, I see you shaping virtually nothing outside of the handmade hero project. I hear you saying that everything sucks nearly every episode.

Well maybe you need to get a higher-up chair? I don't know what to say. I wake up at around 7:30AM for conference calls at 8AM with Molly's contract artists (and increasingly frequently, calling Wacom's technical support because our hardware is continually broken), then I go to work at 9AM where I work with Anna until 4PM on new interactive fiction tech (since I perceived that to be a really weak point in current game technology), then I leave by 4:20 so I can make it home in time to prep the meat for dinner so it's ready when my wife gets home in the middle of Handmade Hero, which I do from about 4:45PM until 6:30PM. I then have dinner with my wife, and then spend 8PM-10:30PM working on artist recruiting, answering the day's e-mails, replying to forum posts, and in any time I have left I do what I can to advance some HH todos like getting GitHub authentication working for folks who have asked for that.

Then sometime between 10:30-11PM I go to bed.

If you think I need to put in more effort than this, I really don't know what to say to you, other than you'd better have some way to give me more hours in the day.

- Casey

cmuratori

naikrovek
And from my chair, I see you shaping virtually nothing outside of the handmade hero project. I hear you saying that everything sucks nearly every episode.

Well maybe you need to get a higher-up chair? I don't know what to say. I wake up at around 7:30AM for conference calls at 8AM with Molly's contract artists (and increasingly frequently, calling Wacom's technical support because our hardware is continually broken), then I go to work at 9AM where I work with Anna until 4PM on new interactive fiction tech (since I perceived that to be a really weak point in current game technology), then I leave by 4:20 so I can make it home in time to prep the meat for dinner so it's ready when my wife gets home in the middle of Handmade Hero, which I do from about 4:45PM until 6:30PM. I then have dinner with my wife, and then spend 8PM-10:30PM working on artist recruiting, answering the day's e-mails, replying to forum posts, and in any time I have left I do what I can to advance some HH todos like getting GitHub authentication working for folks who have asked for that.

Then sometime between 10:30-11PM I go to bed.

If you think I need to put in more effort than this, I really don't know what to say to you, other than you'd better have some way to give me more hours in the day.

- Casey

Everyone spends a lot of time doing a lot of things, Casey.

You know what? Let me just say this: you're right, and I'm wrong, about everything, all the time, no matter what, no matter when.

naikrovek
You know what? Let me just say this: you're right, and I'm wrong, about everything, all the time, no matter what, no matter when.

Glad we got that cleared up.

- Casey

Please stop feeding the troll, Casey. For the record, you're an absolute badass and inspiration for those actively working to improve their skills as a developer. Thank you for your hard work. I pre ordered HHM as some small way of showing thanks.

cmuratori

naikrovek
You know what? Let me just say this: you're right, and I'm wrong, about everything, all the time, no matter what, no matter when.

Glad we got that cleared up.

- Casey

Not much more to add to this conversation, only about the thread topic and the state of software out there in the streets.

I do think it is very arrogant and unbalanced to ask me -and others- as a 3d artist working on blockbuster movies with the absolute latest and fastest machines available to sit through my day waiting for seconds every time I move the mouse or type a key, waiting for minutes while the software runs multiple layers of scripted pipes and having one of the top 3d applications half-crash on me dozens of times a day citing some garbage collection failure as a reason which prompts me to kill the process or else I may get my file corrupted out of existence.

There is no balance. On one side you have individuals and small companies doing things based on their principles as human beings and on the other you have entities with no feelings trying to make as much money as possible.

Also these entities do not die of old age and can grow by swallowing other such entities.

I would like some balance to the current situation and Casey is one of the few trying. I am very grateful to him.

Roberto

maxmare
Not much more to add to this conversation, only about the thread topic and the state of software out there in the streets.

I do think it is very arrogant and unbalanced to ask me -and others- as a 3d artist working on blockbuster movies with the absolute latest and fastest machines available to sit through my day waiting for seconds every time I move the mouse or type a key, waiting for minutes while the software runs multiple layers of scripted pipes and having one of the top 3d applications half-crash on me dozens of times a day citing some garbage collection failure as a reason which prompts me to kill the process or else I may get my file corrupted out of existence.

Agreed. Those software packages probably cost a lot of money, and they should have a lot of quality. If you're part of a union, maybe it would be possible to find other members who are sick of the issues and collectively you can express your grievances with the developers of those pieces of software.

maxmare
There is no balance. On one side you have individuals and small companies doing things based on their principles as human beings and on the other you have entities with no feelings trying to make as much money as possible.

Those entities have zero incentive to do the right thing, when they are almost always rewarded for doing what you or I would consider the wrong thing. The laws they are bound by pretty much fully incentivize almost any action that provides a short term gain coupled with a long term loss.

maxmare
Also these entities do not die of old age and can grow by swallowing other such entities.

I would like some balance to the current situation and Casey is one of the few trying.

I am very grateful to him.

Roberto

I am also. I'm learning a LOT about software development with this stream in general, even though I am an experienced developer.