Community

We in this community often forget that we are not rivals. Many of us keep our methods and techniques hidden so that others dont beat us to our own goals and we arrogantly cast aside anyone who isn't up to what we perceive our own standard to be.

What we often forget is that the indie software market is bigger than us and we are not rivals. We could learn a lot from each other and this is afterall a community. Instead most of us would rather "beat" the other community members in getting our products to market, forgetting completely that for the stuff produced here we are not the customer base.

Media packs are slightly different in that we are a genuine part of the customer base, albiet a small part, yet we fail once more to realise what a minor share of the market we have and so we clamber all over each other in competition. We look at the products like they are rivalling our own and put them down with the same tenacity we would take on a business rival with.

There is nobody here who is my rival. I have shared code and techniques, I have shared my thoughts on various subjects and, from an enlightened few I have learned too.

I have had a post sensored here where I explained how something might work and another user contacted the moderators and had that post removed because it explained too much about the inner workings of his own software.

That was my knowledge I gave to the community, it was sensored out of the fear that for somebody here there are rivals in this community.

Then there's thread like Yetari's media packs, i've bought a few of the music ones and now have a good stock of songs in my library for use when I need them. Not everybody agreed it was a good idea and one guy - who had his own library of awefully ropey .mid tunes - was most critical. Why? If he wanted to sell his own musical talents all he needs to do is get off him bum and sell them.

To those of you who do not contribute, and by contribute I meen genuinely help other community members and share your learning, and to those who tenaciously hunt each other down or arrogantly slag off work we believe is inferior to our own, I have this to say:

You have missunderstood what the word "community" actually meens.

I have found the community very useful when starting out and still now get great tips. I also try to help in the programming forums, and yesterday posted my "secret knowledge" about rounding errors in scroll routines.

Rock on the community!

However, as I said before flaming is natural and it's up to us to act maturely to it. If you are selling a product, criticism should be heeded as well and not flamed back unless it's ridiculous imho.

i dunno Becks... i think that you're the one with the misunderstanding...

you see a community the way you envision one to be... everyone nice and friendly... no yelling or screaming... nice sanitized environments... fresh, clean smelling air... helpful, courteous, friendly people everywhere... an all around joy to be a part of...

this is in no way related to the actual definition of the word... nor the reality of many communities, virtual, or otherwise...


--Mike

I find that worrying - if someone let you take a look at their code and said keep it to yourself, then fair enough, but if you're guessing about their methods, they have no right to have your post removed.

I agree it's good to share and give stuff back to the community, and there are a lot of people who do, but there's a flip side - the ungrateful so and sos who EXPECT everything to be handed to them on a plate, and immediately demand more as soon as another community member has generously handed them the product of their labours. It's fine to ask, but don't expect a yes and don't demonise people who have already given a lot. [This is in no way directed at you, Becky - I'm talking generally] There are also people who ask for help with code but don't seem willing to put any effort in to narrow the error down and ask more specific questions - i.e: Here's 20 pages of code, make it work for me now.

Points 2 and 4 of the hacker attitude are relevant here:
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html

Also note the part about private email response on this page:
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

I remember a while ago (must've been a couple years) I was helping one guy out with a problem in his code. He started a thread to ask his question, and I said I could fix it if he sent me his code. He sent me all his code so that I could figure out how to get one problematic function working, and I posted the fix in his thread. Dude got @#!*ed! He was all righteous, telling me that I should've replied in private via email. Okay, a) if I'm going to tell you how to do something, I'm going to tell everyone, because I want everyone to know. If you have a problem with that, I wish you had mentioned before because then I wouldn't have bothered helping you. B) what is the big deal about me posting like four lines of code anyway? It's not like the AlignToVector command is proprietary to your software.

Then a little while later he announced that he was working on a "character system" and that it would be available for sale soon (note: this is separate from what I helped him with.) When I read his description, I posted a demo (including code) I had written in a day a year ago that does the exact same thing. Once again, he was @#!*ed! Dude, how is it my fault that year-old freely-available code negates the need for your commercial library? Instead of getting mad at me, how about you justify the cost of your code by adding value to it? Mind you, I'm not talking about some multi-thousand line masterpiece like sswift's shadow system; I'm talking about a couple hundred lines total, including stuff needed for the demo that isn't necessary for the library (eg. loading a level) AND whitespace+comments.

---

I'm also trying to explain all of this now to a friend who happens to be way paranoid. Mind you, he has reasons (good reasons) for being paranoid about his work in other contexts, but I'm trying to get him to understand that his paranoia is bad in this context.

Your half right actually Red, only those more idyllic forums do exist and so when I come here it's a bit of a culture shock !

A forum is shaped by the majority of it's userbase. If the bulk of a userbase holds particular values then the minority will either inherit those values or go elsewhere. Sadly on these forums some negative values are predominant, and yet we wonder why Blitz staff rarely show their heads here...

Maybe it's difficult for people to develop adequate social skills and maturity when they spend all their free time coding?

What about open feedback? I think a community benefits from open feedback and that whole thing seems to be a bit under fire lately. It's a bad situation if one has to stop giving constructive feedback in order to keep peace. And yes.. not all feedback can prolly be good.. that would be unrealistic.

The idea of feedback is that the product or the product-generating-process gains.. that can only be positive.. don't you think?


In a few days, it's a year ago that in NL a filmmaker was killed, slaughtered ritually on the street at daytime under the eye of witnesses. He was known for venting opinions without pulling any brake.. usually political/religious criticisms. After that, the country more than ever agreed that freedom of speech/opinion was a worthy element of a modern society.

</politics_reli> :)

If all you are allowed to say are positive things, while negative things are better unsaid.. well, that's a seriously bad situation then.

I think you might be underestimating the intelligence of the majority of forum members, Becky. I haven't noticed many sheep around here who just follow other peoples point of view because they're too insecure in their own minds. Rather, many (most?) seem to have very rigid views and opinions that no-one will ever sway. Hence the restricted topics of discussion allowed here because of the frequent flamewars. :)

CS_TBL, I'm confused - who gave us the right to free speech here? And can't you see how free speech could be abused online? In the real world, free speech is balanced by repercussions. That is to say, there are no checks and balances to keep people civil online so you don't have to worry about the consequences of your words or actions, unlike in the real world.

What do you think would happen if you started mouthing off to a stranger in the street? Or if you wrapped up deliberately obnoxious, provocative and insulting language as "helpful criticism"?

ok, let's say that I think we should be free to give feedback on products.. and yes, we can assume in this case that ppl who give feedback do this about that product.. not about other stuff. And yes, giving feedback should go with style.. receiving feedback should also go with style however. Fairly logical..

Which goes back to my point about social skills (or the lack thereof).

We should be able to politely, intelligently and civily give and receive feedback. We should also be able to express ourselves without resorting to mean spirited insults and petty goading. But (without naming names) this community has shown, time and time again, that it is quite unable to do this.

Becks... i'm a lil more than half right on this point... you see those forums as idyllic, because you want to see em as such... and for no other reason than that...

serene... simple... non threatening in all respects...

have you ever asked yourself why you look at those sites that way... and why you look at this one differently...

... and more importantly... why you keep coming back... to both.


Luke brings up a valid, albeit, shortsighted point... you shouldn't spend ALL of your free time coding... and if you do, you might realize that you are becoming a lil geeked or nerdified... and he is correct (in my opinion) in his followup comments...

and CS makes a solid point with his idea of feedback line above...

hey... you guys better realize that you are all in real trouble when i become the moderating voice of reason around here :)


--Mike

Forgive me if i'm wrong but i've not personally seen the name Red October on any of the other forums I frequent so I think perhaps your assumption is not made on solid grounds, and I personally feel it is not correct and not a fair representation of programming boards in general, and particularly the more serious boards I had in mind when making that statement.

The Blitz community is characterised by two very different types of programmer: Those who are willing to share their knowledge; and those who are here just to demonstrate their knowledge and/or sell it.

There's nothing wrong with wanting to demonstrate your skill, but unfortunately in this community specifically it seems to come hand in hand with a strange desire to be the only person with said skill, and any infringements by other community members is seen as an attack on our ability at a given niche.

It's this self perceived elitism which is the real problem, as I mentioned earlier I had a post deleted because it infringed on another users commercial aspirations, the post in question explained how a process might work - and apparently I hit the nail on the head... !

The thing about that incident which struck me, and i've born in mind in watching various forum threads since, is an over-riding attitude of "i'm the specialist here, and you know diddly squat".

The reality is Blitz is only a small part of the indi scene and most of the "specialists" and "expert" users here are not as good as some of the top people in the wider sense of the indie community, very few infact.

A lot of people here are in it for the money, and herein lies the source of the problem. It's misdirected though, as I said earlier - the people on this forum are not our rivals, the community is way way bigger than Blitz.

I'd like to see a 'Games Tutorial Section' here for programming actual games in BlitzMax - not just a function. Things like tile scrolling (might do that one myself) basic physics in games, platform games programming etc - with tips for optimizations. And when the 3d module arrives some basic 3d games. So instead of a single function which you don't really understand, you can see a simple example running with a little media.

What we've got is a code archives section (which you can't search) which contains some code taken from a larger program without any media. Or you can trawl the threads for enlightenment from the good coders here (I don't include myself in this category).

i assume nothing Becks... you should know this about me by now... i'm operating on exactly what you said above...


even in some of the 'more serious boards' (would ya mind naming a few... one or two would be nice) i'm sure that the human element plays a part in the interaction of those in that community...

but seeing as that may be construed as an assumption, please direct me to these idyllic spots in the programming universe so that i may follic freely with the coders and artists there...

... i've always wanted to visit an idyllic place.

please forgive me if i'm being a lil too direct in what i'm about to say next... but it is not meant with any sort of malice... that last post above smacks of some deeper seeded issue... i mean, we all strive to prove ourselves at some point, but i seem to hear a primal scream somewhere in that last post of yours...

... do you feel that you are being oppressed by some of those so called 'elitist' here... and if so why...

... if i may ask.

the only elitist that i've seen here is ENAY, the Cheese Elitist...

... and i would never dare challenge him on the topic of Cheddar, or Edam...

is that who you are referring to :)

second... why would you feel the need to have to constantly show that you are accomplished around here... where is the prize... what is the prize...

adoration... respect... gold stars and browny points...??

be like me... be a know nothing at all, non artisitic, blithering idyut... trust me, it doesn't really matter one bit or the other...

it takes all types to make any community go 'round... this one especially... before you go categorizing people around here, you might wanna take a listen to what they say... to who they might be behind the virtual masks...

do you really think that when i go to the bank they greet me with Good Morning Mr. Ocktober...

do you think they really care if i can make a 3D ball bounce higher than the next programmer...

you may be taking all this a lil tooo seriously...


--Mike

Are you sure that's the reason why the thread was deleted? I find it hard to believe a moderator would delete such a thread on the request of a member who wants to keep a method secret. That's just rediculous.

"Today's thread has been brought to you by the word 'tenacious' and the number 3."

I was about to chip in 2p in yetari's thread, then decided that signal-to-noise was already way low. But since you ask....

I agree with what you are saying. And in an ideal world we would all be learning from each other... not just coding and geek stuff - but communication skills, manners and philosophy. Sadly, I also believe that Red is right. It isn't likely to happen (c.f. Red v. FlameDuck ad nauseum, Prof v. Amon {hey - welcome back !} and Antony v. the world)

It's up to the 'adults' here to show a good example to the arrogant, mouthy and narcissistic kiddies who come to bless us with their opinions.

It's up to the kiddies to astound us with their precocious talent and force us into concretising the swirling maelstrom of half-understood concepts in our older, experienced heads into real knowledge via the medium of constructive criticism.

It gives me a warm feeling when I see a new name posting a badly defined question and then an old hand walks them post by post to a solution while others chip in with insights into alternative methods and their pros and cons. It saddens me to see long-term members of the community dump on someone for trying to achieve something {rather than, say, providing some constructive pointers about how it might be best attained.} Far too often anecdotal experience is mistaken (by its author) for absolute truth. Far too often language difficulties are allowed to transmogrify into holy wars. Far too often what someone 'would like to happen' is represented as manifest destiny.

... IMHO

The original post was generally about sharing code and helping each other - that's all. We don't need a philosophical debate on the subject.

Sharing techniques and ideas is very important to a community like this. On the other hand, I can also see a degree of competition would drive us to try and better our skill set.

On the whole though, I definitely agree that code and idea sharing should be encouraged. Telling someone how something is done, and even posting the odd snippet, is a world away from actually doing it. One person isn't going to lose out if another finds out how their game works.

More to the point, if one person figures out a method that another person has already used, and makes her knowledge public, it's worrying to think that one of those two people believes they "own" that knowledge, and that another person should not be allowed to make the same discovery and talk about it openly. In fact, it borders on ridiculous. Is that really what happened?

@Red
Well the friendliest of the public boards I have used was LLRGT which recently folded (domain name expired and the owner had moved on) but I gather a lot of the community are now at monkeynuts.com or something like that - I havn't checked it out yet. Yakyak is another good one that is public. The best forum i've found so far is TDK's but that's invite only. All of these forums exhibit a level of maturity which you may find discomforting and which breaches of will win you no friends and a rapid ban.


No.

I made my post because too many threads get dirty and personal and in most cases I see the cause of these disputes not as having anything to do with the product being flamed, but because of personal insecurities over the flamers own standing in the field - or rather, their perception of their standing in the field.

it's already developed into one... sorry Steve, you're too late...

and maybe we do need a lil philosophizing... i mean, if there's so much bad karma going around, a lil philosophy might just be in order...

... or some herbal tea maybe :)

and while code sharing was a point... this thread is a direct outgrowth of the yetari/noodle war that broke out in the neighboring thread...
and that one definitely needs a shrink to take it over... and not one of those $75 and hour guys, i mean a $200 an hour jobber!!!

wait a minute... that's phsychiatry, not philosophy... is that where we're heading...

:)

--Mike

The Fantasy model pack was indeed one factor in making this post Red, as where two of his music pack release threads, half a dozen current posts in general at the moment, dozens more in recent weeks, and a noteable portion of the showcase.

Yes you both should go together. ;-)

thanks for the references... i'll be sure to take a look around...



so i guess you could call them the 'maturity elitists'... huh...

god... these elitists are everywhere... yes, indeed... most discomforting...

:)

Steve... i'm willing to go, but you'd have to pick up the bills... kinda rich for my blood... and i'm gonna need plenty of sessions after this...

--Mike

There are some things worth charging for, 2d-3d sprite libs are worth a couple of dollars, the free ones are not complete enough to just drop-in to a game.
sprite-candy is too expensive: 50 dollars is half as much as blitz3d!!!!
I downloaded some particle system source code from the French blitz website and it was great, and free, and allowed me to make my own system,

So I say it all depends on how effort it takes to make the code accessible to the average blitz user- providing helper functions etc. SSWift's stuff is worth the money, it will save hours of time.

I think in a large part some of the behaviour mentioned is a natural one that develops when you combine young, amature, beginner and solitary bedroom coder. Which many people here initialy start as.

Blitz basic is kind of basic, and attracts a lot of people new to programming. You can do cool things with often seemingly little effort compared to other languages. I can see how starting out, and having a lot of success might inflate peoples Egos.

Time and experience will show them that a good game is a lot more than a few tricks and techniques. And the harders part is coming up with something different, doing it well and then finishing it.

To the people that have been around the block a few times, a bit of code and simple concepts are pretty trivial in the scheme of things.

I assume that those people that can't keep their hair on will eventualy see the light, and move on. Or get frustrated and disappear.

...OK. lol. Thats enough drivel from me :)

Personally, for something as gamey as blitz basic I'm more than happy to share every line of code I write with the rest of the community.

I want more people to see my code because I find it fascinating (and extremely useful) to have people comment on my code. I get a warm fuzzy feeling from positive comments and a "d'oh, of course!" when someone points out something I've done which is stupid.

hehe I'm probably guilty of that. :P

Blimey, everything seems to be getting very deep around here lately... I seem to remember getting into this lark because it was fun.

P.S. please ignore this post as I'm half @#!*ed and on a promise. wey-hey! :P

It all started around the time BlitzPlus arrived. Now, I'm not blaming B+ directly (although it was a cause for concern in it's own right), but it's around that time that Max was starting to actually manifest itself as a physical possibility (instead of pipe dreams held by Mark and community)... and as a result, the evolution of B3D ground to a halt and B+ barely ever saw the light of day. I see a direct correlation between the frequency of updates and the general mood on these forums. And of course, things have gotten that much worse since every second non-Blitz-related thread gets it's ass kicked by moderators. Speaking of which, how long are we all guessing this one has left?

Elitist?
halo, Antony, Noel (ye u r biatch! :P hahaha), Rob this, Rob that, most of those who post all day long.

hehe, well ant shares a ton of stuff, just about everything he did in the past couple of years. as for the rest, I can't say.

Red, you are an ellipsis elitist ... ;-p

Remember one thing - without me, this community would die.

My 20 or so multiple personalities and accounts keep this place ticking over nicely.

Cuckoo.

Or, maybe I am a compulsive liar?

Mmm.

oh my god GA... i think i am!!!!!

forgive me... ......... .......................... :)

--Mike

@Puki - you are god.

@Justluke - I think you are close to the truth with your first post.

@CS_TBL - I absolutely agree with you people have the right to give negative feedback - but there's a way of phrasing things - if you cant balance te -ve with the +ve, then the game (whatever) you are commenting on is a shambles (in your opinion) hence worth no comment.

@Evak - I agree with a lot of what you say, but in my experience, people with over-inflated egos retain them in spite of their ongiong experience - I like to think people can change but IMHO it is a lot easier said than done (and tht goes 4 me 2)

@Vanilla - Word.

Capitalism and Socialism all in one thread! I think all my Christmases have come at once :)

Definitions In The Blitz Community Context....

Capitalism: Selling your Blitz creations for money.

Socialism: Sharing your code and idea's with others.

Here is the problem...

Joe Smith unfortunatley lives in a capitalist society were he is encouraged to exploit systems/people for personal gain (usually money). He is a member of the Blitz Community which was set up to allow members to help others with their problems (socialism). Some other bloke posts a question. Joe thinks to himself... "I really would like to help this guy out but if I do he might use my code and sell it(capitalism). Now why should I help him make money when I won't make anything?".

As a result of this he tends not to post any code for fear of being ripped off by the capitalists so he tends to hang around the General Discussion forum instead to discuss other I.T. related issues. His depth of knowledge is obvious to many but frowned upon by others who class him as an elitist for not contributing much in the way of 'code' but taking every opportunity he can to contribute his opinion to a debate/argument.

Solution....

There isn't one. As long as there are individuals out there who will exploit others for personal gain, there will always be a reluctance to share information with others.

..is this a heaven..?

Just for the hell of it, look at the current state of the Model Pack thread. The responses are either:
A. Tell yertari he's looking at my criticism wrong.
B. Insult me more than the last person.
C. Kiss yertari's ass more than the last person (granted this is difficult to do when Puki is the king of praising anything, regardless of what it is).
D. A combination of both B and C.

I'm rather suprised that the majority of people here are so apparently shocked that someone would criticize someone's work, let alone me.

Considering the stuff I've contributed to the community, you'd think people would show a little more respect for my criticism and take it as more than some elitist insult, 'cause trust me, when I insult you, you'll know it.

You have assumed far too much self importance over that thread - it really was not a very significant thread.

I cannot blame you as Red tried to blow that thread up earlier but believe me nobody cares except the ones shouting, and they aren't listening.

In part I agree with you Noel, when you contribute a lot people will respect your opinion to some extent, but they'll also get to know you for your cranky side too (like me, I want to hug everyone and pick daisies... which Red has noticed).

I've not personally witnessed your contributions but then I stick to a fairly limited section of this forum (I couldn't possibly read it all of it, there's enough fall outs as it is) but there is even in your above thread an arrogant undertone, your shocked etc. Read the threads which commented on that row - you're no angel in that case.

Anyway I quite like your posts as a rule, you usually chip in with some totally irrelevent comment and I like that. I'm not sure why your suddently serious all of a sudden? As I was saying before that's far from the worst thread, and I wasn't making this post about you.

Maybe the point of this thread has been missed for the very same reason it needed to be made in the first place.

I am Jimmy Savile's son.

..huhh..Backy, wanna hug me too.. :))

What stuff? you removed it all. Including from the toolbox, where you left a nice insult under landscape/terrain editors.

To be fair, Noel's thrown strop after strop. He removed his "contributions" and now we're left with... someone who can give critictism but can't take it.

Noel, you have been insulting many times to a wide number of people under the guise of "entertainment" so if someone insults you, it's time you just grew up and took it on the chin.

Although I hate to jump to the defence of Noodle given that's he's a young warty oik who's far too clever for his own good.
However, he's given away textures, particle systems, foliage systems and unfortunately shared about his digestive system. The guy is also a damn good artist both 3D and 2D. All this and his balls haven't dropped yet. Frankly I hate him, but you can't help but love him (in a non sweaty way) at the same time.

Right... Enough of the lovin'...

I think the community is great, yes there are people who don't share, and likewise there are people who share.
There are some people who are talentless and slag off others; there are others with talent and slag off others.
There are people with no talent yet give constructive comments and people with talent and give constructive comments.

My point, is that the plethora of ages and ability of coding and art (be it audio or visual) the whole place sits together surprisingly well. If you put the community into a room, all the old fogies would group together, all the young would group together and there's probably be very little interaction between these groups.

As it stands on the blitz forum, we all interact, be it positively or otherwise, the act of discussion is good.

I am available for children’s parties, weddings and funerals.

I've been trying to work on that myself with the addition of my Programming tutorial site.

The scary thing is, that's probably more accurate than anyone realizes.

As for sharing source code, some do it, others don't. There csn be litterally hundreds of reason why / why not. My reason is that I haven't gotten around to fixing my webserver (www.blitzbasic.dk will eventually time out if you try) in the last two years. Does that make me a bad person?

People cannot (and should not) be forced to share their code. Having said that, all you capitalist lackey wannabes who can't produce better commercial products than what someone else can produce for free in an afternoon, need to reevaluate the merits of going back to your day job.

Seriously, only Microsoft can get away with charging for something worse than what other people get for free (and before you say anything, I was thinking of Eclipse, not Linux).

Yeah and then he withdrew it all because someone criticised his work in a thread. Can you say hypocrite?
http://www.blitzbasic.com/Community/posts.php?topic=49187

Wrong, what they need is tighter control over the means of production. Mods, that man is giving away my trade secrets, ARREST HIM! YOU WILL BE ASSIMILATED HAUGHBLAUAUAUGH

Ahhh the Blitz seer has spoken....

It's his choice to do for whatever reason. Frankly I'm grateful he released anything for free at all. I don't use any of the stuff, but I've learned a couple of tricks studying it.

wow... another day and this community dance is still going on...

wow... i'm unimpressed... i tried to pass by without stopping, but my spider senses picked up on Becks reference to me twice in her post above...

carefull Becky, i'm gonna start to think that you've got a thing for old men if ya keep that up...

besides... i don't think i tried to blow anything up... my whole viewpoint on this and the other thread was stated concisely in a few lines in the first thread...



the opening post in this thread just seems to reitterate the same things basically... the only thing i missed was the part code sharing...

so if anything... i tried to put water on the flames, rather than blowing em up... wouldn't ya agree there Becks...

it only seems logical to have a sharing, sensible community seeing that we are indeed a small speck in the programming universe... so even if i blew up something here, the explosion wouldn't even be visible to the inhabitants of the c++ nebula... on the other side of the coding galaxy...

now you guys/gals don't want me to summon up Mr. Spock and Captain Kirk again now... do ya...

:)

--Mike

The trick is not to expect any praise or thanks when contributing to ANY comunity. Chances are you will receive very little appreciation. The real word beats that idea into you fairly quickly. :o

You must be around my age Red, it takes years to become so cynical.

blah blah, it's all been said, repeated, mangled etc. Generally this forum is pretty good and so are the people on it, which is good enough.

Good post, Becky! Your definietly one of the most sensible people here...
(No, I did not read the 70% garble below that)

Don't push him.

There's only so much I can take before I decide that people don't deserve help. You're one of the many people who are obviously ungrateful of any help you would receive.

And I'll have you know that I haven't touched my Code Archive entries. They're public domain and will stay that way.



There are a plethora of reasons, but to name a few:
- Medication
- Stress
-- Schoolwork
-- Normal work
- Lack of sleep
- My general disliking of many people here

My general problem is that I expect something in return for work I've done, and it doesn't have to be monetary or a physical object, just a 'thank you' suffices. The problem with that is that people here are ungrateful, unkind <bleep>s, and I'm not going to contribute to a community like that anymore.

There are other communities with people who accept criticism the way they should, say thank you when someone contributes something, and don't attack other people just for disagreeing.

And of course, the last thing that needs to be noted is that out of all the people here that I've criticised, I can count on one hand the people that actually listened and as a result have improved their skills.

Just your standard fare rant from me.



I'm aware of that, but my responses have to do with the general behavior of the majority of members of this community.

hey.... i deserve help... i need help... verrrry, verrrry much...

help me people... please, help me...
remember the saying, it takes a community to raise an old man...

--Mike

Better to just drop him off in the woods and let the senility do the rest.

that's been tried... but like an old dog, i keep finding my way back... (and bites you where it hurts)

... next mean spirited suggestion

--Mike

Would you talk about your Grandad in that way, Noel? :P

He's the one that came up with that joke. XD

>Better to just drop him off in the woods and let the
>senility do the rest.

Let's not forget that you and I are heading the same way as Red, we're just going to get there after him.


Andy

Hey, when I go senile, I expect everyone to do the same to me.

Touché! :)

Not everyone goes senile anyway. In fact studies show that keeping an active mind can help reduce your chances of playing marble madness.

Awww! I was quite looking forward to losing my marbles and shouting insanely in the supermarket. :P

Do it anyway, gotta have some fun in yer autumn years, right?

You kind of missed my point. I was only pointing out that you criticize everyone else's work and are surprised when they get upset, but as soon as someone does the same to you work you through a hissy fit. Also I'm always grateful for any help I receive on these forums, and return the favour by helping others out whenever I possibly can. Oh and I really don't expect any praise for it. I'm just a helpful guy.

I should point out that I don't agree with that attitude and condemn everyone who has contributed to it. Fatwas for everyone!

Something along these lines is my signature at codersworkshop (needless to say i rarely go there), i hope it doesnt become my sig here as well! Very small chances of that happening now, but what are threads like this for anyway? Are you all senile? Can't you remember the exact same thread only 1 month ago or so?

On the other hand, as the philosophy goes, point of life is the illusion of dynamics and if you can recycle them so soon then you'll be a very happy person.