William Peska wrote:
> 
> Thanks for your deep insights. I think that it is a responsibility of 
> the POV-Ray developers to figure out their bugs. I wasted enough time.

That attitude makes me wonder if you actually have any interest in 
solving your problem or if you just want to nag.  In the latter case you 
should note it is rather pointless to claim reporting a bug.

The purpose of bug reports in these groups is to actually solve problems 
- the replies you got tried to do exactly this.  If you are not 
interested in a solution you are first of all wasting the time of those 
trying to help you.

Christoph

-- 
POV-Ray tutorials, include files, Landscape of the week:
http://www.imagico.de/ (Last updated 15 Oct. 2006)
MegaPOV with mechanics simulation: http://megapov.inetart.net/

Post a reply to this message

Christoph Hormann wrote:
> William Peska wrote:
>>
>> Thanks for your deep insights. I think that it is a responsibility of 
>> the POV-Ray developers to figure out their bugs. I wasted enough time.
> 
> That attitude makes me wonder if you actually have any interest in 
> solving your problem or if you just want to nag.

The only reliable way to solve the stated POV-Ray problems is to fix the 
bugs. The workarounds are not reliable solutions and some (most) of them 
require scene modifications which is unacceptable for me.

The purpose of a bug report is to clearly show a problem in the 
software. If you haven't noticed the posted pov scenes are only test 
scenes designed to show a problem. I can't post actual scene, so the 
workarounds may or may not work with my actual scenes and therefore are 
almost useless for me.

Now, is there something UNCLEAR here?

William

Post a reply to this message

William Peska <wil### [at] yahoocom> wrote:
> 3. Have you considered the possibility that your answer "The source code 
> is there. Just implement it yourself." may also annoy?

  The post to which that was my reply had an arrogant tone of voice,
so to speak. I only responded likewise.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

William Peska wrote:
> Christoph Hormann wrote:
>> William Peska wrote:
>>>
>>> Thanks for your deep insights. I think that it is a responsibility of 
>>> the POV-Ray developers to figure out their bugs. I wasted enough time.

I suspect the first responsibility of the developers is to do their day 
jobs. Only much further down the list is fixing problems so you can 
render your scenes.

>> That attitude makes me wonder if you actually have any interest in 
>> solving your problem or if you just want to nag.
> 
> The only reliable way to solve the stated POV-Ray problems is to fix the 
> bugs. The workarounds are not reliable solutions and some (most) of them 
> require scene modifications which is unacceptable for me.
> 
> The purpose of a bug report is to clearly show a problem in the 
> software. If you haven't noticed the posted pov scenes are only test 
> scenes designed to show a problem. I can't post actual scene, so the 
> workarounds may or may not work with my actual scenes and therefore are 
> almost useless for me.
The purpose of open source software is so the users can help narrow down 
the bugs. If you want them fixed you've three choices:
a) Do it yourself.
b) Pay someone to do it.
c) Ask politely and wait for someone to do it for free.
Failing this you can either use a workaround or go without. There's 
friendly and very knowledgeable community here who will generally help 
anyone they can and are very hard to alienate - acting as if you have a 
right to support, or suggesting your time is more valuable than theirs 
is however one way of alienating people.

> Now, is there something UNCLEAR here?

Nope we'll all move along now.

Post a reply to this message

William Peska <wil### [at] yahoocom> wrote:
> The only reliable way to solve the stated POV-Ray problems is to fix the 
> bugs.

  Your problem is that you *assume* it's a bug and not just a side-effect
of how raytracing works.

  If you come here and say "this is clearly a bug, fix it" and then people
try to actually verify that it indeed is a bug and not just something which
is natural to raytracing, and moreover, some people even try to provide
a work-around to avoid the problem and your response to this is "I'm not
interested, I have wasted my time", what do you expect people to think
about that?

  That kind of attitude just sounds arrogant and completely unhelpful.
It sounds almost like you were demanding something and then complaining
when you get something different.
  You shouldn't expect anything else in return.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

General consideration: replying to this kind of attitude encourages this
attitude. It's helpless trying to explain, otherwise he would not have had
this behaviour and think people are at his disposal. Let us concentrate for
interesting people, don't you think?


   Bruno

Post a reply to this message

Verm wrote:
> William Peska wrote:
>> Christoph Hormann wrote:
>>> William Peska wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Thanks for your deep insights. I think that it is a responsibility 
>>>> of the POV-Ray developers to figure out their bugs. I wasted enough 
>>>> time.
> 
> I suspect the first responsibility of the developers is to do their day 
> jobs. Only much further down the list is fixing problems so you can 
> render your scenes.

My scenes may become your scenes some day, so the stated problems are 
not limited to me.

William

Post a reply to this message

Warp wrote:
> William Peska <wil### [at] yahoocom> wrote:
>> The only reliable way to solve the stated POV-Ray problems is to fix the 
>> bugs.
> 
>   Your problem is that you *assume* it's a bug and not just a side-effect
> of how raytracing works.

Well, I think I clearly *proved* that there is a problem with the 
rendering - just replace the quartic with the isosurface and try to 
render, after that replace the isosurface with cylinder and try again.

Well, you are free to state that there are no bugs in any software - the 
perceived malfunctions are simply side effects... . I don't think that 
philosophy will lead to improvements.

William

Post a reply to this message

> I don't think that 
> philosophy will lead to improvements.

	And it's clear that your own philosophy definitely will  :-/

	- NC

Post a reply to this message

William Peska wrote:
> 
> Well, you are free to state that there are no bugs in any software -
> the perceived malfunctions are simply side effects... . I don't think
> that philosophy will lead to improvements.
> 

Anyhow reading the license agreement might be in order:
http://www.povray.org/povlegal.html

I think the disclaimer of warranty is specially relevant in your case:

> This Software is provided on an "AS IS" basis, without warranty of
> any kind, express or implied, including without limitation, any
> implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular
> purpose and non-infringement of intellectual property of any third
> party. This Software has inherent limitations including design faults
> and programming bugs. The entire risk as to the quality and
> performance of the Software is borne by you, and it is your
> responsibility to ensure that it does what you require it to do prior
> to using it for any purpose (other than testing it), and prior to
> distributing it in any fashion. Should the Software prove defective,
> you agree that you alone assume the entire cost resulting in any way
> from such defect.
> 
> This disclaimer of warranty constitutes an essential and material
> term of this agreement. If you do not or cannot accept this, or if it
> is unenforceable in your jurisdiction, then you may not use the
> Software in any manner.
> 

I will not paraphrase but if I understand correctly, judging from what
I've read from you, it seems to me that you are not even allowed to use
POV-Ray ;-)

As to improvements, they will come from people working in their own time
if they feel that their work is appreciated. I wouldn't think that your
comments are seen this way...

It's a shame because the problems you raised are still interesting
effects, you could have learned a lot from the workarounds, and finally
even get someone sufficiently interested to work on the source and see
if they can be avoided. Dismissing anyone willing to help, and demanding
that the software be modified to suit your scene, is just causing the
opposite effect.

I'd humbly suggest you try commercial software and see what you get for
your money,

-- 
Vincent

Post a reply to this message