Op 23/07/2020 om 03:57 schreef Chris Cason:
> On 23/07/2020 10:57, Bald Eagle wrote:
[snip]
> 
>> Once again - thanks for taking the time to relay all of that information and
>> just - talk about things.
> 
> No problem, it's good to discuss stuff like this as it helps clear
> misconceptions. Having been with the project for such a long time I
> simply don't know what people do or don't know; some things I take for
> granted might be mysterious to others.
> 
> -- Chris
> 

Just to say that I truly appreciate all this. Many things have become 
more transparent to me now. For long, I have been worried that somehow 
POV-Ray would just fade away slowly. I understand that that is not going 
to be the case and I am grateful for all your(*) good and dedicated work 
which has permitted the creation of some amazing art. I am still 
learning every day from those and trying to improve what I do. There 
seems to be no end to it... (except maybe that age and health begin to 
seriously take their implacable toll).

I do not like "rowdy" discussions and I regret that such have emerged 
here. Perhaps it is well to realise (again) that written communication 
through (international) newsgroups like this has their dangers. We are 
all members of very different communities and with very different 
languages and/or ways of behaving. I know from experience how subtle 
English in particular needs to be used in order not be misunderstood by 
native speakers. Don't trust those 'aliens' who claim to be fluent 
speakers (especially when they are Dutch!) by the way. ;-)  This is a 
good way to communicate across the globe but it has limitations not 
always clear to all.

(*)including of course all those who contributed actively over the years.

-- 
Thomas

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Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> On Wed, 22 Jul 2020 17:53:30 -0400, jr wrote:
>
> > read/learned about 'control message'.  thanks.
>
> I await your apology for insinuating that I lied to you about my role in
> the project.

it takes two to tango.  you used "*plonk*" in your previous message, (I think)
to emphasise the .. finality.  do you want to change your mind?  because both of
us would need to be willing to .. climb down.  the offer: you stop conducting
your, um, witch hunt, and I will keep my tongue in check.


(tentative) regards, jr.

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On 23.07.2020 00:36, Chris Cason wrote:
> (Prior to that we managed changes via email using diff and patch so
> there's no real history to be gleaned prior to the above).

When I came in in 1997 the diffs were all posted on Compuserve, iirc. I 
am pretty sure I still have a dump of that, and an old PowerMac 7200 
that might even have a backup and a "running" Compuserve client that 
iirc worked offline as well.

Thorsten

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On 23/07/2020 17:52, Thorsten wrote:
> When I came in in 1997 the diffs were all posted on Compuserve, iirc. I 
> am pretty sure I still have a dump of that, and an old PowerMac 7200 
> that might even have a backup and a "running" Compuserve client that 
> iirc worked offline as well.

Now that you mention it I'm sure you're right, it wasn't email. I used
to use an offline reader (ozcis, later ozwin) and I'm certain I still
have many of the messages that it cached from the forums. Provided the
diffs were uploaded as messages (not files) they ought to be in there.

That said however I'm not sure how useful they'd be since unless they
have descriptions akin to check-in log messages they won't be
particularly informative plus if we wanted to put them into something
like git to make examination of source history easier we'd need to
reconstruct the exact source tree they were patching against.

(Also if I recall correctly I often needed to manually adjust patches as
they didn't always apply cleanly, but that's just the nature of using
diff/patch I guess ;)

-- Chris

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On 23/07/2020 05:15, Bald Eagle wrote:
> A short 2-3 lines of text on the website about that would take care of any
> misconceptions - even by new users.

Went to add this and realized I probably am not the best person to word
it as I'm looking from the inside. I'd rather have it worded by a user
in the way they think best sets it out. Would you like to make a suggestion?

(Also feel free to suggest where it should go: I assumed the news
section on the front page, but that may not be best as it will scroll
down over time).

-- Chris

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Chris Cason <del### [at] deletethistoopovrayorg> wrote:

> Went to add this and realized I probably am not the best person to word
> it as I'm looking from the inside. I'd rather have it worded by a user
> in the way they think best sets it out. Would you like to make a suggestion?

At the moment, the major 4 points that I see are:

Moray was NOT 'given' to the POV-Ray project.
[You] personally purchased it from the author.
[It's a LOT more complicated and layered than most people think and there's no
one to work on it][And you're looking for developers - otherwise it may never
happen][When it's DONE, you will donate it it - but NOT until then - because you
CAN'T]
Lutz has recently added STL import/export.

So, perhaps make another post just talking about it - How many pieces, how many
layers, how many things need to be "clean room" rewritten, etc, and I or someone
else can probably distill that down into a short, concise blurb that removes all
confusion and mystery.

> (Also feel free to suggest where it should go: I assumed the news
> section on the front page, but that may not be best as it will scroll
> down over time).

The HOME section has "tabs" (Welcome, Download and Navigation, Contacting us,
....) so perhaps another such tab could be added.   Other forums have "stickies"
that stay "pinned" to the top of the list of threads and topics.
Some forums have sections that are only open (writable) for admin.  Perhaps that
would be a good way to post FAQ / "static" information.

There's also the Moray web page, in case anyone approaches things starting from
there.

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On 23/07/2020 21:05, Bald Eagle wrote:
> At the moment, the major 4 points that I see are:
[snip]

Perhaps I misunderstood: I thought you meant an update about the POV
project rather than moray?

-- Chris

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Chris Cason <del### [at] deletethistoopovrayorg> wrote:

> > There are job-search sites, and perhaps there are types of job headings that
> > requests for developers could be listed under.  A shiny ray-traced graphic or
> > two and a link to the HOF could pique someone's interest.
>
> I considered reaching out to some of my contacts in .edu-land to see if
> I could get some interested students.

Paul Bourke certainly seems to have enjoyed POV-Ray, and Apparently there are
still some professors out there who send their students this way to dabble in
the black art of CPU raytracing.

> The
> person really needs to genuinely be interested in POV-Ray itself, and if
> they are then it's likely they'll approach us (or we'll hear of some
> work they've been doing).

They do.  But they also need to be aware of POV-Ray at all, and there at least
needs to be the "FREE CANDY" sign on the van in the parking lot to entice them
to come over and look...   ;)
If you and others are clearly aware of what a CPU raytracer can do that
GPU-software _can't_ - then making that list of things available to us and any
potentially interested parties would go far.

You have all of these important pieces of detailed factual data that anyone
considering assisting you needs.   We need them to be instantly available and
easily accessible so that in the 5 minutes I'm not being distracted by any of 12
things and I'm right there in a news feed where I could make the plug for
POV-Ray, I can just pull whatever I need up, copy, paste, done.
Having such lists of things right on the front web page also addresses the
concern that POV-Ray can appear quite stagnant, even though it does have more
usage than it appears to.

> Secondly, in depth-work on povray can be *hard* to get right. Sure, it's
> easy to make tweaks here and there but to really work on the program as
> a whole you need to have a solid grasp on how everything works together
> as adding what appears to be a simple feature has the potential, in some
> cases, to do really unexpected things *if* you don't know how it works
> as a whole. To get a developer up to speed on the guts as a whole takes
> time. Plus whoever it is needs to be really competent with C++ and
> unmanaged languages (by which I mean having to do your own memory
> management).

Yes - I've sifted through the source code on a number of occasions, payed
attention to clipka, and I understand what you mean.

> That said, I can see where we *could* use a student or less-experienced
> developer who wanted to round out their background a bit: it would be
> great to have someone formally document the inner workings in a detailed
> form (i.e. at least enough so that someone who doesn't know how
> everything fits together could read it and understand). This would make
> getting up to speed on the codebase for anyone who wants to do so a fair
> bit easier and would also help in splitting it into bits for the 4.0
> rewrite.
>
> But that's a lot of work ...

Yes.   But something that we can get started and work on, stepwise.


> Many people seem to think GPU raytracing is the
> future and software renderers are dead but simply don't understand that
> at this point GPU's are still incapable of the level of precision and
> generic applicability that a fully primitive-based renderer is, and I
> don't see that changing anytime soon (as there's no real need to).

vide supra.

> But you know what? Despite the fact
> this thread has been a bit, um, rowdy, it's shown me that there's still
> a bunch of people who do care and has helped improve my feelings about
> the whole thing. I might even enjoy getting stuck back into the code,
> time will tell.
>
> -- Chris

Thanks again Chris.
Gotta go do the things.  bbl

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On Thu, 23 Jul 2020 03:47:24 -0400, jr wrote:

> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>> On Wed, 22 Jul 2020 17:53:30 -0400, jr wrote:
>>
>> > read/learned about 'control message'.  thanks.
>>
>> I await your apology for insinuating that I lied to you about my role
>> in the project.
> 
> it takes two to tango.  you used "*plonk*" in your previous message, (I
> think) to emphasise the .. finality.  do you want to change your mind? 
> because both of us would need to be willing to .. climb down.  the
> offer: you stop conducting your, um, witch hunt, and I will keep my
> tongue in check.

No, you don't get to offer being civil in exchange for anything.  I 
called you out for your blatant rudeness and attitude that you're 
entitled to anything.  That doesn't change.  You were (and are) rude, and 
you are not entitled to anything from anyone here.

And you certainly don't get to hold civility hostage *because* you got 
called out for being rude and acting like you were owed *anything*.

Your insinuation that I was lying about my involvement in the project 
based on your total lack of comprehension as to how NNTP works is 
completely separate from your attitude in this entire discussion, that 
Chris & Co somehow "owe" you something, that you're "entitled" to 
explanations, and your general rudeness.

You owe Chris an apology as well for your rudeness.  I simply called you 
out for it, and I will not apologize nor stand down from that position.  
(How's that for "being direct"?  See?  It can be done without being 
blatantly rude.)

As for the "*plonk*" - I've filtered your posts so I only see them if I 
decide I want to even deal with you.

Back to the filter you go.

-- 
"I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and 
besides, the pig likes it." - George Bernard Shaw

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Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> On Thu, 23 Jul 2020 03:47:24 -0400, jr wrote:
>
> > Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> >> On Wed, 22 Jul 2020 17:53:30 -0400, jr wrote:
> >>
> >> > read/learned about 'control message'.  thanks.
> >>
> >> I await your apology for insinuating that I lied to you about my role
> >> in the project.
> >
> > it takes two to tango.  you used "*plonk*" in your previous message, (I
> > think) to emphasise the .. finality.  do you want to change your mind?
> > because both of us would need to be willing to .. climb down.  the
> > offer: you stop conducting your, um, witch hunt, and I will keep my
> > tongue in check.
>
> No, you don't get to offer being civil in exchange for anything.  I
> called you out for your blatant rudeness and attitude that you're
> entitled to anything.  That doesn't change.  You were (and are) rude, and
> you are not entitled to anything from anyone here.
>
> And you certainly don't get to hold civility hostage *because* you got
> called out for being rude and acting like you were owed *anything*.
>
> Your insinuation that I was lying about my involvement in the project
> based on your total lack of comprehension as to how NNTP works is
> completely separate from your attitude in this entire discussion, that
> Chris & Co somehow "owe" you something, that you're "entitled" to
> explanations, and your general rudeness.

<http://news.povray.org/web.5efdaf83f0cdacfc4d00143e0%40news.povray.org>

read it.  excepting the last paragraph where, arguably, I was "rude", the
_whole_ post is about "Chris & Co somehow "owe"" the _user community_, in my
opinion, fwiw.  yet, you persist in making this a personal thing, about "me".

know what?

> ... "*plonk*" ...

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