Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:

> Everyone's lives are different.  You don't get to dictate the terms that
> other people live their lives by.

If only the world of People held to that when they voted.  :|

> >> >> Instead of complaining, maybe offer to help out where you can.

To be fair, I think that's a more difficult proposition than it seems.   It's
like throwing a resume out into the job market.
Personalities aside, I think that the core issue is still that no one knows who
is responsible for what, and it's hard to grasp what can and needs to be done
when one is not privy to things discussed by "the dev team" and other groups
with various designations.
When there are difficulties, it is easy to deflect any and all discussion by
painting someone as [merely] "a complainer".  Or to ignore them, or simply
maintain radio silence.
"What you allow, is what will continue."
Perhaps jr is being "disagreeable," but that doesn't invalidate any of his
points, and it is perhaps, what is needed.  If POV-Ray was a company, it would
be sensible to listen to and consider the customer's [user's] concerns.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WXo1aFb8MY


> >> Being impatient isn't going to make things go faster.
On the flipside, one might say that being patient won't either.

> I don't see anyone else bitching and complaining about the state of
> development and throwing blame around.

Would it help if they did?
Does it matter that jr IS?
I mean, sometimes it's just a matter of damned if you do, and damned if you
don't.
We can discuss 1. people, 2. events, or 3. IDEAS.
We can leave jr completely out of this, and still address the issues he raises.

> .... putting
> together a laundry list of complaints isn't really a great way to
> motivate people to do what you want them to do.

No, but the 12-steppers would say that the first step to fixing things is
recognizing that you have a problem.   Whether you like they way they tell you
or not is - from a POV-Ray development standpoint - irrelevant.
There have been plenty of people here, over the years, who have shoved my nose
in the pile of code that I've deposited on the carpet, and metaphorically beat
me with the rolled up newspaper until the answers began to glimmer through the
thinner parts of my thick skull.
Polite?  Tactful?  Probably not.
Effective?   Seemed to be.
I've made it this far, and don't tend to ask _as many_ completely idiotic
questions.

> It's one thing to ask for an update and to be polite about it.  You've
> been anything but.  I've known Chris for a very long time, and while he's
> being too nice to say "hey, you're being a dick about this", I don't
> appreciate people being dicks to my friends.

Maybe he's "being a dick", and maybe he's not.
Maybe he's old and cranky and cantankerous, and having a bad blood-sugar day, or
it's hot and muggy, and he ran out of both coffee and patience.
But he is being assertive and trying to keep this on the front burner.
If he was a boss or a supervisor (whose underlings generally consider them
dicks) he'd "just be doing his job."
Sooner or later, someone is going to come by with a sword and take a mighty
swing at the Gordian Knot.
It seems to me that jr might simply be willing to volunteer to be the "lightning
rod" that others aren't willing to be.
A rule of thumb in complaints and customer service is that for every complaint,
there are 300 others just like it that haven't been communicated.

> I didn't see you step up in the past 13 years after Lutz handed off Moray
> to the POV-Ray project and say "how can I help facilitate getting this
> code reviewed and made available?".

My own impression of the state of that was: "we're not allowed to have the
code", which we'd need to do, to see / review it - because it proprietary or
whatever - and so it's kind of a catch-22.

> If you have too delicate a disposition to be called out when you're being
> a jerk, perhaps you should just go away.  At least be adult enough to own
> the fact that you have all the tact of a brick through a window.

Regardless of his level of impatience or tact, I would respectfully submit that
the issues raised still stand on their own, and so perhaps we can pretend that
Princess Penelope Petunia batted her eyelashes and curtsied while demurely
asking that a teensy favor of hers be granted.

Also, in all fairness, he / we were promised an answer/response, and jr seems to
be abiding by the Russian proverb - an admonition to "trust, but verify."

The world is full of plenty of dicks who don't want to answer questions "because
of the tone that they were asked in", even when it's in every way proper to hold
them accountable.  Damned citizen taxpayers being jerks.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99IeGqIIHj4

So - let's not be THAT way either.

Now, ruffled feathers or not, there are still some of us sitting out here in the
Peanut Gallery who are interested in answers, information, history, opinions,
and other levels and forms of discussion on the topics raised about POV-Ray, and
Moray.

Please, and a preemptive Thank You.

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