F**k the SMF project. F**k it up its stupid a**. <-- says Arantor ;)

Arantor

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Re: Fuck the SMF project. Fuck it up its stupid ass.
« Reply #60, on March 18th, 2013, 10:46 PM »
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This is unrelated to any larger issues at or with SMF.
Ah, but it is. This is something that appears to have been largely unnoticed in the comments, despite my spelling it out rather clearly.

Your project revolves around development of a piece of software. I know there is a strange culture attached to that idea, but hear me out. You have a project around a piece of software. And THIS is a person you are giving the keys to the kingdom to. Are you seriously telling me you do not see why this is a problem?

For those playing along at home, let me explain why this is a problem.

1) Technical competence. The mod proves, as if there were any real doubt, that Lab is not - in my opinion - up to that responsibility.

2) Inability to handle criticism. The same argument could be levelled at me, but if you notice, someone deconstructing my work on a technical basis doesn't yield emotional responses. Personal attacks will. Ad-hominems presented as 'legitimate criticism' will. People going around and telling me that I'm wasting my time because I should be doing something better will too.[1] A developer who cannot handle legitimate criticism of what they have written is a poor developer.

3) Questionable ethics. Selling paid plugins is always an interesting question. What it means is that you have to bring your A game to the party. If your A game is up to scratch, it's all fair in love and war. Your paid work will be representative of your better, if not your best, work.

This raises several issues. Firstly, not even running his own paid mod site. It's not difficult to run such a site, and takes a competent developer a couple of days at most to get something set up. The fact he isn't even running his own mod site out of the box is a fairly worrying item anyway, just as much as I took vbgamer to task for not using his own storefront or downloads systems on his own site. Just as, while I'm being fair to everyone, Nibogo wasn't using his own gallery for serving gallery images - I haven't checked to see if he is now using his own but even after he brought his own out, he was still using Aeva.

So a mod developer that isn't running his own site - especially for something he'd already put '3 years' into - should be a huge warning sign.

More importantly, his work should be up to the standard of the SMF trunk that he is supposed to be committing to. If his commits there are up to scratch, why is sub-par work being put into a paid mod? Conversely, if his commits are only up to the standard of his paid work, why is he still a developer?

Even more importantly, how did no-one on the team realise his status essentially as 'liability' before he got into the position of being a developer?
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it's really funny that you compare SMF to for-profit/corporations, since that is supposedly what drove Norv away.
-sigh- The fact you still fail to understand the point of what Norv has been saying is not even funny any more, it's just sad.

In almost any other open source project, and doubly so for corporations, is that you have people contributing to the cause. If they're not contributing to the cause and driving it forwards, they are dead weight. Corporations have a concept of revenue-per-staff member. If you have too many people not generating forward progress (or, for businesses, profit), they are a hindrance and should be removed. Now, before the argument of 'but how does <insert department> remain in the company' comes in, there will always be a need for a set of support services. But they are to *support* the business.

Why is SM NPO any different?

It is a project designed to support the development of a free and open source forum system, yes?

Support means to provide the environment, tools and facilities required to make it work - just as IT provides the machines, Facilities provides the desks and power, HR orchestrates people. These groups do not dictate the direction the business takes - the people running the show and generating growth do that.
 1. Because it's calling my judgement into question, and if you don't trust my judgement, why are you hassling me?
When we unite against a common enemy that attacks our ethos, it nurtures group solidarity. Trolls are sensational, yes, but we keep everyone honest. | Game Memorial

Kindred

  • Posts: 166
Re: Fuck the SMF project. Fuck it up its stupid ass.
« Reply #61, on March 19th, 2013, 04:46 AM »
Hmmm...   Its a stretch, comparing his mod to SMF...   Mostly because the mod had no oversight, SMF does.
However, you d have some points...


As for Norv...  You have it wrong, I understand everything that she has said. I just disagree with just about everything.

Arantor

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Re: Fuck the SMF project. Fuck it up its stupid ass.
« Reply #62, on March 19th, 2013, 04:49 AM »
Human is as human does. It is a stretch to compare the mod to SMF, sure. But people don't suddenly change.
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As for Norv...  You have it wrong, I understand everything that she has said. I just disagree with just about everything.
Interesting. Very interesting. It's also one of the many problems SMF has. And one of those not shared by any active open source project I know. Funny, that.

nend

  • When is a theme, no longer what it was when installed?
  • Posts: 165
Re: Fuck the SMF project. Fuck it up its stupid ass.
« Reply #63, on March 29th, 2013, 05:31 PM »
SMF development shouldn't be too hard. Deny all feature request because users supposedly wouldn't understand them or use them. After that fix a few security bugs in the previous version and slap a new version number on it.

I know there is more into it but just seems like no one on the team wants to step up their game. Maybe in fear of the other team.

Even without SMF core the platform is still capable of more.

What is really lacking IMHO even in ports is the ability for structural diversity. I guess I can go on about the lack of modern features but I will not.

I have been thinking about donating code though but when I find the time. I was thinking maybe all the source code changes @ Wrestle Topia may be beneficial to someone.


Nao

  • Dadman with a boy
  • Posts: 16,079
Re: Fuck the SMF project. Fuck it up its stupid ass.
« Reply #64, on November 11th, 2013, 01:06 PM »
Sometimes I'll open a random topic that I never actually had time to read at all. And it'll be fun.
This one had an appealing title, so I thought, why not. Get the pop-corn out.
And I wasn't disappointed, lol. Arantor giving the middle finger to SMF and then 6 months later joining them and publicly acting as if he'd never been an opponent of their politics... (And implying that I was the one who had problems with the SMF team. Yeah, sure! I never even read that topic before! :lol:)
Quote from Arantor on March 15th, 2013, 05:00 PM
He made 5,000 lines of mod to make a nice interface around editing that array. Including such gems as a 50 line easter egg loaded every page, and his own file caching system that insists on pretty-printing everything, including comments, to a file, as opposed to, say, using serialize.
Or as opposed to, say, moving an array to the database, and then never writing any kind of interface to allow editing it.
At least he tried, didn't he.

Better try and fail, than never to have tried.
Quote from Arantor on March 15th, 2013, 05:00 PM
And remember, this is being written by a core SMF developer as a paid mod. You see now why it bothers me so much?
Given your high respect for the SMF development team and its low level of entry, it's even more amusing that you didn't hesitate for a split second to join them.
Quote from emanuele on March 17th, 2013, 12:02 PM
* emanuele is the one that started later in development: ~14 QBasic, ~18 VB6 [1] (and later some .NET) and ~27 PHP...
 1. with in-between excel-formulas, yeah, I played with some nasty array of formulas to do not-so-basic things in the laboratory :P
It all depends on your age. :P
I'm 38, so I've had time to 'be young' or 'be old' for things...
I started Basic at 11, assembler at 15, Pascal and HTML at 21, first contact with PHP at 28 (like, 'get the hell out of here!'), first PHP hacks at 30, first real PHP code at 32, first SMF contribution at 33, first mod at 34, first fork at 35, first post on this topic at 38. There's always a time for everything! :P
Quote from emanuele on March 17th, 2013, 12:02 PM
@Kindred: not sure if your comment was serious or not, though, why re-invent the wheel again and again and again? There is Lab's free version of the mod (under MPL, so anyone could take it, improve the code (change the name) and re-distribute the mod), there is Kays's version that is BSD.
Use one of those and if you have improvements put them somewhere so that people can grab them. ;)
In terms of reinventing the wheel, it pains me each time I see 'similar' features that are implemented between Elk and SMF and Wedge. That's the price to pay for freedom of structural changes in one's fork, I guess: you can't just take code 'as it is'. Sometimes you can't even port it (e.g. taking things from Wedge and adapting it to Elk or SMF). I for one would love to see all of the 'nice' SMF developers work together on the same stuff, but it's pretty much impossible. Even these last couple of days, I saw you get upset with another developer I like. It is disappointing that human relationships aren't always as easy as "we like this codebase, we both know it, let's work on it together!"... But, well... See how Arantor left Wedge and now has completely forgotten about everything he seemed to hold so dear. You think you 'get' someone, but you have no idea. The only person you can 'get' is the one inside you. As for the others, you can only hope to simply have good relationships with them, but don't expect anything of them.

Meh, I started this post with an uplift mood, and now it all sounds so gloomy... :geek: :ph34r:

Sara

  • Walking Contradiction
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Re: F**k the SMF project. F**k it up its stupid a**. <-- says Arantor ;)
« Reply #65, on November 11th, 2013, 09:28 PM »
I guess I can air what I think?

Arantor is a great programmer, though I find him to really hypocritical as a person with the recent events.  I had to laugh when remembering this thread after hearing the news that he came back to SMF.  Though, whatever, anything to make him happy?  I have to be honest, I felt like I was walking on eggshells when he was around here.  I felt as if I asked a question or offered an idea that he would pound me into the ground, mostly due to the fact that I am nowhere near his repertoire of programming.  I learn along the way to benefit myself and my sites; confronting problems takes me to task but I always learn something new about php, css, html, ect along the way.

Yes, I did offer 100 dollars to the Wedge project instead of throwing it at a forum license for v.bulletin.  Wedge fits the structure I want for my websites perfectly (especially with the unique privacy features, something my main forum really works upon), and I plan on using it in lieu of WordPress.  Yet even after saying all of that, I feel really bad.  I feel like I am leeching off of Nao's (and in essence Arantor's) hard work, hard work they pretty much did for free.  100 bucks is a drop in the bucket considering how many years was put into wedge.  Wedge is priceless and I am hopeless as to how to give back efficiently.

Nao

  • Dadman with a boy
  • Posts: 16,079
Re: F**k the SMF project. F**k it up its stupid a**. <-- says Arantor ;)
« Reply #66, on November 11th, 2013, 11:48 PM »
Quote from Sara on November 11th, 2013, 09:28 PM
I guess I can air what I think?
Yes.
Quote from Sara on November 11th, 2013, 09:28 PM
Arantor is a great programmer, though I find him to really hypocritical as a person with the recent events.
He's... Complex. Even in the days of Wedge, I didn't understand him for all he did.
I mean, these days, I'm starting to wonder if his goal with his work on Wedge was the same as mine -- making the best forum software we could think of, something we'd want to use ourselves, something without the dead weight of the many mods and themes in SMF that always need to be catered for, something without the 'mass' of users in mind, targeted to people who're willing to get to work to have the best software around, and who don't care whether the software they use has a large user base, recognition or mod/theme library. It's now looking like his goal was simply to make a prototype of SMF 3.0... Because it's certainly what he's working on, these days. Taking his 'best' of Wedge and putting it into SMF.

Of course, there are implications to this line of work, that make me chuckle. I won't elaborate, though.

Arantor is what he is. He posted tens of thousands of messages on sm.org, which to me always sounded like "okay, I hate the SMF team, but I can't stop myself from posting all day long, so I have to have somewhere to post all my knowledge."
It made it pretty much impossible to follow him on the myriads of forums he was registered on.
So, he would start discussing things that I had no idea what they were about, and I would just let it slide. Things like this post here... Seriously, why did he care about an incompetent developer at the SMF team..? I mean, he WASN'T going to be using SMF any time soon, was he...? Turned out he had so much pride in Wedge, he used SMF to build his latest website. To me, that felt like a public renouncement. It was only confimed when he came back from his trip.
Quote from Sara on November 11th, 2013, 09:28 PM
I had to laugh when remembering this thread after hearing the news that he came back to SMF.  Though, whatever, anything to make him happy?  I have to be honest, I felt like I was walking on eggshells when he was around here.
I think we all did. Including me. I'd already, ahem, 'experienced' the difficulties of trying to be frank with him. I learned my lesson, and progressively stopped sharing my thoughts on what he made in Wedge that I didn't like. I'm somehow glad I know I can remove them now, but I also realize it would take time to revert some of his 'innovations', and I'd rather spend my time finishing up a usable beta.

He was just hard to work with. He had an answer for everything, and he gave them with so much aplomb that you just couldn't discuss them with him. Where I would post poll asking people where they think I had a good idea here or there, he just didn't bother -- his ideas were for the best, after all. Well, a majority of them were, but when you start fearing that he'll snap if you question one of his future implementations (or, worse, that he'll start arguing over it in novella-sized posts that no one can bother to read, let alone reply to), something's really wrong.

I for one, seriously hope that people will keep telling me what I'm doing wrong. Wrong direction? It's all right, I'd rather know when I just got started on something, rather than at the end when someone dares to speak. Perhaps I'm more understanding of 'newbies', simply because I'm a strong believer in the fact that "you're always someone else's dummy". In whatever field you feel you excel at, there's always going to be someone who knows better than you. I realize that (I even realize that person is often Arantor!), but if I keep thinking, "I'm not the right person for the job", then I'll never do anything. My Mahjongg Solitaire game sucked when I started it, which is why I released it for free, which is why it got popular, which is why I kept working on it, and years later made it into something that still to this day tell me is a masterpiece. I still think it was a piece of crap, but you have to draw a line: yes, someone else could have done a better job at writing Kyodai Mahjongg, but he probably wouldn't have bothered to work on it for 9 years, like I did.
When you have the guts and the will to do it, and to finish it, then you can do it. Doesn't matter if you have to restart from scratch several times. It will take what it takes to do it.

TL:DR. Yes, he's hard to see through, and whenever you start talking with him, you can't help but feel frightened that he'll end up shunning you. Most of the times it would end happily and he'd be cordial and nice, but do one single mistake, or insist a bit too much for his taste, and he'll crush you. And now where he is, I won't be there to possibly help smooth things between him and other people.
Quote from Sara on November 11th, 2013, 09:28 PM
Yes, I did offer 100 dollars to the Wedge project instead of throwing it at a forum license for v.bulletin.  Wedge fits the structure I want for my websites perfectly (especially with the unique privacy features, something my main forum really works upon),
Yeah, it still needs work, but it's something that'll end up as one of Wedge's finest features.
I mean, some of my ideas aren't implemented yet, but... You'll see! Once I'm done with the contact list system, I'll devote myself to privacy settings, and the bulk of the work is done, so you'll see.

Interestingly, I caught a topic where a certain Arantor told someone that "SMF will never (stoop so low as to...) implement privacy features, because it's not what a forum is for." Aside from the fact that that particular topic shows his 'style' (half arrogant, half trustable), as well as his 'badge' thing (yes, we know you're proud to be at SMF, even though you said the exact opposite in this very topic), he also mentions the disastrous impact on privacy... Which, as championed recently by Pandos, is not exactly THAT big a deal.[1] So... Yeah, whatever.
Quote from Sara on November 11th, 2013, 09:28 PM
and I plan on using it in lieu of WordPress.  Yet even after saying all of that, I feel really bad.  I feel like I am leeching off of Nao's (and in essence Arantor's) hard work, hard work they pretty much did for free.
Well, we did sign up knowingly, you see... We just didn't expect to have more than six months of work ahead of us, which was manageable. My plans were to simply import my SMF->Noisen.com patch to Wedge (around 900KB of code which I progressively reduced to 400KB through implementations and deletions, before I finally gave up and figured the rest would best be rewritten), and his plans, err... He had more ambition than I did, which is the reason why we postponed every six months, and consequently why I started implementing other things 'because we had time'...

Now that I'm alone on the project (as the decision maker, I mean), I certainly can decide when I'm going to feature-freeze the entire thing. Not right now, but it's getting close. Hopefully, next month I'll have some releasable beta. And if any of Arantor's code is in an "unreleasable state", then we'll just work on it. At worst, I'll simply remove said code.[2]
Quote from Sara on November 11th, 2013, 09:28 PM
100 bucks is a drop in the bucket considering how many years was put into wedge.  Wedge is priceless and I am hopeless as to how to give back efficiently.
Well, if I ever was going to have people pay for Wedge, it would be for an inexpensive price, less than $50. Probably around $30. I wouldn't expect to sell more than a few hundred copies (at best!!), so it wouldn't even pay for a month's worth of work on my current 'rate', so... I don't know why I should bother. If I could make it work as a sustainable revenue maker, then I certainly could envision working on Wedge for years and years to come. But alas, I'm no marketing guy, and I have no plans to turn Wedge into a marketing machine. As I said before, I'm only targeting people who know a bit of PHP and are willing to do what needs to be done for Wedge to work well on their setup. It'll mean less support questions for me, and happier power users.

PS: oops, I just realized it's an Arantor-length post. Sorry about that! I could probably shorten it by half, but I'm not sure it's worth it.
 1. Actually, to be fair, Pete did tell me in private that he agreed to a suggestion of mine that we could simply disregard topic privacy at query time, and just hide unreachable topics at display time, to save processing time at the cost of getting empty pages if you stumble upon a series of hidden topics. I'm not going to do it this way, though; I'll only do it if privacy can provably be shown as having a real impact on overall forum performance.
 2. It'd be interesting to see which Wedge would be best: a Wedge without my code, or a Wedge without his. They would still both be very good, I have to say!
Re: F**k the SMF project. F**k it up its stupid a**. <-- says Arantor ;)
« Reply #67, on November 12th, 2013, 12:01 AM »
And because I'm a fair person, I just found a good example of a topic where I understand Pete's crude behavior:
- User posts in the wrong place, doesn't understand the answers, isn't generally very helpful...
- Arantor posts a piece of code that should help him (I'd have done pretty much the same),
- And no replies, of course. Presumably, guy tested it, it worked, then he left on another topic to ask for something else. (At this point, I don't know if Pete had moved onto another topic as well, or just didn't care that the guy would reply or not.)

That's certainly one of the reasons I've never been interested in getting Wedge to be more popular than SMF. I don't want this kind of user. Or, okay, I'm willing to have this kind of user, but only if they pay me for my time.

Sara

  • Walking Contradiction
  • Posts: 41
Re: F**k the SMF project. F**k it up its stupid a**. <-- says Arantor ;)
« Reply #68, on November 12th, 2013, 12:20 AM »
No worries, Nao.  I happen to like reading online novellas in forum replies. :P

All I can do is pretty much keep an open ear to what you have shared with us (as just above).  It's very interesting (dare say it, juicy :D) to hear what has been going on behind closed doors. 

Speaking of closed doors, I want to praise you again for the privacy features.  I am again laughing at what Arantor mentioned:
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"SMF will never (stoop so low as to...) implement privacy features, because it's not what a forum is for."
I've had to use cake[1] tiers after tiers of membergroups to create gates for potential members to pass through so they can become official members for my (crumbling) SMF install.  With this new feature on Wedge where one can choose the privacy of every single thread they make is a time saver and is more efficient.  It puts privacy back into the control of the members on what they want to share with the world or with their own circle of friends or the forum at large. 

Even if it was SMF's intention to not input privacy features, someone out there (Me) is going to use the existing features to implement an ivory tower.
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Well, if I ever was going to have people pay for Wedge, it would be for an inexpensive price, less than $50. Probably around $30.
30 dollars, 50 dollars, 100 dollars[2] I would gladly pay it, and I would hope you get some sort of monetary benefit from your hard work.

Also, finding out that Arantor wanted to keep the project under wraps really upsets me.  I am so happy that you're on the road to release.  Even that you're sharing it with the world makes me very grateful.
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And because I'm a fair person, I just found a good example of a topic where I understand Pete's crude behavior:
Yeah, can I be rude for one second?  I hope that person steps on a lego while barefoot. :D
 1. Mmmn, delicious cake...
 2. One-time fee, right? :eheh:

Pandos

  • Living on the edge of Wedge
  • Posts: 635
# dpkg-reconfigure brain
error: brain is not installed or configured