Re: Program bugs and Game bugs

[pfg@cs.rmit.edu.au (Paul Francis Gilbert)]

ljsilicon@aol.com (LJSILICON) writes:

>Nothin Copulates barfed (again!)---

>OH GOD! It's Nothin Copulates inserting another example of CHRISTIAN life.
>Nothin, the next time you actually pass near a church, you need to get on your
>knees and pray for understanding of "forgiving". While you're at it, The
>billboard outside your home that says I AM THE GREATEST CHRISTIAN IN THE WORLD
>is getting tarnished.

It's my personal belief that Nothin Copulates is the Antichrist. Think
about it... the antichrist is by definition involved in the Christian 
religion, even though he's opposed to it's principles. And he obviously 
wouldn't declare himself to be the anti-christ: he'd work on bringing down
the system from within. "That's Nathan!" I cry to myself. "He's the
Antichrist!"

PS: On this whole issue with Wolfenstein, here's my personal view: as a long
time programmer for the PC, and more recently for it's Windows 95 [and 
remember, this is IMHO, although I expect that won't stop Nothan from 
flaming me just as much as everybody else about it], as a long
operating system, system bugs are a part of life. Whether it be a bug in a
particular file opening API, or a bug introduced by IE 4 that corrupts 
images, whatever. The point is, we recognise them, and write workaround code.
If we don't, our program doesn't work, and is by definition buggy.

I agree with Rubywand here [and it's a sure bet that Nutball will start 
calling me a pirate too because of this ;-)]. A program that doesn't work is
buggy. The fact of whether the bug occurs because of defective program code,
or the calling of a *known* defective API call is immaterial. The program
doesn't work... let me repeat... the program doesn't work. If it is possible
to make an alternative solution without using the particular API call, then
the onus is on the programmers to recognise it and write a workaround.

After all, when I'm designing Windows 95 programs, and I find a call that's
buggy in the system, I don't deliberately keep it in and demand the users 
upgrade to Windows 98. In fact, as already demonstrated, the Wolf3D team
didn't even bother to tell us that... and I won't even go into their 
conflicting last-minute/at-least-a-week stories. ;-)

--
Paul Gilbert           | pfg@yallara.cs.rmit.edu.au (The DreamMaster)
Bach App Sci, Bach Eng | The opinions expressed are my own, all my own, and
Year 5, RMIT Melbourne | as such will contain no references to small furry
Australia	       | creatures from Alpha Centauri.