Re: Program bugs and Game bugs

[Stavros Robert Karatsoridis <skaratso@oucsace.cs.ohiou.edu>]

Rubywand <rubywand@swbell.net> wrote:
> Stavros Robert Karatsoridis writes ...
>> 
>> Rubywand <rubywand@swbell.net> wrote:
>> 
>> ....
>> 
>      If Fighting Frogs III: The Return, a game you designed and tested
> for Activision, is bombing Windows 95 on user systems whenever RealAudio
> is in the system tray, do you imagine for one moment that Activision
> would care whether or not it's due to a bug in Windows 95 or RealAudio?
> Not likely. Your little pink butt would be marched back to the computer
> and you would not dare show your face until "the bug" in Fighting Frogs
> III: The Return was "fixed" and it worked like a champ wherever
> RealAudio happened to be.

Not necessarily.  I can think of SEVERAL games (both on Mac and on the PC)
that say, in the documentation: This game is not compatible with X system
component.  In your example, the docs would say "Fighting Frogs III is not
compatible with RealAudio.  Please make sure that RealAudio is 'turned
off' before playing."  A MINOR annoyance at best for the user.  

At least on a Mac, you can use the Extensions Manager to turn off any
offending INITs, Control Panels, etc.  Now, OTOH, if there is a bug in
Windows 95, then yes, it is reasonable to say fix it so it works, however,
fixing it with an undocumented (or not recommended) work around WILL
break in the next version of the OS if the new version does not support
the work around.

You can please some people some of the time, but you can't please all of
the people all of the time.

Stavros