My beef is with Norman personally. I am tempted to carry it out here further, but that’s not right, it should remain private.
But let me say this: It seems that Norman is the one who has to answer most of the bug reports I put in, and he probably doesn’t like it. And I can be a jerk when writing bug reports, and he has to take it. No wonder he’s getting grumpy about it and kicks back when he can. And there’s some truth in what Joseph wrote about admitting their mistakes. I see that Norman never does that towards me, and since I’m aware of it, I push him about it even more. It’s an inflamatory spiral, unfortunately. I’ve made some attempts to get out of it in the past, and maybe Norman has, too. And even despite this long history of unpleasant encounters, when we met at RW 2012, we could sit at a table and have friendly conversations. Part of this ever-escalating problem is the distance, and my low threshold to dealing with the daily frustrations I experience with Xojo.
Mind you, I do have quite a good understanding of how the IDE works, how the compiler works, how much of its framework works. I’ve programmed all such things myself in the past, and I’ve worked briefly for RS in 2008, getting all the source code disclosed to me. I may not be up-to-date with the latest concepts, but I know all the basics. I’ve been programming for 30 years professionally, doing nothing else. Reverse engineered (no, not just using nm but writing my own tools to disassemble and analyse programs), wrote parts of and maintained an entire an operating system, rewrote half a compiler, and lots of other things that give me a good understanding what the IDE can and should do. With that background, I see a lot of coding errors where others only see an odd behavior, if they even notice it. I often instantly know what was done wrong, maybe even why. I walk around in this software world with radar vision, it feels to me. I see faults everywhere and I want them fixed, or at least pointed out and understood by those who caused them so that they’re avoided in the future. Because, most such mistakes are part of a pattern or general misunderstanding or simple inexperience, not just an accidental typo. So, they’re things that one can learn to avoid if one is taught so.
I feel compelled to do that. It’s something that takes control of me and I get excited and agitated about it. It’s a blessing (for being a much appreciated programmer that others rely on for doing a thorough and always satisfying job) and a curse - because it leads to this obsession that lets me lose all calmness and become overly focussed and aggressive to the point that I upset others who don’t deserve this.
But you may also have noticed that I can mellow out. E.g, I’ve recently removed all the inflamatory phrases from my latest blog article after having a chat with someone who gave me a better perspective on the topic. Also, I’ve tried to apologize or at least admit my fault publically after simillar negative behaviors of mine.
I am a jerk, and I don’t like how I keep pushing others off. That’s why I chose programming as my profession: Because it allows me to accomplish something without having to deal with people that I might upset. Maybe that was a bad decision - but that was made 30 years ago and there’s no going back to change it.
And no, I’m not bipolar. I am just a person with bad social skills who found one thing he’s really good at.
So, deal with it, ignore me, but please do not attack me, because then I only get worse. Instead, tell me I was out of line, and I’ll calm down, and if you could even throw in a “you made a good point, though”, I’m almost entirely happy.
