From: swalter@nyx.cs.du.edu (DreamWeaver)
Subject: Re: Splitting the Group
Organization: University of Denver, Dept. of Math & Comp. Sci.
Date: Sun, 16 Aug 92 03:56:14 GMT


> Cause, programming IBM_PC's belongs under comp.sys.ibm.programming or
> some such group... ;-)

True in theory ;) ... but comp.sys.msdos (or whatever) is in a constant
battle with comp.lang.c (or pick your language) ... I track both groups
and see people being kicked back and forth between then because "that's
not a hardware problem ... it's a _language_ question ... go elsewhere" or
"that's not a language question, it's a hardware-specific problem ... go
somewhere else".

There seems to be a great deal of interest in game programming ... at
least enough to warrant a group of it's own.  As for me, I feel that
programming is programming ... irregardeless of the machine.  If you're
going to start splitting hairs about the hardware platform, then this
group has no purpose and we should all go back to our own machines.

I realize I'm probably going to fire up a flame war (I dropped into this
thread late so I'm a bit out of touch) ... but I'd like to relay a story
from my own experience a year ago:

I used to be active on the TURBOC-L and TCPLUS-L mailing lists.  At one
time we had a lively discussion going on about how to handle EGA/VGA
graphics.  Nothing fancy, there was just a large group of people who
needed help understanding the variety of manuals out there and a sample
program or two to get them kicked in the right direction.

I got the dubious position of being "resident guru" (or one of them).  I
offered to put together a series of "classes" or posts from the research
I've been doing for the past few years ... and got a "great let's do it!"
response ...

 ... until I was just about ready to start the posting ...

 ... when all of a sudden a bunch of lurkers jumped out with posts like
"Ive just started watching this group and have been for a while and if all
you're going to talk about is graphics I don't want to be here" and the
like.

I tried to be open and said (many times) that if the majority of the
people aren't interested in this I won't do it (I don't like wasting
bandwidth anymore than anyone else ... even though I'm doing it now :D).

When I stopped talking about graphics, with a "ok, you want to talk about
something else ... let's talk", the list went totally dead.

The point:  those who were whining the most were only interested in
hearing what others had to say as long as those others could read their
minds.

My point:  All machines (Amiga, Commodore, PC, Mac) have game capabilities
and this seems to be a good place to talk about programming them.  If
someone wants help with a particular thing, they should ask ... but be
prepared ... just because you complain about the group doing something
you're not interested in doesn't mean that there are people reading who
will be able to help you.

If you don't believe me, try this:  All IBM programmers will no longer
talk about IBM development ... from now on we will discuss Amiga and only
Amiga ... and see if it works.

Sorry about the length ... this thread finally got to me.

-Scotty

Newsgroups: rec.games.programmer