I want:-
The IK trigonometry bugs curing.
An IK-goal's actor should store all the time and separately the geometry etc of its relation to its ordinary parent and the geometry etc of its relation to its IK-parent. That would be the only good cure to the various misbehaviours affecting IK-goals.

I stuck with Poser 4 all the way til Poser 6 came out. I'm pretty confident I can skip this upgrade and wait til it's offered cheap or free as incentive for the next in line.

Mmmm, I think I'll wait till January when it comes out as a bundle with Vue 6 Esprit for $99:)

The reasons to buy Poser 7 marketing statagy would have been ok if they had trickled out the information gradually before you could pre-order it! That way people would know what they were buying. Why buy something when you don't know what it does? Also with the limited edition it says about the "exclusive" black box with Sydney on it. What!!! Who cares about what the so**ing box looks like, it's the software inside I'm bothered about! Unlike Star Wars figures etc, I can't see people in 20 years trying to flog unopened mint condition boxes of Poser on the internet for huge sums of cash.

But people like pretty, limited edtion things to look at, even if it's only the box a piece of software came in.

Of course, that doesn't mean everyone cares, hell, I have the Winter Queen edtion of P6, but since I chose download only I didn't get the pretty limited-edition Winter Queen box, not that I'm really all that bothered by it.

And I really think I'll hold off on getting another version of Poser until they get better memory management, hyperthreading/multi-core support, and the ability to have more than 1 character with the amount of polygons a fully dressed Mill-3 figure has in a single scene.

A better rigging system would be nice, but if it completely invalidates the current one, then they need to incorporate both,  and allow the 3rd-party figure developers (like DAZ and and anyone else who's created a figure, human or not) to work with the new rigging to provide versions of their characters that use it (not that we're likely to see that happen though, but maybe I'm just being pessimistic).

P6 works fine for me for the most part, P7 had better be a substantial improvement in both functionality, resource usage, and interface to get me to upgrade.

And it's not like efrontier can afford not to pay attention to the wants of the Poser hobbyist, because we seem to be the majority of the purchasers of the program, and if we stop buying....

I'm new to Poser... period!   and I'm learning to rig figures...  I hear a lot of what sounds legit complaints and concerns..   But I also hear a lot of crying too..  If I could create an animation with  Poser  figures in Poser Illustrating what I hear it would go like this..

Scene: A toy store front in a given street in a given city...  camera up high looking down onto this street filled with more merchant house stores and parked cars..  a large street clock on this street with its large hands at 5:59 am...  On this street in front of this toy store a bunch of children looking into the toy store that is at the moment closed.. Store hours 9:00am to 8:00pm..

Some of the luckier children who made it through the crowd and to the store glass front have their noses up against the glass with their hands around their faces trying to keep the street lights from absuring their vision to see the the toys through the darkness inside of the store.... Trying to get the best view....

You can hear the voices in the crow  getting more impatient as times ticks on....  "why can't they open the store already?" says one...   "yea.. what with all this waiting".....  says another...
"can you see the toy from there?"  ... says another voice way in the back....
The street clock's hands are on 6:00 am now... and six slow gongs on off.....

You got what I mean?

Quote - It doesn't seem to me (no expert in marketing, BTW) that getting people hooked by letting one really good feature after another become public over a period of time is a bad marketing tactic. It could work very well.

It worked for Poser 6.  So they're doing it again.

Quote - I do find it kind of funny how the pitchforks and torches come out when eF does this and yet everyone thinks it's fun when Daz does it.

I couldn't agree with you more here.

I had something vaguely similar happen when I did freebie giveaways during April for April Fools.  Though I think I've usually put out some pretty cool freebies and they've always been useful, more or less, some thought my strategy was to blow up their computer.  And it was just a very leary attitude from folks who didn't know me.  At the time I got a little upset and took it personally.

Quote - Mmmm, I think I'll wait till January when it comes out as a bundle with Vue 6 Esprit for $99:)

LOL, good one. The people at EF insult our intelligence with these vague announcements. Do they not hear what their customers want in an upgrade? Who cares about a black box? No one.

the aviation industry do lol

billy

:-) unless that black box has some incriminating evidence in it. Then it was destroyed or some other nonsense. In any case no one cares about Poser 7's black box full of rhetoric, bugs, bad code, and bad models. Give us something real to get excited about.

I preordered it and can't wait. I know there will be some improvements, and I like the sound of the casino content. Love esther

I'm interested, although I'd have to see something fairly spectacular in the other six reasons to get all the way up to "severely tempted".

One minor annoyance I'd like to see handled is the way the content files themselves are organised. Is anyone else still annoyed by the way new stuff from EF has the .obj file stuffed into the Libraries instead of  in the Geometries folder? It means you must install the figure (or whatever) where EF says it has to go, or you must edit the hardcoded pointers in the .cr2 and juggle files into various folders. The separated folder structure was put there for a reason: if the P7 content continues this practice, I won't be put off, but I'll be a little bit less inclined to buy.

Quote - Is anyone else still annoyed by the way new stuff from EF has the .obj file stuffed into the Libraries instead of  in the Geometries folder? It means you must install the figure (or whatever) where EF says it has to go, or you must edit the hardcoded pointers in the .cr2 and juggle files into various folders.

Yes (annoyed) and no, you don't necessarily need to edit the files as long as you just use Poser as Poser will look for the obj in the same directory it loads the library item from.

Hi All Have you been to th CP Forum On Poser 7. If you haven’t take a look. Thy a getting blasted. Ef has created a special character, Called the "Educated Consumer" for about every 10 "I well what and see". there is 1 "I ordered" standing in the crowed. What? Did I read that right. If I wont Poser developed I should purchase 7. That’s like a Rock Star or Raper saying "I would still be on top but nobody supported me by purchasing my albums and I’m a superstar". "No" people didn’t get you albums because you failed to produce. Or a Actor /Actress Saying "nobody supported by going to my last move and I cant get a acting job". "NO" you last two moves are bad and you failed to produce. Development money comes from investors. I’m a End User. Have a Product that works. If Thy fail to produce I will Move on. I will Shed no tear for the Company or Failed Product or the Investors that lost money.

Well we still have 6 more to go as of this date. When thy get to the render capabilities. "If"

Thy better do more than show a render and make a claims like NEW, Exclusive, Extensive Updates. I hope thy know to have statistics On the render. Poly count, Number Vert, show a wire frame. Multiple shots of the same seen. And render time.

And What is up with Sydney chin? Who did the pre-production sketch? Sid and Marty Croft

O I forgot you have to get the Poser figures Manga Studio Comparable.

See ya all over at Can’t Produce

I dunno.

Posts like the one above. I don't get it. Why all the negativity?

Bizarre.

This ALWAYS happens when a new Poser comes out, and yet, somehow the application survives just fine.

So why do we have to go through this negative stuff every time?

Why don't we put out a little POSITIVE energy for a change?

I predict that this will be one of the most EXCITING upgrades to Poser ever.

And for  measely $129 bucks, how can you go wrong?

I'm upgrading.

-jjsemp

I look forward to seeing your Poser 7 work. I beat it will new, Exclusive and Extensive art work

I simply don't understand why everyone is so mad at the upgrade and try to find the most negative points -- and still most of us as we stand here is going to buy Poser7, be it the Exclusive or Regular Version.

I actually regret NOT buying Poser 6 Exclusive, as I got the software without the extra content, not as cheap and with the same amount of bugs as everyone else.

So I've preordered the copy and I very well know I'm going to install the SR and probably not one but a dozen -- hey, that's life. Actually, what else do You expect for $130?

$ is not my national currency and I still consider it pretty cheap. If You do the Math - the content is $70, so the actual update is $60. Now, i'm not saying I would buy the whole lot of content worth $70. But i would definatelly NOT get an update as cheap as $60.

Plus a Passport and a $10 coupon, so we can say the update is actually less than $60.

Quote - I beat it will new, Exclusive and Extensive art work

Um...right.

Perhaps you should let the medication wear off before you try to reply.

-jjsemp

If that is the only thing you can come back with after I take my time to show interest in your work. That’s just inconsiderate. Well thank you. You only look at small trivial things and not the big picture.

Correct one person, but fall in line with the lemming. Have a nice day.

Quote - If that is the only thing you can come back with after I take my time to show interest in your work. That’s just inconsiderate. Well thank you. You only look at small trivial things and not the big picture.

Correct one person, but fall in line with the lemming. Have a nice day.

I think what a lot of us are  saying is "they are offering a lot of  "small trivial things and not the big picture" with the silly "tune in next week for the second adventure of The Poser 7 Saga."

If they know what's going to be released but are afraid to present it because it may hurt sales, then that is wrong (from a consumer standpoint, because the loss of trust will hurt more in the long run.)

If they don't know for sure what is going to be released, the product is no way ready for sale."  I would expect a preorder product to be feature set and in beta testing.

Would any of you go preorder a new car, not knowing if it would have a V4/V6/V8 engine?  Or  if it had a 4 speed or 6 speed manual automatic transmission?   But it does have a sun roof, so I guess I'll preorder it because I know they have my best interests in mind.

     How does ef  fail to produce with poser 7?  When using it did you have problems with it already? How can anyone tell if something fails to produce without using it?  Poser 6 has worked out of the box fine for me so I can't say it  failed to produce.

     I find it funny people don't like them trying to hype the product over time, does the preorder get more expensive if you wait until they release all the information?

Quote - If that is the only thing you can come back with after I take my time to show interest in your work. That’s just inconsiderate. Well thank you. You only look at small trivial things and not the big picture.

Correct one person, but fall in line with the lemming. Have a nice day.

Sorry, but I didn't understand your reply. That was all I was commenting on. It was just a joke. Didn't mean to offend.

I think we all just need to keep an open mind. I think this is e-Frontier's first really good crack at a Poser upgrade (I think Poser 6 was good but probably rushed out the door) and we have no idea what to expect so I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt.

I don't think the future should always be regarded with rampant cynicism. That seems so old-fashioned.

-jjsemp

Quote - Would any of you go preorder a new car, not knowing if it would have a V4/V6/V8 engine?  Or  if it had a 4 speed or 6 speed manual automatic transmission?   But it does have a sun roof, so I guess I'll preorder it because I know they have my best interests in mind.

ABSOLUTELY! There are people that will pre-order stuff without giving one thought as to what they will end up with if they think they are getting a "deal" or something for "free".  As old as I am and  with all that I've seen, it still amazes me how people operate. This is why the criminal element  that employs cheating tactics and fraud enjoy so much success.

People will pre-order whatever they think they can afford.

You didn’t see the "If Thy fail to produce I will Move on." "If Thy" being the Key words to a comprehensive paragraph subject mater. The paragraph structure is on. Me not

understanding

"Purchase to Support Theory." When I’m a Firm Believer "Build it and thy will come."

The other Part "Render" of the post Is what I think thy would have to do to convince me to Pre-order

not just words.

The Part on Sydney that’s just funny

and The "Can’t Produce" I only see C and P no Big E or small F

just remember I have not said anything about price.

Why would you assume that no thought is put into buying the Pre-order?

I bought with a lot of calculating. I calculated the worth of the extras such as the new figures and content. That added up to 0

 I calculated eF's track record in software. That adds up to quite a few good things. eF didn't program P6, they bought it. They are the ones that have pretty much fixed it. Maybe not as good as some of you feel you can do, but I find it works quite well. I have experience in what eF does with thier other software and updates and fixes. This will be the first eF version of Poser.

Assuming that Im a fool or I just buy because it's new is BS. I made a calculated purchase. This is from someone that has no respect for the crap that CP continually dishes out to everyone. If you don't want to buy or Pre-order, fine, but don't insult the ones that have.

I know for a fact (let's just say that a little bird told me) that Poser 7 has been in beta-testing for the past few months at least.

As someone else noted - even a good, large, and varied team of beta-testers cannot possibly root out every problem.  For complex software, every variation is quintillions x quintillions of variations (think about all of the options, content, OSs, computers, hardware, drivers etc etc etc that vary from user to user).  Even a planet of super computers running continuously for a billion  years couldn't cover every permutation.  The only alternative is an open beta - this will increase the chances of catching bugs and other issues - only slightly.  Open betas aren't usually a good idea - you get too many levels of responses (too much information, too little, the same problem noted several thousand times).

I beg each person who complains about software that at least 'works' (isn't total crap) to try to do it yourself and see how complex it is - you may also want to take several courses in linear programming, linear algebra, calculus, discreet mathematics, logic, and also learn about bits, bytes, Boolean algebra, storage, memory management, file access, functions, recursion, modularization, classes, and several thousand basic algorithms.  Once you get past the little stuff and into writing executable applications on an OS, you have entered chaos-city. :)

The worst part about Poser is the marketing - they out and out lied about Poser 5 before release.  I just don't listen to the marketing anymore... ;D

Robert

while i agree with what beryld said re pre ordering or not pre ordering i have no sympathy whatsoever for those building the p7 program and i don't want to take any courses in anything. it's their job,. they get paid to do it not me. they should do what it takes to put a working program on the market. if works all well and good if doesn't then they didn't do their jobs properley, end of story. if i buy software that just at least works but is bug ridden of course i'll complain. if the bugs are many i may even ask for my money back. any product should do what the manufacture says it will do

personally i'll wait and see if it has a better rigging and joint editing function. if it doesn't i'll stay with p6. i don't use it enough to warrant buying it unless these two specific items are covered.

billy

Quote - The worst part about Poser is the marketing - they out and out lied about Poser 5 before release.

?

I am curious.... why not tell us what to look forward to?

 Anyway, my $$ will go to Vue 6, and my P6 is working just fine.

Quote - Anyway, my $$ will go to Vue 6, and my P6 is working just fine.

Ditto.

Quote - > Quote - The worst part about Poser is the marketing - they out and out lied about Poser 5 before release.

 

?

?  That the base code was being rewritten from the ground up.  Not exactly part of the 'official' marketing - but this was noted from Curious Labs own.  Part of the code may have been optimized and some rewritten - to support the third-party interfaces being sewn into Poser.  But most of it was the same - and you can go through the archives for evidence.

Marketing tends to put the (any) product in the best light possible - even if it isn't exactly true.  Look at the current "7 reasons" - just put up what it can do, what's new, etc. and be done with it.  I have a TiVo - I tend to skip commercials. ;)

Quote - while i agree with what beryld said re pre ordering or not pre ordering i have no sympathy whatsoever for those building the p7 program and i don't want to take any courses in anything. it's their job,. they get paid to do it not me. they should do what it takes to put a working program on the market. if works all well and good if doesn't then they didn't do their jobs properley, end of story. if i buy software that just at least works but is bug ridden of course i'll complain. if the bugs are many i may even ask for my money back. any product should do what the manufacture says it will do

personally i'll wait and see if it has a better rigging and joint editing function. if it doesn't i'll stay with p6. i don't use it enough to warrant buying it unless these two specific items are covered.

billy

It is true that it is their job to do the best job possible - within means (temporal, financial, and resource limits).  But can you honestly name a single application (or OS for that matter) that doesn't have bugs, issues, or lack something being requested for a long time?  Note that all EULAs mention that little caveat - "the Program and the Documentation are provided to you as-is without any expressed or implied warranty of any kind..." (that's part of Poser's EULA)

This isn't like buying an article of clothing where not only the craftsmanship and materials should be worth the cost but it also must fit you alone.  This article of clothing has to fit everyone.  Making an article of clothing that does that would be an achievement indeed - especially if it were a three piece suit, hat, tie, and shoes.  Now multiply that by about a trillion and you have your reason why computer programming can never be about it being perfect.

There was an interesting discussion wherein programmers were trying to decide the simplest executable that could be considered 100% absolutely free of any possible error under any condition - the most likely candidate was the famous "Hello World" usually employed as a budding programmer's first and easiest program.  It usually comprises something like this (C):

#include <stdio.h>

void main()
{
    printf("Hello, Worldn");
}

How can that possibly bungle up!  Well, for starters, a programmer could make a typing mistake at any given point.  I'm a veteran of 20 years who can type (if you hadn't noticed) - and I've had to issue critical updates on a SINGLE mistyped character - these things happen.  If you read enough books, you are bound to find out that there are dozens of typos in every one of them.  To err is human, to stop expecting divinity is being a better human (!!)

To continue with this, it was disclosed that errors in the standard headers, variations in the OS, different compilers/linkers, and all sorts of assorted sorted issues could actually cause that most-simplistic application to crash or be non-functional.  Now, multiply that by tens of thousands or millions of lines of code.  Yes, it is the programmer's job to make it work - as best as can be done within limitations.  Code that consistently works on one set of systems may not work on others when whatever is causing the errors was not tested for.

Here, for all to purview, is a program that works 100% flawlessly:

That space above this line is it...

I wrote programs for various computers and they were tested before end-users got their hands on them.  But then I was a very good programmer.  Not like some programmers who have no pride in their own workmanship.  A lot of programmers don't actually use their own software they program.  Watch out for those guys. 

Very elegant indeed....   could you repeat in other words...please...?

Quote - I wrote programs for various computers and they were tested before end-users got their hands on them.  But then I was a very good programmer.  Not like some programmers who have no pride in their own workmanship.  A lot of programmers don't actually use their own software they program.  Watch out for those guys. 

I don't care how good you are (even if you are).  I don't care how good anybody is.  And I do use my own software - but I can't test and retest every facet of it as it is being developed and modified.  This is what beta-testers are for.  This is what updates are for.

Two things of note here:

1. Any system of sufficient complexity behaves chaotically (this is a fact - pick up a book on Chaos Theory).  That means that there is no possible means to guarantee that an application (a complex system of non-linear computer instructions) will not exhibit chaotic (erratic/unexpected) behavior.  There isn't anything that any developer can do to avoid it (like do a check - if (program == chaotic behavior) close(quietly).  You can test the application on a hundred different computer configurations and still end up with a significant set of replicable problems when released for public consumption.

2. Remember when Poser 5/6 were released.  There were these unending topics: "Poser crashes!", "This doesn't work!", and "That doesn' work!".  What was a portion of the usual responses: "Works here", "No problems for me", "That works, but this doesn't".  Hmmm, why is that?  Believe it or not, the company that makes Poser actually beta-tests it.  How could these things possibly slip by?  I've already explained it.

i;m not saying bugs shouldnt happen (well i am really lol)

i wouldn't mind an odd bug here and there but i wouldn't want to pay for a program that has bugs which make it non workable in many instances. i would get very pissy about it i nver had any of the bad versions of poser but if i did i'd have asked for a refund. and as far as it not being a coat....well in one way it is. it's aa salable finished article (supposedly) and if it has more than a few inconsequential bugs the manufacturer hasn't done his job porperly.  here;s an analogy.....many complain about spelling in forums......now if they bought a book and every other word or every page in the book had a few spelling and grammar mistakes on it what would they say.  as i said, they get paid to do it right not wrong. they get paid not to make mistakes. i don't need to know how it can bungle up. i need to know that it wont bungle up...its why i pays me money to  err maybe human but to take money for shoddy workmanship is something else. again sorry but i have no sympathy for those who give me a product in return for my cash. uless of course i'm allowed to make a mistake and get away with giving them less than they demand.

billy

They will always happen - that's the thing.  In reality, the programmer's job is to mitigate them as much as possible.  Look at M$ and the overflow bug.  This is a well-known problem that is hard to avoid.  It can be avoided, if you don't mind software that runs like mud in winter.  The design of an application must compromise between making something that the user can actually use and checking for every conceivable problem.  To go the latter route completely would create applications that run nearly perfectly - at about 100000th the speed... ;)

SHONNER shouldn't take this the wrong way, but there is that saying about masturbation: "90% of the people admit to it, the other 10% are lying."  I know or have been in contact with hundreds of developers in my time and not one has ever purported to write flawless software - even the very good professional ones.  You can get pretty darn close when certain conditions are met and you can control the scope of possible combinatorics.  But as the complexity increases, so do the chances of bugs creeping in.  Methinks that Poser's problems really started when they put their dependency upon third-party 'black boxes' (Material Room, Cloth Room, Dynamic Hair, etc.)  which removed some of the more direct control.

People also seem to forget that it isn't always the application itself that causes the problem.  I've heard of many things being broken by, for instance, MacOS 10.4.7.  No change of application - change of OS.  Drivers (particularly graphics drivers when it comes to 3D) have never been known to do this either - ever (big sarcasm there).  Can anyone actually blame the application developer for that?

as i said, i can live with a few bugs. i don't want an infestation thogh lmao

billy

Same here. :)

To be more gregarious, I'll use an example of my current plugin.  This thing had been in development for 9 months.  The first 5 months were alpha.  I had one person who partook as an alpha-tester.  The next 4 months were beta.  I had over 30 beta-testers covering a range of versions and systems.  But this plugin was something that I had been pursuing in one form or other for several years.  So, by the end of 4 months testing, it was becoming clear that it should be released (by popular demand) with whatever feature support existed and acknowledging that it had some flaws.  It works as expected for most users - but there are the relative few who had unending crashes using it in ways not experienced either by me or beta-testers.  Why?

Bugs like this are hard to corner and squash.  My plugin is tested personally on something like eight or nine versions of the software on two operating systems (Windows and MacOS).  I wouldn't release it without at least a cursory check in each of these.  And when I try to replicate these few crashes - I can't.  At this point, the bug hunt becomes a matter of detective work - it is not directly inherent in the plugin - it is the combination of something else and the plugin.  This is that  to which I was alluding with point #2 in my post before last.  It is very impossible to debug code that works on my end but shows instability at the other - what would I look for?  You have to get very detailed information from the user experiencing the crashes to isolate the code that is potentially related to the crash - and then try to deduce why that code may work in one place and not in another.  Programming isn't only a science - it is also an art.  Sorry to say, this is the 'artistic' part of developing and maintaining code.

A software company that sells software only after they think it's been beta tested enough is a poorly run business.

I'm not sure how you alpha test a program you only started typing.  Anyway, I've never heard of a bug that was hard to corner or squash.  A pet peeve I have are with programmers that aren't willing to or don't know how to clean up bugs in their own programs.  To me, if something is worth doing -- it's worth doing right.

Quote - A software company that sells software only after they think it's been beta tested enough is a poorly run business.

That accounts for about 75% of all software companies then.

Of course it does.  Not every software business is all that great.  Everyone complains about Microsoft.  Most companies should be so lucky.

As to art in/of programming -- Video games that do well and are very popular tend to be programmed technically well and their great story telling and user interfaces come from an art of programming which can give soul to a program.

Most programmers never achieve this.  Programming is just a job to them.  At the end of the day, they aren't thinking about it.

Quote - I'm not sure how you alpha test a program you only started typing.  Anyway, I've never heard of a bug that was hard to corner or squash.  A pet peeve I have are with programmers that aren't willing to or don't know how to clean up bugs in their own programs.  To me, if something is worth doing -- it's worth doing right.

Well, it wasn't at v0.1 - it was at v0.4 (v0.5 is where I start beta-testing).  And I had years of code all ready to be added and adjusted - or didn't you thoroughly test my posts before replying. ;)

Microsoft (the largest software company on the planet) sells plenty of software (and drivers and OSs) that doesn't appear to be 'fully beta-tested'.  Crashes and bugs and vulnerabilities everywhere.  What was that about a list of bugs that filled volumes?

Well, I'm glad that you're perfect.  You let me know when you've far surpassed my feeble attempt of the plugin that I wrote.  It only covers (various SDKs with different features and changes to the api interface) R8.2, R8.5, R9.1, R9.6, R10.0 (pending SDK docs) for Windows and MacOS and R9.1 Windows x64 - still working on the MacOSX UB version - as the zlib support there (which never failed me with my own compiles, fails me with the included and supposedly unaltered zlib included with MacOSX UB).  How do you debug someone else's lib again (there is no debug version afaik)?  In this case, I'm half-tempted to compile my own zlib as usual (bet it will work then!)

What exactly have you written that is of noteworthiness?

Mostly GNU stuff for OS-9 and UNIX.  Assembly code for 6809, 6502, 68000, Z80, 386.  Pascal, Basic (all versions), Fortran 77/90, Cobol, LISP, ADA C, C++, some Forth (didn't much like Forth).  HP-2000F, ALTOS, H-89, Commodore Pet, Vic-20, 64, Apple ][,+,e,c,///, TRS-80 Model I, II, Color, Sinclair ZX-81, Spectrum, Northstar CP/M... Visual Studio 6.0 Enterprise Editon... the list goes on.  I stopped writing code 5 years ago.  It kind of got boring after awhile.  Nearly everything was been written for computers now.  None of the stuff I did is used anymore.   I have to go to a computer museum to run my programs now.  No program is noteworthy after five years.

I've re-written someones LIB's before.  That's if I have their source.  I then give them the update and let them know what I fixed.  That's what programmers do.  Used to do, at least.  People didn't program to become famous in magazines like they do now.  People programmed just for the fun of it.  It was a different world then.

I'll agree with you mostly there! :)

Mr. AmigaOS C/Assembly, OS9, OSX (PPC and UB), MS-DOS BASIC/C/Assembly, Linux C/C++, Pascal, Basic, LISP, Java, C, C++, Python, Commodore 64/128 BASIC/Assembly, Windows (since 3.0), LegOS, unwanted excursions into Perl, Javascript, HTML, PHP, etc. and so on. here.  ;D

I love programming!  Actually, I tried (very hard) to swerve away from it into 3D CG.  Now look at me - I'm doing 3D CG ... programming.... What can I say?  You can remove the boy from the programming, but not the programming from the boy.

In my case, AI became boring.  After one realizes that neural networks really require multiprocessors and oodles of memory to simulate neural activity in real domains, it is tough to do as a 'hobby'.  More power to Rodney Brooks, I say.  Luckily, computers are slowly reaching the potential required - maybe in another decade (?).

My main ambitions are two-fold: make something that I would use and that other people would use - it's no use second-guessing what others want - and I want the same advantages. :)  As you noted - programmers who program but do not use their own programs suck.  One should design and develop as if you were going to use it and use it- otherwise the process is pointless.

You'll also note that I'm a firm supporter of openess in code dispersion.  I really hate protecting algorithms and solutions as 'proprietary'.  Holding back others for one's own profit is not how progress is achieved (see topic under 'Scientific Method').

SHONNER said:

Quote -  ... That's what programmers do.  Used to do, at least.  People didn't program to become famous in magazines like they do now.  People programmed just for the fun of it.  It was a different world then. ...

(Raising hand) Some of us still do. 'Course, I'm old enough that I was also programming "back then", too. I never seem to get tired of taking on a new challenge. I must admit that it's sometimes discouraging to find another programmer got there first, and that's all too common anymore. However, I think there's lots more things to write out there, even if it's been written before.

Sometimes, someone has to go about re-inventing the wheel. Otherwise we'd be driving on stone disks and not steel belted radials, or whatever they make tires out of these days.

BTW, and appropos of not much really, I never liked using FORTH either but I had a ball writing my own interpreter for it. Never showed it to a soul, and this may be the first time I've ever mentioned to anyone that I wrote one. No one really needs one, but I had a good time writing it.

Captain Jack