repost: contributors
 

This didn't get the response I was looking for in the general forum, so I am reposting it here.

Howdy, folks. Long time, no see.

A fairly diligent search of the EQEmu website and distribution left me unable to find a comprehensive list of contributors. In particular, I could find no mention of Wes (Quest parser from scratch?) nor myself (Perl integration from scratch). I hate to sound like a glory hound or anything, but it would be nice to be credited somewhere.

I'm also especially concerned with the "junior dev" program recently introduced. These "junior devs" contribute via closed forums, so in their case there isn't even a public "paper-trail" of posts documenting their efforts.

Perhaps something with the prominence of the "item contributors" page could be created to honor those who have made substantial contributions?

-thanks,
Eglin

Thats what the changelog is for

if you added your name to a changelog or request it it will be put there.

otherwise, it wont get put there.

I have never had CVS access, so when would I have added myself to a changelog? Besides, the changelog isn't exactly featured w/ the kind of prominance that I think is appropriate. Nor is it complete. After all, who started the project? Who coded the first login servers?

I know some of you are trying to get jobs in the game industry - are you trying to intentionally avoid crediting others? That is the way it looks to me.

1st started by AGX source code given to tuxracer, 1st login server coded by solar. And as far as the changelog goes its your responsability to request that your name is added to it.

Also the list of the contributers to this project is soo large it wouldnt be viable to have a list just for status. If you come to work on this project expect no more than a thanks, if you expect more than that your either a fool, or are too stuck on yourself and how people see you.

Also, the project has changed admins a few times and will again im sure, and through those changes portions of the changelog, and stuff have been lost.

Thank you elgin for the Perl code.

Shall i take this as a request to have yer name added to the changelog? (i beleve its there already).

If you contribute code, and that code is then used, you are a fool to expect recognition somewhere? Hmm.. guess I'm a fool then.

You have no class. I feel sorry for the other members of the dev team, to have such a foolish peon to speak on their behalf.

We do get recognition in the change log. And we are recognized for the actual things we did there. This way, people know YOU fixed the server so changes in npc_types are immediate and no longer require a server restart! Not some vague reference that you did something sometime on the project...

The only people who might consider this type of recognition unfair would be those who did little and therefore don't appear in the change log more than once or twice. In my opinion, this is fair.

Your welcome to your opinion. But as it seems another dev has posted and seems to share my opinion.

I'd have to agree that the way scorp described it is the best way to go.

I agree with the dev's here. You optionally put your time and energy into this. No-one asked you to. If you hadn't done abit of code here and there, then someone else would have, sooner or later.

Expecting a page just for you and your friend for doing a single bit of code ? People have surely done much more than that , which is possibly much more important.
Get your head out of your own arse, welcome to life.

Personally, I just contribute what I have time for, and don't care a whole lot about recognition. I'm more concerned with needed changes getting merged in. Stating that it is foolish to expect acknowledgement from someone that uses your code is just silly, though.

I'm only familiar with Eglin because perl scripting is what got me interested in the emu in the first place. Without contributions from people like him and Wes I probably wouldn't have ever looked at any of the source.

And Dave, nothing personal, but someone has to do the work or it will not get done. If a changelog is how contributions are recorded, that's fine, just give credit where credit is due.

Anyway, did not mean to contribute to an argument. That statement just rubbed me the wrong way. :)

The problem with this is that it completely neglects large portions of code that are contributed in-toto, as in the perl integration. In this case, one must actually look at the 4 source files that I wrote from scratch to see my signature (which presumably remains), at the top. When the the files that I contributed were merged, no mention of the changes appeared in the changelog.

When I stumbled upon this project, the quest system was in an unusable state. I messed with it for a bit, trying to shore up the error messages etc. in debugging, as evidenced by historic posts. I decided, then, to revolutionize the way quests were scripted by adding support for a 'real' programming language. I added it on my own in a short period of time and dropped it into the lap of the eqemu community in working condition. With one fell swoop, I added a scripting solution so robust that it surpasses that of the commercial EQ engine and enabled server ops of both Windows and Linux boxen to enable quests immediately where they could never get them to work before. I wrote converter utilities to assist in converting scripts to the new format. I wrote and published documentation - docs whose current revisions curiously neglect to credit me. I spent time on the forums, assisting people in getting things working. I spent time on the IRC channel, answering questions and providing info.

There is no doubt in my mind that my contributions are worthy of merit.



I have contributed to many, many, many open-source projects in the past, and I have seen EQEmu's problems in other projects. Jackasses like you, Scorpius, and dev/noob are, amazingly, not even the biggest problems with EQEmu's development strategy. I could've tolerated you mental midgets and continued to contribute if only I would've been given the chance to vigorously defend my own contributions. This was once a problem w/ Mozilla, too, fyi (too many monkeys w/ innapropriate CVS access). I could only stomach so many of your moronic additions to my code at my firmest opposition before throwing in the towel and turning up the finger.

This is simply not true. The funny thing about open-source development, as noted my my unknowing mentor, Shawn Hargreaves, is that you can never truly delegate tasks since someone will always surprise you by contributing something that you would never have done. MY perl scripting stuff fits that bill.


Again, I don't mean to be a glory hound or anything. Really. I have enough accomplishments and accolades in 'real life' that I don't particularly _need_ to see an obviously fictional one-name alias created just for anonymous access to these boards credited with anything in order to feed my ego. It is just a matter of common decency - decency which all of you thugs seem to lack.


p.s. If you don't belong to the group of thugs, then I'm sorry for lumping you in there with them. Some of you, like m0oni9, obviously have some class and intelligence; I'm sorry that your arrival had to be so near to my departure. I am certainly amazed that you would continue to contribute, though.

Since it is following a theme, I thought I'd share the farewell letter I wrote to trumpcard when I decided to stop contributing to the project.

[quote=Eglin's Farewell to Trumpcard (02-08-2004 05:43 PM)]
Nobody likes being told that they are wrong, so I can appreciate your frustration. Nonetheless, you crossed the line on this one. We have vocalized conflicting viewpoints on several issues in the past, but I have never seen you display such childish tactics before. Your style of argument in this case followed the ad hominem style more often seen in posts by /dev/noob or other, lesser, personalities.

Between you and I, I haven't had EQ installed since before last Christmas and haven't refreshed my codebase from CVS in nearly as long. My interest in eq and eqemu was never really that strong and it is dwindling at an astonishing rate. My prime reason for following forum activity as of late was to provide support and guidance for the perl stuff which nobody else seems to properly understand. I do not desire deference, but I think it is reasonable for me to speak as an authority on certain matters. Merth mentioned bringing me into the dev team at one point, but his behind-the-scenes communiqu

I hope for both yourself and others around you that you aren't this big of an asshole in real life. Good luck with the book. Bye.

Elgin, these are my last words to you.

GET A FUCKING CLUE HOW IT WORKS IN THE REAL WORLD.

the .qst system (wesquests) was never broken in reality. Idiots just didnt use it right. Guildwars is proof of that since we never used the faulty perl code. (perl causes lots of crashes on high traffic server. Great code! Go elgin! Thank you! We love you! <enough prase yet?>)

As for your name in the changelog, As i said before YOU CAN REQUEST IT.

I highly doubt any developer wants to take time from omg developing to sit and add every name of every person that has ever contributed any code.

Let me think does the largest opensource project have a contributers page as you have requested...nooooooo I dont see any such thing over at the linux kernel site. (http://www.kernel.org/) they have millions of contributers. im sure some have contributed code that would r0xx0rz yer s0xx0rz yet i have a hard time finding any contrib information reguarding those people!

If you contributed code to windows that sped it up by 50% you think ms would put yer name somwhere? Fuck no. Thats not how it works. You want your name in the changelog? ask, i'll add it np!

As for trumpcard leaving, that was his choice, he as he stated, never realy had much interest in the project. His function on the dev team was pretty limited at the end there (running profiling checks on the code). Sorry to see him go as a person, as a coder he wont be missed. And nor will you elgin goodbye and have a good life.

Since the dead are coming back to life in this thread, I should post my 2 cents.

My decision to quit eqemu was based on my real life priorities, not any problems with the development team. In fact, it was a significant period of time after you departed. I frankly just dont have time for it anymore.

While I may or may not agree with everything everyone does, this is a very loose opensource project. Not everyone has the background and experience in project planning, Q&A, performance testing, development lifecycle strategies, etc, that others do, and to make attacks ad hominem because they don't see your point of view is exceedingly childish.

You were never denied the chance, it just a simple fact that none of us agreed with you, and you stormed off irate about it. You are a gifted coder, but your inability to integrate with others is demonstrative of one of the major problems in the IT industry. Teamwork is about compromise, acceptence when someone does not share your views, and ability to continue without emotion. I can see that you take great pride and ownership of your creations, but chastising those that don't share your opinion isolates you as emotionally challenged. I've fired plenty of gifted programmers in my life because of those attitudes, its counter productive to a collaborative working environment.


Being classified as intelligent and classy is extremely easy in your world, you just need to agree with you. Personally I have more respect for people that challenge my ideas when they disagree, but to each their own, i'm not a control freak.

I can vouch that Scorp is definitely not a jackass, in fact he is probably one of the best advocates of ethical practices i've seen in awhile. devnoob on the other hand (LOL)!

There is no formal recogition process, but look at the user base of EQEMU versus much larger open source projects. If 5 million people had eqemu on their desktops, there might be a more definite recognition program, but lets be honest here. This project is SMALL potatoes in scale compared to many other open source projects (such as Mozilla). It is an adolescent project, and has no desire to go past that. Would it be more efficient with a better strtegy? Of course. Is it needed? Not really

Hahaha i love you too trump! I guess my problem is I just dont give a fuck what others think of me anymore. So I say what i feel and think.

right on

Eglin this post alone gave me enough reason to not recongize your support for this project. Grow up.

Ack!
 

Cant we all just get along :(

If you code a method to scan thru the source and pick out sections done by people then generate php pages based on what the scanner has done, not to mention make it detail about the glorious changes that were done, I'll have le add it to the site. Until then, I don't think anyone feels like sorting thru HOWMANYFSKINGLINES? of code and picking out who has done what, and making a page on their wonderful achivements.
You better have a genie in a bottle also, because I know alot of people will do minor fixes as they see them IE changing "a apple" to "an apple" without posting a comment saying //BOB WAS HERE BIZZOS. So how can they ever be recognized for changing that? They are the unsung heroes of EQEMu indeed, viva la Bob.

Hell I probably only have like 5-6 entries in the changelog, which while it might seem small when drowned by all the entires from some juggernaught like image or when compared to his code or whatnot, but you know what? It's enough reward to me to know that I actually contributed something and that it helps other people have a good time, and helped make the project in whole work better. I could care less if I had a page with my name on it saying YAY 4 TEH BARON 4 TEH K0D3, the fact that people download and use eqemu is reward enough, and I know that I am getting credit for what I did from them using the software.

Yah, I never felt a need to add my name all over the place in the code whenever I wrote a function or fixed something that wasnt working right. I cant count how many times I have checked in code or bug fixes, and I usually dont leave a changelog entry. I mean in the last few months I have added maybe 3 or 4 changelog entries, but I have done a LOT more work than that for the project. Yah a page for contributions would be nice, but then again, I never contributed code to the project so I would be recognized. There is a LOT of stuff I have done for the project that doesnt have my rubber stamped nickname on it. Do I care its not? Hell no. I'm sure most of the other devs feel the same way. A simple thank you is all we require, sometimes not even that :P I totally agree with dev on this one, (although I wouldnt have put it quite some bluntly :lol: ), you shouldnt contribute code to an opensource project and expect recognition. Its nice when it happens, but no programmer should do something just for the expectation of praise.

I actually find the changelog irritating I only update it when another developer nags me to :P

I can imagine the changelog to be irritating, expecially if you test something and it doesn't work, also when you just forget to add it.