MAMEWorld Forums - EmuChat - Re: ARCADE32/64 0.185

> > You can't demand
> > special treatment, and you can't go leaning on individual team members like that.
>
> I don't think Haze "leaned on a team member", it sounds like, from what people are
> saying here, that like a team member asked Haze to review/improve some code, which he
> did, and the combined result was then committed by said team member.
>
> LN

I originally mailed Osso offering to help with 'Victory' because I know encryption isn't his speciality and there was a possibility I could give him a decrypt function so that he could get it working, or failing that, see what it needed. As it happens the encrypted dump is incomplete (missing rom on PCB) and the bootleg dump has 2 bad program roms, including the data that's missing from the original, so that didn't go very far. It's probably still possible to decrypt what is there, but makes more sense to wait until the bootleg is redumped.

Osso then said 'hey, these things haven't been looked at, they're kinda important, can you take a look at them, I fear nobody will otherwise'

This wasn't in my original plans, but given the request and importance of getting the work done in a timely manner, I agreed, because I was also concerned about them. I knocked up some drivers, keeping him in the loop at all points during development. In the end, for Acchi, it was a simple tilemap based (no sprites) system. Osso improved the dips and inputs etc. in them and then submitted them, and given the simplicity of the system I'd consider his role in the driver to be more or less equal, both things needed doing, I did one thing, he did another.

Space Cyclone he added a few extra notes about the sound hardware and marked the bad rom as bad once it had been confirmed with Smit / Shoutime before committing as that stalled early on due to the bad rom, he also apologised for not picking up on the bad rom earlier, which was fair enough, but at least we had something ready for when it gets redumped.

So the work was the result of both of us, that happens in the background all the time yet nobody kicks up a fuss. As soon as I'm involved, people do? This is the only double standard I'm seeing.

My only responsibility was to Osso, an established and important key member of the team who has been involved in a lot of code cleanups, so to even say the code was 'unreviewed' is pushing it, to reprimand him for it, ridiculous and disrespectful towards him, especially given the nature of the work; two very much independent drivers, one of which was shelved until a better dump comes along and thus not really worth spending additional time on until that happens.

So I really wonder why emudrama and politics comes into play, when really what we should be focusing on here is what we've managed to learn from the drivers, and what needs doing in the future (redumps etc.) This was a very simple case of lending a hand. The fact that these warnings bypassed discussion from the rest of the team to the point they were unaware of them (and even told to keep their noses out when asking) is IMHO worse than anything either myself or Osso did.

Maybe it's just different approaches. I prefer to respect the ability and judgement of people I'm working with, not look down on them. I have very little time or respect for people incapable of doing that. Too much micromanagement is not a good thing, when it becomes aggressive micromanagement, even worse. The current model I feel is very much aggressive micromanagement taken to extreme levels, there are no benefits to that. Maybe others disagree, but that's how I feel about it, that is what has driven me away, if you don't trust your developers, you lose them.

The funny thing is, I was actually preparing something else I'd been working on at the same time for submission through the usual channels, but given the attitudes demonstrated decided it simply wasn't worth it.