OT: Bug versus Feature

geoschmo · #1 February 7th, 2002, 10:21 PM

Jourin,

You can attempt to change the perception if you wish, but you did accuse MM of cheating you when you stated that you had paid for apple pie and received apples instead. How else could that possibly be taken? And most reasonable people would have taken that as an impolite remark. And it was the reason for your being warned, not because of your opinion about the facts of the discussion.

Your analogy of the house is flawed. SEIV gold is not unusable because drones can't "move to". You are simply wanting them to do something they were not intended to do. It really is as simple as that no matter how hard you try to change the terms of the debate.

This is not a result of poor coding. It was a concious and direct decision on the part of the programmer. Given enough input from the customers, MM may infact decide to modify drones to allow them to "move to". We will just have to wait and see.

Things such as the fighter stack bug, and the counter intel bug were bugs. They were a result of mistakes in coding, or the result of unintended consequences.

Drones only fit into that Category if one accepts your definition of the word "drone", which requires by nature that they be usable in those ways. That is circular logic. You cannot prove anything that way.

Geoschmo

[ 07 February 2002: Message edited by: geoschmo ]

PvK · #2 February 8th, 2002, 12:21 AM

Ya, I think Jourin means "design flaw", not what most would call a "bug." Trying to stretch the term "bug" to include flaws "by design" is likely to just cause confusion.

PvK

Mephisto · #3 February 8th, 2002, 12:33 AM

quote:
Originally posted by Jourin:
The only time I was not polite was in replying to what I perceived was a flame attack.

I don't know if you took my post as a flame attack. If so, I would like to apologize. I never intended to flame you. I'm sorry, if I offended you.

The whole "bug" things resolves around which persons view on the working mechanism counts. You say, it is yours/the customers, I would say in the first place the view of the programmer/designer. Of course it would be wise of the programmer to unify his view with the view of the customer...

dmm · #4 February 8th, 2002, 01:08 AM

This is a bit off-topic for this topic, but actually gets back to the original topic, so here goes:
Who else besides Jourin and his two nephews would dearly love to see drones have the "move to" order (at least optionally, either through a checkbox or a mod)?

It has my vote, so that makes 4 of us.

(And it wouldn't be hard for Aaron to do, now that he's got drones.)

Jourin · #5 February 8th, 2002, 01:20 AM

I work with internal customers and they call anything that doesn't work whether it is a design flaw or poor coding as a bug. If the program or application does not work as expected then it has a bug.

I can never tell my customers that the problem is technically not a bug it is a design flaw. I would rightfully get my butt chewed.

Comments like "bugs can not be caused by poor design" or "its a feature not a bug" did get me upset. I took those comments as resistance to the idea of drones having recon capability and wondered why all the hostility to the idea. I then felt that my idea of using drones for recon was being attacked and that any criticism of SEIV was taboo.

I think I was wrong, but as some of my Posts were interpreted incorrectly, I may have interpreted other Posts incorrectly.

[ 07 February 2002: Message edited by: Jourin ]

geoschmo · #6 February 8th, 2002, 01:35 AM

quote:
Originally posted by dmm:
This is a bit off-topic for this topic, but actually gets back to the original topic, so here goes:
Who else besides Jourin and his two nephews would dearly love to see drones have the "move to" order (at least optionally, either through a checkbox or a mod)?

It has my vote, so that makes 4 of us.

I would like to see it added.

geoschmo · #7 February 8th, 2002, 02:02 AM

Jourin,

Criticism of SEIV is encouraged here I think. I dont think anyone was attacking you for your opinion that drones should have "move to" ability. In fact many of us agree with that opinion.

A design flaw or poor coding would be defined as a bug by just about anyone. The difference is here that drones not having "move to" is neither of those.

This is not a bug anymore than fighters not being able to warp, or units not being able to carry cargo are bugs. These are things that many of us would like to see implemented, but they aren't bugs.

I don't think anyone was hostile to the idea of drones having recon ability. Some have disagreed with it, but most of them even agree it would be nice to have as an option in the settings. Some people may have expressed the opinion that it is unlikely to be changed, but the only opinion there that matters is Aaron's, so it's not worth getting upset over.

Many of us on the beta team asked to have drones given the ability to do recon. In fact drones in the original beta patches couldn't even be given new attack targets when the first target was destroyed. I do not know whether that was a specific decision on his part, or an "unintended consequence", but either way that was changed. Now if the original target is destroyed they can be given a neww target to attack.

If anyone got defensive at you it was not because of your opinioin, but because you seemed to be personally attacking MM's programing ability or his intelligence. It appeared as if you felt that drones HAD to have recon ability, and if they didn't they were broken, and anyone who felt otherwise was a rube. Of course you didn't say that, but that was the impression people were getting from your comments.

It's good that we can now discuss this without all the empotions. That is the way to get things done in a constructive manner.

Geoschmo