I make an exe available just in case someone might like to see a new game figuring most people have the DLL's and font handy.

NO WE ARE TOO BUSY

NO SCREENSHOT WE ARN"T GOING TO DOWNLOAD IT

I ask a simple question, 'does something like this exist?'

YOU HAVE TO THINK OUT OF THE BOX AND DO WHAT I TELL YOU

WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU CONTINUED TO WOK AND GOT IT WORKING, WHAT AM I DOING THEN

I try to get along and do some compromising.

THINGS DON"T WORK THAT WAY, YOU EITHER DO IT OUR WAY OR YOU CONTINUE DOING IT YOUR WAY

I'm sorry you feel that way. Honestly, I'm really trying to answer your questions, not to attack you.

Everyone has felt like this at some point.
My advice: get over it. People here are somewhat grumpy, but they're also pretty helpful. Do not hesitate and post. Do not take it for you when they're grumpy, and keep asking :-)

You're right. Your behaviour here has been pretty distasteful.

Nobody here has any reason to try to help you, yet still they've been trying to. Then you turn around and act like a spoiled child because things aren't working the way you want them to.

Try coming back when you've grown up.

Except that nobody posted anything that could be considered grumpy. He's just being petulant.

You're being picky Lenny ;-D

I've just worked 12 hours in a row doing customer service where I've had to be nice and polite to rude, entitled people. I'm not going to be nice now if I don't have to.

I understand. I also have to make user support sometimes and some of them are a pain.
Have a good day buddy :-)

You probably would even get a better response by posting the source code. Putting things on GitHub is a great way to do that. For example, I don't even run Windows, and even if I did I wouldn't really want to run an executable file just based on an anonymous person's word.

The two most common reasons people don't post source code to their games, other than they didn't think about it, are:

• I'm embarrassed. Guess what? Nobody cares. The reality is almost nobody is going to even bother taking a close look. Even then, the best way to learn is to show people your code and let them point out better ways to do things.

  
  

• Somebody will steal it. Guess what? It's not good enough to be stolen. And even if they do steal a clever portion of it, then you should be proud & happy that something you did was useful.

(This advice is with regard to getting people to run games you make.)

I didn't mean any harm asking for a screenshot. It's just a friendly suggestion. As Matthew stated, many people are reluctant to run some random person's executables.

I fall in the first part. In the beginning, I was hesitant to post any code. I didn't want to be made fun of.

I got over that. Now I don't care if they make fun of me. It's a learning process and you will get better over time.

You should see some of my ugly code. Most variables were 1 letter. Until I used them up then they became 2 letters long.

Who am I? My name is Michael Sherwin. In January of 2006 I released RomiChess open source with Reinforcement Learning. RomiChess was the first successful learning chess engine that actually gained playing strength the more games it played. About six years later DeepMind included RL in a Go engine and then a chess engine called AlphaZero. Then DeepMind was sold to Google for half a billion dollars. Then a variation of the DM AI was named AlphaFold. AlphaFold helped produce the Cov-19 vaccine in record time. Also in 2006 I suggested that Intel/AMD make new instructions that gather bits under a mask to the lower order bits. And another to expand them back out. They did about three years later which is the development time from concept to production. If one has a modern processor they have those instructions. Another invention of mine that one is probably not aware of yet is using split indexes to point to supersets of data that when and together gives the correct data. Imagine the difference in storage requirements if using two 16 bit indexes to retrieve data rather than one 32 bit index. There was a fourth invention but for some reason it isn't coming to me right now. The world is a far different place because of what I have done and I gave it away all free. I have not made a penny off of any of it.

Maybe someone will do me a favor and try my game?

You might be a brilliant inventor, developer, and problem solver, but man do you come across as a self entitled dick

You really seem to lack interpersonal skills.

That wasn't who you are, that was a highlight of your personal accomplishments.

Who am I? I made a Gui api in 2011 that was used in a game you might have played that sold, oh I don't know, several million copies? It goes by the name Factorio. This gui api was also used in my open source Spades game, which, by the way had some of the best visuals in any Spades game. I worked 4 years on that game, and 1 year on that gui api, and supported it for years. The world is a far different place because of what I have done and I gave it away all free. I have not made a penny off of any of it.

Maybe someone will do me a favor and compile and try my open source spades game?

Sure, I do that sometimes, too, for brevity, I, ...

Nope, you're doing it wrong.

Who am I? Well, after throwing your toys out of the pram, I’m not sure I care.

"You might be a brilliant inventor, developer, and problem solver, but man do you come across as a self entitled dick

You really seem to lack interpersonal skills.

That wasn't who you are, that was a highlight of your personal accomplishments.

Who am I? I made a Gui api in 2011 that was used in a game you might have played that sold, oh I don't know, several million copies? It goes by the name Factorio. This gui api was also used in my open source Spades game, which, by the way had some of the best visuals in any Spades game. I worked 4 years on that game, and 1 year on that gui api, and supported it for years. The world is a far different place because of what I have done and I gave it away all free. I have not made a penny off of any of it.

Maybe someone will do me a favor and compile and try my open source spades game? "

Sorry, never heard of any of that! And sorry again if I made you feel inadequate that you had to go through all that. Maybe you should seek professional counseling. If you want me to be a dick I'll be a dick. And I'll be a bigger dick than what you have ... to dish out.

No, all I did was ask a simple question and I started getting dumped on so maybe I did become a little dickish.

And by the way I'm out of here.

ZYZZYVA

That's a great story to have in your back pocket when somebody calls you out on the Internet. I'm going to reuse it. Only on text forums. Who the fuck am I? I'm "Michael Sherwin". For all you know you wouldn't have even been born if it wasn't for me.

Glad to see allegro.cc is back, baby!!

@Mark Oates , proper out loud.

kingnoob, wtaf, something is obviously eating you up, don’t worry you’ll be back, it’ll just take a pragma or a define and you’ll come back to us.

Peace out.

kingnoob/Michael:

Let me recommend that you take the time to consider a change in attitude that may smooth over your future interactions with humans:

Assume the best in others until they prove otherwise.

I believe that this thread is clearly an overreaction to all of us regulars of the site. Whether you're trolling or genuinely upset is irrelevant here. Things are pretty slow around here these days so pushing a troll around is as good as any other activity. But if you're genuinely trying to get help then you're going about it all wrong.

You shouldn't assume your "fame" precedes you. It doesn't. I had to Google you, and it wasn't even easy to do. You're famous in a chess "subculture" perhaps. Wikipedia doesn't even seem to know who you are, and I think that's the lowest bar there is for fame.

Your claims are unsubstantiated, but also irrelevant. The advice you've been given was correct, and the best advice that you could have been given. That you didn't appreciate it doesn't matter.

Most of us are middle-aged or older around here. Most of us even managed to get real lives. They take up a lot of time though. I don't recommend them. In any case, many of us don't even have Allegro installed anymore. We're too busy to do this niche of hobby programming at this point in our lives. At least, that's my reasoning. Everybody will have their own reasoning. I installed Allegro for KrampusHack2020 in December, but before that it was probably at least a year since I had installed it.

Giving me an executable without dependencies is a chore at best. I wouldn't even go to that much trouble for free porn unless I knew it was going to be worth it first. It's likely that your game actually depends on a specific build of Allegro and a compatible runtime from the toolchain. Rather than making every one of your users go to the trouble of figuring out what they need, locating it, installing it, and setting up a runtime environment to actually run your game, wouldn't it make a whole fucking lot more sense for you to just include that in your distribution yourself?

I am also very wary of executing binary code from untrusted sources. I don't know you. I don't trust you. I'm not just going to run your code without either building it myself from source or at least a well established public image to ruin in the event of abuse, etc. I've gotten to know people from this community for more than a decade and many of them I still think twice before running their binaries.

If that's too much trouble for you then great. Go fuck off and don't bother.

If you want to start over, that's still possible. But if you are sincere in the future I suggest assuming the best of intentions of strangers until they prove otherwise. Don't assume that people are being abusive just because they're critical of your work. Assume that they know what they're talking about (why else would you want their attention?) and they know how to help you help them help you. That's ultimately what this community is about. Helping each other succeed.

All of you "attackers" said all types of blanket statements without once quoting anything from any of the post. You gave no evidence whatsoever for your opinions. You just took an opportunity to open your loud abusive vitriolic mouths to gang up on someone. This is the most unfriendly board I have ever experienced. Good bye and good riddance!

Before you go, would you tell us who you voted for and why?

We can only do what we can.

https://youtu.be/Vz65-1wXoLY

In the beginning I also asked questions here which some of the other members answered with links to 'let me google that for you', for example. I simply ignore those things especially because most of the other members here gave me competent and helpful hints and advices.

But some people are just too sniveling, I suppose.

I loved to battle everyday with people and get my problems solved anyway.

I miss the old snipers.

Reading this thread has been a distasteful experience indeed, the title did not over-promise.

That was rather unedifying. Everyone was new at some point but they don't usually attract such ire straight away (some have to work up to it - anyone remember Korval?)
Let us not forget that kingnoob's very first post led to changes to Allegro's core initialization code!
(my first post IIRC was something to do with putting together a demo CD of Allegro games. It got about as much enthusiasm as you would expect. Yet here I am, still )

I think this kinda defines the majority of us here. We've all been through the burners. Yet, for whatever reason, we're still hangin out.

Question asked. Problem resolved nicely.

Question asked. False alarm. Everybody happy.

Posted a game without a screenshot and the required files that most people would need to run it. Politely shown how to embed a screenshot and asked to provide missing files. Didn't do the latter.

Asked a UI question which Edgar patiently recommended using a UI. amarillion gave some tough love answer about either use what tools have already been made or be prepared to roll your own. Wasn't shooting flowers out of his butt, but it also wasn't rude. More dry and to the point, which is how most us are here.

Then this thread.

So no, this isn't a kumbaya circle where we pump each other up with flattering praise, but it is a place where you can get a lot of good help if you just listen to advice and realize that you are going to be the one that has to do most of the work.

Yes, some of the people here are too quick to be jerks to others, but I don't really see that here.

I carefully read all prior threads prior to posting; from what I saw, this is someone who is all smiles until you do or say something that does not match their expectation. Then they become a completely different person, verging on BPD or bipolar behavior.

There was nothing said on any of those threads that merited that kind of reaction.

And then on top of that, the justification is, "I've made all these contributions to OSS and therefore I am owed respect. You owe it to me to check out my game because of the contributions I've made."

And so this seems to me like a person that will very quickly become volatile because they very easily feel victimized and threatened by perceiving someone's actions or dialog as hostile when there is no hostility.

So my gut reaction with these kinds of people, since logical reasoning will not work, is to feed back to them what they give off in hopes that they will go... oh oh.... hmmm yeah okay I guess I was like that too; but I didn't see it as a strategy with a high chance of success, as the results demonstrated. He lacks emotional intelligence. Not everyone here is suited for customer service or support, sometimes we can be blunt or misunderstood, or give tough love; But I think we all care and we all mean well; I just don't think it's a problem with us here at a.cc; I think he has certain expectations that are unrealistic. He feels that by doing something for others, we owe it to him to pay it back, out of respect; a debt of gratitude... life does not work that way; especially not in a forum full of logical and philosophical devs. If you start with the assumption that someone means well and work from there you'll get much better results than starting with the assumption that someone is a hostile troll.

I do think in his case it's a deeper problem that we here at a.cc are not equipped to fix. Knowing how to work with all kinds of personality types effectively is critical in software development... well any field really... The way he flipped on some of those other threads is not rational behavior, and has nothing to do with anyone here in particular; I can guarantee you this has and will happen again with other people and him... He's a good person but somewhere along the way something happened and now he is like this...

There are a lot of people like this, but it's hard to help them because it's such a deep, complex issue, often involving trust.

See now, Matthew, that's just a great thing to say. You're an amazing person. Just amazing all-around. Go you!

Now me, I'm an eternal empathetic. I try to see and understand how people can get into these emotional states - usually it's a combination of shitty things that are piling up and there needs to be a vent. It's gotten me into trouble, though because honestly that kind of behavior is completely inappropriate and I'm less likely to take it from the perspective that it requires a disciplined response.

Agree. Oftentimes other people's personalities shouldn't be your project. Voicing clearly and objectively what is going on can help, but there's a limit to how much you can do.

edit:

Oh yea, this doesn't always work. Sometimes it backfires because the person is so low in conscientiousness (either as a personality trait or because of immediate circumstances), that they'll simply take it as affront and not see it as a reflection or act. It's even been used against me as evidence that I'm the perpetrator which is just stupid.

Thanks for ruining my day.

I suspect that the OP is somewhat of a perfectionist, and discovering that his work wasn't perfect was too much for his world view. Existential crisis. It happens. Allegro changes lives.

What a bunch of sad pathetic old grumps we've become. We've turned into Torhu.

kingnoob, don't take things so seriously here, use a lot of salt

Honestly, the English language is shaite. It's difficult to ascertain all aspects of meaning from some Americanized latin derelict dead language.

I want to ask everyone here, honestly, did we welcome kingnoob here or did we just criticize him?

Not everyone needs a fucking psycho-analysis upon arrival to determine fitness of mind and sanity of behavior. Give the guy a break, he shared his game, albeit awkwardly in a good will gesture. The lack of dlls is unprofessional, granted, and so the comment was warranted.

Given that the code necessary to write the send ships panel only took a day, and that it was already written, caused me to question whether my work was needed, that's all.

kingnoob, we're all grouchy old men who are undersexed, underestimated, underpaid amateur software devs. You're lucky no one told you to :

I'm sure QT and WxWidgets have Panel designers, you can try them. We're just a silly old graphics and input library. Allegro doesn't have a GUI on its own, just relies on others to put them together.