This is especially for the old timers. What attracts you enough to this forum to keep coming back?

I still use Allegro so its a nice place to keep up with that. Also I like the layout of this forum.

I don't know. Maybe I'm lost? Maybe its because nothing has really changed around here, I find the discussions interesting, so there's no reason not to.

The only websites I really check are 4chan, slashdot, allegro.cc, and that's about it. Every other site or channel has either died, or has been invaded by troublemakers.

I can say "pointer to an array" without being talked about.

I can say "C++ programmers do it with private members".

I come here to meet intelligent people. And I use Allegro.

4chan has people who aren't troublemakers? And Slashdot members are way too snooty.

I come here because it's the only really interesting site I like... and sometimes like to help people or fix a reported bug... I don't know why, but most other sites bore me.

I generally have nothing better to do. Aside from work and friends.

Maybe because this is one of the few places on the Internet that hasn't been overrun by idiots yet. And I used Allegro just a couple of months ago

Been here longer than any other online community, and not in a trolling sense either (usually). I just keep the tab open to see what's up. Truely I don't think I've actually used Allegro since about middle of last year.

Fun.

To lord it over the n00blets.

Actually, you're one of the most soft-spoken people I've ever seen.

This forum has the cleanest layout on the whole of the internet.
The community is nice.

And now what is wrong with people with all these threads? We love Allegro! We love to talk with the people around here, we can't live without it! When I feel frustrated programming or when I'm burned out I just come here and leave a message... I don't care about what people is talking I just leave a message... And that is why threads get off-topic so frequently.

I come here to help new programmers in fields I have knowledge on and to read intelligent comments and threads on programming and other topics.

I have been coming here for so long it would be stupid to stop.

Because I have a sekrit crush on Mattew

Can I have Amy then?

Hahaha ... NO!

How about her sister?

Just cause. I don't need a reason.

Where else would I go?

I dunno. I don't really use allegro so much anymore but I still find most of the topics in the various forums here interesting.

In case Britney Spears has become a member.

The yolk's on you, buddy. Don't lay an egg if she doesn't show.

YES She's actually on xoosk? and looking. I can get you her e-mail if you like.

Well, I'm not in a position to support anybody right now, and she'd doubtless want somebody younger, but she's hot!

Old habits die hard?

Because makin' your way in the world today takes everything you've got.

I haven't even thought about Allegro for months until my wife came in today and said, "How often do you visit Allegro?" And come to think about it, not very much since my jobs haven't been using C/C++ to write games. I was surprised to see this thread

I haven't used Allegro since version 4.x. I abandoned all my Allegro 4-based projects ever since the Mac switched to 64-bit (early Leopard or Snow Leopard) and 4 wasn't compatible anymore.

I can't really see myself going through my projects and updating them to Allegro 5 (especially the dead ones like kqlives) since I'm busy full-time writing games in other languages (Objective C, C#, Unity3D).

<shameless plug>Oh, by the way, if anyone's looking to make games from their homes in any of those languages (or Java for Android ports), my boss is hiring. </plug>

This community is like my circle of friends.
And this forum is free from all the fluff you get at other places.

It's niche and comfortable. Also it's possible to talk about non Allegro projects here and get good help without having subforums for every conceivable platform and thousands of members spamming all over.

I'm not very active now. But even though I have a fulltime jorb and rarely use Allegro I still log in daily and from time to time I post a comment on some interesting thread.

I think this place has everything that would interest me but in moderation so I never feel overwhelmed.

Yes! You read my mind.

Someone's mentioned an iOS port of Allegro. And is there an Android port, too? How about a Windows Phone port? Anyway, it thrills me to sometime write games for these fancy new toys. And even if I haven't yet got into A5, and don't even own an iOS/Android toy, someday I will. And then I guess it's good to know people here.

And don't say there are better tools and libraries. I know Allegro is still more fun.

<edit />
One more thing. People really pay attention to proper spelling here. Well, I did already mention intelligent people.

What? Shame on you. Matthew please kick that troll.

Is that offer open to anyone

I didn't know she had a sister.

Hook it up, Steve!

I tried joining other forum sites (like gamedev.net) but I've been spoiled by how nice a forum can be and I don't have the time to invest in the horrible interfaces.

Also the crowd is quite smart (albeit slightly depressing and many are socially challenged). Helping peoples' problems speaks to my vanity. <code> tags work well and are easy to use. I learned to program here so there's some nostalgia. Coming to Allegro.cc gives me a refresher of why I like programming so much in the first place.

I do wish people here were more successful. There's a lot of overbearingly intelligent minds that seem to struggle with career success. Maybe that's why everyone loved Minecraft so much.

I think the main issue is a lot of us really don't have motivation to finish a project. Not in it for that mostly. I happen to like solving problems, once that's done, the rest is boring and tedious. A lot of geeks I think are the same way, they need a manager on their ass to get the boring shit done.

At least for their own projects. money is a great motivator.

I rarely post here anymore but I still check the forum daily just to see what others are doing. This used to be my sole outlet for social interaction so it's hard to just let go and never visit again. I truly miss the old days when there were new threads everyday and people were posting on a consistent basis.

I simply enjoy this place, even though I just lurk around.

During a discussion on IRC it just kind of came to me that I am here for two reasons:

• Do my best to help others.

• Learn new things, especially when I am wrong about something.

I am disappointed to see some of the regulars when I joined that I respect very much absent or less active, but all in all many of them are still around, and I think that it's still a uniquely intelligent community that is good at discovering and spreading knowledge. There is also some nostalgia from my college days when I first joined. The Allegro community became sort of a crutch when my personal life was unraveling, and I hope it continues to be.

I'm not really a regular user of any other forum. I can't stand any other forum software longer than it takes to register or post a reply or new thread, and even if the software were tolerable I generally can't tolerate the community. Allegro has a nice mix of both: great software and many good and intelligent people.

I am disappointed that Allegro seems less busy than it used to be, but then I'm also more busy with other things than I used to be so it's not entirely one-sided.

The Allegro community has been the first tab of my Web browser for something like 5 or 6 years now, and has been the first tab of my IRC client since I became a regular there (probably 2 or 3 years; pretty much ever since I adopted a VPS that gave me "always on" capabilities). I intend to keep it that way for the foreseeable future.

Like social values.

My kind of crowd

Well, I've been on this forum since around 2004 (on a different account, then I switched to this one), so I suppose it's mostly nostalgia mixed up with just being used to it.

I enjoy the occasional thread and like to post here and there, but I try to stay away from programming questions, seeing as I moved on from C++ long ago (currently using Unity3D, which seems really decent). It's mostly off-topic for me these days.

I still come to allegro.cc so that Nicholle doesn't realise the real reason I first came here

Yeah... I think a.cc got a lot slower after the girls left. We need a Nichole 2.0 :-)

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1. DizzyEgg is a crazy remixer.

2. To watch Matthew give people the beat down.

3. To be amazed by Peter Wang's insane knowledge of C.

4. Duh. Verthex.

5. Still waiting for AMCerasoli to propose again.

6. Cuz the regulars here are actually kinda cool.

7. Cuz bambam hates globals.

8. Still hoping Sara Chipps will come back.

I keep coming back because I have nowhere else to go. I'm used to everyone here, which is why I don't feel like I need to prove anything anymore. Sites I do frequent I feel like I have to prove I know programming and that just isn't the case here.

1) Needs no remarks really.
2) It's his job.
4) Are you on drugs?
7) Yeah that is fun at times
8) Who

Here. The best part is when she actually comes into the thread. And the other best part is when a TV channel offers to interview Allegro.

The forum interface is very clean and bs-free. People here are either refreshingly intelligent or humorously stupid. The library had almost no comments, but it was written so cleanly that I actually kinda followed the code.

This and xkcd are the only sites I visit more than once a week.

ML's excessively dry humor.

The wide selection of smileys.

Well I wouldn't go that far. Seems a little shallow as the only way she would have known that thread was being done was if she googled her own name. She only stayed around for the month of May in '08 and then left, hope she doesn't show the same dedication to her craft .

The best part is when she actually comes into the thread. Yes, it is.

Nope, as she even said in the thread, she uses Google analytics on her site which shows you what sites have been referring to your own, and how often. A sudden spike in referrals from one site is a big clue that someone there has started linking to you.

I don't know, because I can, I guess

Of course! That explains this forum's unproductiveness.
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The funny thing is: back then I posted what I was thinking while reading through the thread just now.

I have a hunch why girls don't stick around very long.

Well, it's certainly obvious why that one didn't.

Evert and Thomas stick around because they haven't figured me out yet . They secretly talk to my wife trying to figure me out .

I keep coming back to check whether Specter Phoenix has left again/returned again.

Who?

Well if I leave again it will be for the last time as I would have found a new site to be on. Only come back here because I'm not comfortable yet on any other forums compared to here .

These 3 quotes pretty much sums it up for me being here.

Well, the lack of motivation for me was back in the old days the reason. Now it's serious lack of time and sometimes even lust; sometimes I just don't want to program anything anymore for several days. And it will become only worse I guess.

Oddly, I was going to rant about lack of motivation but actually, television is so depressing and friends are so hard to tolerate I spend almost all my free time messing around with music stuff, making tracks and synths etc....

...if I could focus all that into an RPG...wait..it's Monday.

I'm finishing game projects; I'm just doing it for work instead. Money is a great motivator.

Timothy 6:10?

Who said I loved money?

I am King that is why I will for ever Keep coming back. Plus I loves Noobs.
And I never stop learning.

Indeed. In fact I just sat down to work on a work project, even though the entire company is off on holiday.

/me bows.

I must admit there's some sort of inverse proportion here. The more stuff I have to do, the more motivation I get to do my personal projects.

Kinda like that relation with people who spend loads of moneys in entertainment but barely have time to use it, but people with loads of free time might just be contempt with what they have.

Heh. I noticed that ages ago. The more "important" things I have to do, the more I feel like working on my own stuff.

Closely related: You're up all night programming because you're not sleepy, then you notice you have to go to work in a few minutes and suddenly you're very sleepy indeed!

I missed that part. I only skimmed it. Hope that doesn't make her come back again .

Yep, there's this reccurent pattern at the end of the semester when I need to learn for the exams. Suddenly I feel like working on three personal projects at once (not necessarily programming related). That time of the year has just come

QFT. ...

QFT... The graphics project I had to do for uni kind of became a personal project on its own(and now, even after the deadline has been passed, I still feel like working on it).

What, you mean this? "Please note: All marriage proposals must be accompanied by previous year's W2^[1]." (Source: the right-hand bar of this page, linked earlier by Edgar.)

I think it was meant as a joke, but she should probably review the impression it gives when she finds this thread

[EDIT]
Ooh, apparently that very line was discussed in the old thread! Sounds like a case of "...But it sounded funny inside my head!" without the subsequent acceptance of reality (I've been very guilty of those myself.)

To hear multi-year old threads about the girl that stopped by briefly re-discussed.

For a while I was intending to make another game in Allegro but now I might just look into it to make some quick little programs and as training wheels for GL. I've been around longer than this user name (I forgot the first one during a period of absence in college). I guess it's a place where I recognize most everyone. Maybe not infrequent posters (I don't really expect to be recognized myself) but the more common ones.

It's funny how everyone still thinks she was/is real even though it was such an obvious fake.

You could have ended at "multi-year old threads" as we discuss tons of old threads .

I normally would be the first to call fake, but if she is fake, then the person claiming to be her is doing identity theft as there is a Sarah J Chipps living in NJ according to whitepages.com. Or if they are fake, they went through a lot of trouble to create a paper trail.

Again, if fake, they are going through A LOT of trouble: https://twitter.com/#!/SaraJChipps/media/grid

Yes. Obviously it was a sock-puppet controlled by none other than Matthew himself, as evidenced by the final comment before the thread was locked:

But really, I think it's a bit telling that people care if she was a fake. She's not a particular special character. She's just a female programmer with a blog. From my point of view, the fact that people wanted pics and proof and so on just reveals the sexist streak in the community. If I told you I was this guy, I don't think anyone would demand any special proof. I don't know if SaraJo was real in that thread or not, but I do know that she was treated poorly, because of her sex.

Exactly and the pictures are most probably from one of Matthews acquaintances.

We treat each other poorly all the time. If anything, it would be sexist not to treat women the same way.

No it would be called being a gentleman to treat them politely. Treating them like we do every other Tom, Dick, and Harry on this dominantly male forum just makes us look like we are cave men. It's no wonder all our female members have left.

Not true. Women have been struggling for equality for a long time. In regular circumstances I don't believe they wan't to be treated any differently.

Then why is it that every time we get female members, most the male members act like @sshats, and then the female members abruptly leave? If women wanted to be treated the same as every guy here we would have more female members .

Because many men are complete dicks.

Except people don't act that way when women aren't around

I can hear the jokes already.

Yeah, guess I just have a different view over being married for so long. I try to always be a gentleman around women, I met my wife because I was being an @sshat on Yahoo! chat one night back in August of 2001, so maybe something can be said for being an @sshat after all .

In the programming rooms? What was your handle?

No, I always thought Yahoo! Chat's computer and programming rooms were a waste of time so I never joined them. At that time (and even worse last I checked) the people in Indiana used the Indiana channels under Romance > By Region as just regular chat rooms. I spent my nights on there goofing off trying to find people with the same interest as me (programming) and never did.

To save those who don't care....
Full story of how I met my wife:

Not according to her on twitter. I asked if she was the one that came to the forums or if it was the ML (referred to him as admin) playing pranks. She said it was her that joined. I doubt ML is friends with her considering his remarks about women, I wouldn't have female friends if I had a view like that because most women would have called me sexist and never talked to me again. Heh.

Women annoy me. They bang on about 'equal rights' but when I headbutt one of them and kick them in the teeth they all start complaining...madness

I don't come here anymore because there's not enough time in the day to juggle a full-time job and a family.

Don't get me started on women or "equality".

To be fair, I'd complain too if you were to headbutt me and kick me in the teeth.

For me, a.cc provides the perfect mix of being anonymous and not anonymous at the same time, a place where I can discuss/read things that belongs in none of my other social networks.

Because Specter Phoenix sometimes says nice things when I share a track! And I feel like I've accomplished something when he does it, I think he's growing on me...Jesus...

Time for school

Signs of the apocalypse.

[REVISION]
See the thread died .
Also, Dizzy Egg, I say nice things because, in truth, I wish I could do that. I spent $100 on a Casio Keyboard that hooks up to my computer with a USB to make music for my games. Now the keyboard is sitting at the foot of the bed in our bedroom with the stand and everything for it. Bought a pedal and microphone and everything for it too. I suck at it so I just let it set collecting dust .

Everyone sucks at it for the first few years. As with everything non-trivial, the first steps take weeks to months, becoming somewhat comfortable takes about a year, and mastery isn't achieved under ten years.

I tried to learn guitar in '86 or so, and after the first month I became obsessed with it. After about 4 years I was listening to a random collection of tapes recorded with songs off the radio and my own practicing and mistook a particular song for some famous guy until the music stopped so the player could take a drink of Pepsi(TM) and a loud burp, followed by more music. After that it was like I didn't really want to play anymore (since I'd "succeeded" at learning to play in my own mind).

Because it has one of the best communities, you guys aren't harsh on people who are still learning and do stupid stuff (Me.) And because I like teaching others the stuff I do know and help them out.

I like that smug, superior feeling I get when helping out the n00bs

Sometimes it happens, but usually the newbie/n00b is being a dick, so it usually evens out.