Re: The power of you
- From: Paul J Gans <gans@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 9 Dec 2007 03:12:22 +0000 (UTC)
topazg <graham@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On 2007-12-08 09:49:48, andrewdoull <andrewdoull@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Gosh, what a truly wonderful opportunity to have a little rant :)
This is really in response to all, I've read all the subsequent posts and will
make occasional reference to some of them, but it's really for the general
thread that I am commenting.
Ok, my pet project that I did entirely for fun is, as some of you know,
http://www.online-go.com -- For those that don't know, it is a turn-based /
correspondence / play by mail server for the ancient board game of Go (igo,
weiqi, baduk etc...). Since starting the project, it must have taken months and
months of "typical working week" amounts of my spare time, and what business
return has it given me? Well, so far, because of server costs, it has actually
cost me 210 GBP, yet strangely I still run the server, so why?
Firstly, I love the game, I love web development and database work, and I like
having a useful project to test my hand and improve my employable skills on.
I've greatly improved my understanding of more efficient ways to embed SQL
scripts and use recordsets in a web environment, and it has introduced me to SVN
and a myriad of plugins that come with that particular line of version control
software.
It has a great userbase, not particularly huge, but generally friendly and fun
to talk to - some of them I have since got to know in real life, and it has been
a fun experience to build something that gives so many people clear enjoyment. I
even have subscriptions on the site, which a small fraction (perhaps 3 or 4%)
have chosen to do to support the site.
Yet, is it worth it from some objective point of view to spend any more of my
spare time away from my wife and kids doing code for it ? No, of course not, I
cannot justify it to anyone.
However, Is it worth it from my own subjective point of view? Hell yes, I love
it and will certainly carry on in the short term future, just because I don't
want to not be working on it (sorry about the double negative!)
Why do I think this contributes (maybe it doesn't after all :p) to the
discussion?
Because I don't expect anyone else to make my project worthwhile. I can't afford
to - people, especially online, are very fickle creatures with relatively short
attention spans. Someone might think an idea is great, and get really involved
for a week, a month, even a year. But eventually, life happens and people move
on, and how would we deal with that if we are reliant on advertising to make a
difference? Yet more of our spare time would have to be invested, at no return,
in hoping to pull another bunch of short-term interest to something that will
eventually die. The following year? I'd have to do it again, and the next, and
the next.
I don't have any time or inclination to do this - it would suddenly all become a
chore, I would eventually lose sufficient enthusiasm for the whole thing and it
would die. I personally feel that would be a shame, so I do what is required to
keep it fun - primarily for me, with just enough effort made to the community to
keep them happy with its development and direction. However, if the worst came
to the worst and I wanted to drop it I would hold on until someone wanted to
take the site and code from me, and then move on to something else in my life.
I see Angband as just the same - I've never met (nor ever will) Robert Koeneke
or any of the names of Angband/Moria history that made the game where it is, yet
somehow I still recognise the name. There is no follower of this newsgroup
(except for the really new) that have no understanding of the contribution that
Ben Harrison has made to the game. People receive no funding for their
involvement (in fact, this is forced by license I think), yet make great inroads
in a project, before handing it on to someone else who has the enthusiasm to
continue the work. This way the project can live on, regardless of what happens
to the original author. Many open source projects run this way, and IMHO it
allows software ideas and projects to become truly timeless (at least whilst the
platform on which they run remains).
To Andrew, Campbell, Nick and all the other *band developers, the work you do
honours the whole community - purely because the effort and life you put in
requires some level of sacrifice. Do it because it is fun, not because you have
some form of obligation... at the end of the day it is just a game (hence
people's temporal interest in it), and life is too precious to waste.
Oh, and Nick, I think you are a precious snowflake ;)
I'm with Graham on all of this. I started with Hack back in
ancient days, played NetHack for a while and then lost interest
as it got to be too cute or too demanding of attention.
I then moved to Larn, Moria, and finally Angband back a fair
number of years ago. A couple of weeks ago I began to miss
Angband, googled a bit and came up with 3.0.9. I downloaded
it and compiled it and have been playing for a while, trying
to remember all the tricks I once knew.
Back in the ancient DOS days I contributed a couple of
bug fixes, etc (there were far more bugs then... ;-)
but haven't looked much at the code itself since.
My interest lies in spending the odd hour here and there
trying to coax my character into doing something notable.
My congratulations and thanks go to those who have maintained
these games and their variants.
I shall now recede into lurkerdom.
--
--- Paul J. Gans
.
- References:
- The power of you
- From: andrewdoull
- Re: The power of you
- From: topazg
- The power of you
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