Paul Barnett Throws Tomatoes At Coder On Webcam

Well, not literally:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjDGJrLzGlQ

Some random points:

• I’m pretty sure this is the first serious MMO bug copped to via Youtube.
• I worked with Colin Shannon when I was at Mythic. He is one of the best programmers out there and Mythic is damned lucky to have him. Internet yutzes who clearly would NEVER leave a bug in an MMO EVER on all the MMOs THEY’VE coded? Kindly STFU, thanks.
• Most of this video was, as usual, funny, in a veddy dry British Paul Barnett(tm) sort of way. This part was not:”Now, code’s general plan has been to blame the designers for this. Now, I’m about to prove, definitively, that this is code’s fault. Watch… and learn.”

  Yeeeeeeeah. It wasn’t funny, even if Colin (who in addition to being a great coder is also an almost supernaturally tolerant person) was up for it. You don’t even do that sort of thing in team meetings. Jokes like that break morale like a twig. I’ve seen dark jokes like that (and to be fair, participated in them) from both sides of the fence. As a coder, I had a, let us say, adversarial relationship with one particular designer. When trying to explain to him what was possible and not possible, the response was almost always “But I designed it that way!” Which became such a tag line I finally wrote it on my whiteboard. Note: this was not a healthy relationship. And I guarantee you that there are team members who are not laughing when watching that video. Though they may be writing things on whiteboards.

  Note to Mythic: I love you guys, but Designer vs Coder isn’t a valid playstyle.

Mark Jacobs’ response:

Folks,

Paul and Colin were trying to be funny. That’s Paul’s style and Colin is one of our most trusted, talented and valued guys. If they can poke a little fun at things…

And by the way, Paul also makes fun of himself and doesn’t take himself too seriously (well, most of the time ).

Bugs happen, design errors happen and nobody’s perfect. Well, except for some folks on the Internet who never make mistakes at their jobs and neither should anybody according to their posts.

A sense of humor is a wonderful thing and necessary, especially nowadays.

Mark