I'm just a nobody here, new to the forum, and so not associated with any of you. 
I recently posted a 'venting' post, and unintentionally brought up some 'histories' between some of you guys (apologies for that).
It appears some of you are not very good at taking criticisms. Specially, when Jamie's work is involved, as if any criticisms are heresy.
Though, you guys do remind me of my younger engineer self (full of ego, the smarter guy in the room).
Here's something I learned as I got older ...
1) "One takes criticism 'personally', it is because THAT work is their BEST work."
2) "When someone criticizes your work, it is the 'work' that is in question ... not your skill"
- I refuse to believe that Zircon was the best work from Jamie. I like to believe that all those 'compromises' made, were 'conscious choices' to meet a schedule. When you look at the source code, it shows exactly that.
- We know Jamie had to compromise. To do all 4 major components in MMO (UI, Protocol, Compute, Storage) in 12 months, you only have 3 months for each. So compromises were made, specially at UI and Compute.
- Jamie was able to "complete" the project because he was 'willing' to make such compromises. Most 'great engineer' don't do that, and become obsessed in getting a single component 'perfect' for months and years.
... this is why 'great engineers' have hard time releasing "complete" app, and most of them work on library (or update/extend existing).
... this is also why big company releases soft that are "not perfect".
- Having said all that, all the 'compromises' are all there to see. They do suck. If I was Jamie, I would not even defend them.
- The source code also shows why Jamie released the source code. Because, he was burned out; from all the compromises decision he made.
As every system (drop, inventory, spell, etc ...) are spread out all over the place, it requires him to remember all the places that need to be changed for a particular system.
"The more stuffs you need to retain in the brain to be 'productive', the less sleep you get.
The less sleep you get, you get burned out.
Once you are burned out, every thing you see in the world is 'shitty' .. including your own work."
- Devs (such as DJ) will eventually burn out after 12 months (unless motivated by some other means).
That's the nature of this particular code base. It does not scale. And, the more feature you add, the 'heavier' it becomes ... exponentially.
- Just because (some) part of Jamie works are being criticized, it does not mean Jamie's effort was not respected.
Jamie's work is INSPIRING. It truly is. But it is also disappointing the deeper you dig in.
- The fact that devs (such as DJ) are still working on it, shows they see 'potential' in Jamie code base. And, in turn, respect for Jamie's work.
But the code base is 'dirty'. It requires 90~% refactoring to be sustained.
And, the fact that Jamie (the owner himself) did not bother to refactor before public release, show how messy the code base is.
... The point is that, people do LOVE Jamie's work. But at the same time, they would hang themselves with it.
That's the conflict. It got nothing to do with questioning Jamie's ability.
So be cool, ok?
I recently posted a 'venting' post, and unintentionally brought up some 'histories' between some of you guys (apologies for that).
It appears some of you are not very good at taking criticisms. Specially, when Jamie's work is involved, as if any criticisms are heresy.
Though, you guys do remind me of my younger engineer self (full of ego, the smarter guy in the room).
Here's something I learned as I got older ...
1) "One takes criticism 'personally', it is because THAT work is their BEST work."
2) "When someone criticizes your work, it is the 'work' that is in question ... not your skill"
- I refuse to believe that Zircon was the best work from Jamie. I like to believe that all those 'compromises' made, were 'conscious choices' to meet a schedule. When you look at the source code, it shows exactly that.
- We know Jamie had to compromise. To do all 4 major components in MMO (UI, Protocol, Compute, Storage) in 12 months, you only have 3 months for each. So compromises were made, specially at UI and Compute.
- Jamie was able to "complete" the project because he was 'willing' to make such compromises. Most 'great engineer' don't do that, and become obsessed in getting a single component 'perfect' for months and years.
... this is why 'great engineers' have hard time releasing "complete" app, and most of them work on library (or update/extend existing).
... this is also why big company releases soft that are "not perfect".
- Having said all that, all the 'compromises' are all there to see. They do suck. If I was Jamie, I would not even defend them.
- The source code also shows why Jamie released the source code. Because, he was burned out; from all the compromises decision he made.
As every system (drop, inventory, spell, etc ...) are spread out all over the place, it requires him to remember all the places that need to be changed for a particular system.
"The more stuffs you need to retain in the brain to be 'productive', the less sleep you get.
The less sleep you get, you get burned out.
Once you are burned out, every thing you see in the world is 'shitty' .. including your own work."
- Devs (such as DJ) will eventually burn out after 12 months (unless motivated by some other means).
That's the nature of this particular code base. It does not scale. And, the more feature you add, the 'heavier' it becomes ... exponentially.
- Just because (some) part of Jamie works are being criticized, it does not mean Jamie's effort was not respected.
Jamie's work is INSPIRING. It truly is. But it is also disappointing the deeper you dig in.
- The fact that devs (such as DJ) are still working on it, shows they see 'potential' in Jamie code base. And, in turn, respect for Jamie's work.
But the code base is 'dirty'. It requires 90~% refactoring to be sustained.
And, the fact that Jamie (the owner himself) did not bother to refactor before public release, show how messy the code base is.
... The point is that, people do LOVE Jamie's work. But at the same time, they would hang themselves with it.
That's the conflict. It got nothing to do with questioning Jamie's ability.
So be cool, ok?
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Without even looking I can tell this guy is probably the same dude who wanted to reverse engineer the zircon client a few months back. 
