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I wish to say a big thank you to Garry.

I think I'm not saying anything that Garry does not disagree with here in saying that Garry is often interpreted to be quite direct and borderline "negative" in his criticisms of Adventuron (and other topics I imagine too).

I very quickly recognised that he was a frustrated perfectionist with strong and very informed opinions.

In my opinion,  some of the most invaluable people in society are the ones labelled as"negative" people; people that are willing put their hand up and explain their grievances rather than accepting the status quo might are the people that drive things forward.

In my view there is a bit difference between "this is awful" and "this is awful because".

His time investment in formulating bug reports cannot be overstated and are of a huge service to the platform.

Anyway, I wish to say a huge thank you to Garry for telling it like it is. Not everything he asked for he received, but I never dismiss any well formulated complaint or request out of hand. There could even be gold in a seemingly badly formulated complaint with a bit of digging. 

Having a life simulator and procedurally generated games on the platform are a source of great joy, but traditional well designed verb noun games are no less worthy,, some of the most innovative design and imagination may involve the most simple of technology..

A game with a heart or a brain (or courage? ;-) ) is just as worthy as a game with a zillion features. Over here! to me was a work of genius.

That said, I do agree with Garry that his game presently has the most sophisticated parser yet released on the platform and his systematic demonstration of omissions and bugs in the system has helped to sculp a "good enough" solution for many container situations as well as responding to non dictionary inputs better than ever before.

A lot of the new additions are still over complex and over verbose compared to other systems but at least many things are possible now that we're previously not possible, and friction will be further reduced over time.

Again, a huge thank you for help Garry. You are very much appreciated.

Chris

P.S.

If you are interested I wrote a blog post in 2018 on the power of discontent. 

tps://link.medium.com/vDh7NHzV4cb

In my day job, I am the technical writer (amongst other things) for the biggest and best traffic management system in the world. I write user manuals, online help, specifications and so on. In doing so, I have to delve into every nook and cranny of that software. I find bugs. Lots of bugs. Bugs that the testers haven't found. I raise bug reports. When you are writing bug reports on a safety critical system, you can't afford to mince words. People's lives and property could depend on that bug being fixed. This is probably why I may seem pedantic.

Some people at work call me a perfectionist. I take offence at that term. Perfection is something that you strive for. It can never be achieved. I prefer to think of it as attention to detail. Get the little things right and the big things will fall into place.

That's a great article, Chris. I think I'll forward it to my work colleagues.

That explains it! Or most of it.

Oooh, I'm a technical writer too (amongst other things), but I'm not trained to be. I should get someone else to be the technical writer. I'm more the 'education' guy, trying to discern how to make things understandable. ^_^

Ha, ha. Me too. I am self taught and have no formal qualifications in technical writing. I failed English in the School Certificate, probably because it was all drama and poetry and Shakespeare and all that other rubbish that has very little to do with writing skills - the ability to express yourself, spelling, grammar, punctuation and capitalisation. I think I learnt from writing reports at work, some vocational training and writing for fun - writing bushwalking reports, editing an Atari user group newsletter and writing about adventures for a UK computer magazine.

After failing English in 4th form (or year 10, as it's called nowadays), I went on to get a distinction in technical communications at uni and a couple of prizes for most popular article in those computer newsletters/magazines.

Nowadays, most kids (and adults) can't even string a sentence together. I blame the education system and social media for that.

Oh, I'm a trainer, too. I like teaching people. Hence the desire to break things down into small understandable chunks, put things in the right sequence and make things as clear as possible.

I also really appreciate Garry, his advice and experience, but also his uncompromising attitude. If things are bad, they are bad and it must be said. It’s good for the game and for everything else. Flattery and blissful enthusiasm don’t seem relevant to me.

Agree.

Hah! I concur, believe it or not. I have a lot of people critical of my work. Very critical. A lot give amazing feedback, and I thrive on people being overly critical because my main goal is to get better. :D

Testers are your best friends. The developers at work don't understand that.