January 7, 2002

What sort of asininity makes developers start thinking that they are some sort of super being? I normally don’t write about happenings in the alternate shell arena because I don’t use an alternative shell anymore nor do I do any development in that area but certain developments over the weekend have kind of irked me due to the fact that it is not just an alternate shell thing but rather something I notice more and more with coder/techy types. People seem to think that they are somehow better because they know how to code or to work with computers and treat the “newbie” as if they were some sort of second-class citizen or a complete moron. I think this is as bad as racial prejudice or any of the other bigoted ideas that we look down upon. The newbie of today might turn out to be the super-coder of tomorrow if they were given a helping hand or some guidance. I should know since I started coding for alternate shells as a complete newbie and that really started me on the road to doing all the apps and projects that I work on today. I just can’t understand people sometimes – they seem to forget where they came from and how they started once they get to a certain level. Makes one wonder about humanity …

I know the above won’t make any sense at all to anybody who is not involved in the alternate shell world (and I know quite a few of you who visit here don’t use alternate shells :p) but basically the alternate shell world is about replacing your Windows interface with a more customizable one. There are many programs for doing this and most of them are free projects worked on by people in their spare time. It is basically a labor of love. The coder of one of the latest entrants into the alternate shell arena (who incidentally has been active in the alternate shell world for a while …) has seen fit to add a feature to his shell which is decidedly newbie-unfriendly and has gone to the extent of saying that he considers newbies to be morons and that they will only elevate beyond the status of morons and be fit to talk to him only if they read his documentation. To me, this sounds like a really egotistical statement and I’m really irked by it … Ah well, I guess it takes all kinds but sometimes I wonder whether that is always a good thing?

On to much more cheerful topics 🙂 I got “Red Faction” for PS2 over the weekend and quite liked it! I was actually looking for “Max Payne” for the PS2 since I’d heard quite a bit about it and was feeling in the mood for an FPS (First Person Shooter) but everywhere I looked, it was sold out. So I settled for a used copy of “Red Faction” since I’d heard good stuff about it as well. It has been a long time since I’ve played an FPS – I think I played a bit of Half-Life a couple of years ago but I don’t think I’ve really played an FPS since Quake (or was it Quake II?) … yeah I know that’s a long time ago <vbg> I liked the way “Red Faction” worked quite a bit though the controls weren’t really intuitive from a normal console gamer perspective – yeah, I know they give you the option to remap the keys but I didn’t want to bother with that once I’d figured out the controls :p I also played a lot of “Final Fantasy X” and my first impressions about the game still remain intact – great game and great story!

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Posted by Fahim at 8:19 am  |  2 Comments