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[anallyst]

there are some f***ing annoying bugs in DF. some of them since ages.
unfortunately, Toady One seems to care mostly about Adventure mode and fixing typos.

to finally get bugs like

* the incredible FPS drop from blood splatters, until the game becomes unplayable (there's a switch in init.txt to avoid this, but it doesn't change anything)
* huge "cancels clean self: cannot find path" spam (when soap is available)
* backup files created by editors (*.bak) in raw folder leads to unplayable embarks (WTF toady, that's a one line fix: if (fileext(configfile) == "txt") { parseconfig(configfile); } )
* [insert your favorite bug here]

solved, it seems some pressure from the community is required.

I therefore suggest adding a weekly vote for the "bug of the week", which ToadyOne has to solve.

[Matz05]

He doesn't "have" to do anything... but voting for a priority boost sounds interesting.

[jockmo42]

I therefore suggest adding a weekly vote for the "bug of the week", which ToadyOne has to solve.

A developer prioritizes. It's part of their job. Sometimes a bug can't be fixed until something else is out of the way. Sometimes leaving a bug open and fixing it a great while later can afford you more flexibility and faster development in the long run. Sometimes a bug is low priority because in order to fix it, something may have to have its guts torn out and put back in for a month-long reconstruction.

There is a reason that large groups of people don't tell developers what to do. Large groups of people don't know what they're talking about, or what they're really asking for.

[Rowanas]

I, personally, would tell you to sit down and shut up. If people cared that much about bug fixes, they would raise their voices as much as they do to shower Toady (armok be with him) with praise or complain about FPS.

Since the community, as a whole, doesn't mind most of the bugs, it obviously isn't a pressing concern. We know that Toady (armok be with him) does semi-regular bugfixes and tries to balance new gameplay with fixing the old gameplay.

If he wants to know what bothers us, he can look down upon the forums and see our gripes, the bug-workaround threads and the Eternal Suggestions.

P.S. Jockmo, that sounds slightly anti-democratic. I approve.

[Capntastic]

unfortunately, Toady One seems to care mostly about Adventure mode and fixing typos.

Yeah man, a couple adventure-mode-centric releases in the first time in around two years has really proven Toady's lack of dedication to only working on one aspect of the vast game that is DF.   If you'd read the devnotes at all you'd know that the majority of the game's content will be shifting towards playing a role [as a specific leader or leadership] rather than an unseen force ala Fort Mode. 

[MrWiggles]

I'm glad that someone called him on that sentence. Adventure Mode hasn't gotten love in a very long time. Even though, I dont play Adventure Mode very often, I'm coo with Toady developing the other side of the coin of DF. Unlike the bulk of developing for fort mode, Adventure Mode development is bleeding into Fort mode. A la Ghosts, being the most prevalent example.

---
As for Bugs not being fixed. Thats just bull shit. Bugs are getting fix rather regularly. As already pointed out, we don't really know what entails fixing any one bug, or adding in one feature or another.

There was a rather large debate thread about how adding milkable animals shouldn't be that hard. To get cows to be milkable, in turn relied on the large materiel rewrite. I could probably get a link to the thread, if required, as a demonstration on how the community just sometimes doesn't understand what would require for X to get done. Only Toady and Threetoe knows for sure.

[Askot Bokbondeler]

there's a bug tracker that gets attention, crashes and severe bugs are fixed almost instantly, nobody has a reason to complain, here.

[anallyst]

i'm feeling like a heretic.

As for Bugs not being fixed. Thats just bull shit. Bugs are getting fix rather regularly.

sure, crashes get fixed immediately, some bugs introduced by a recent release and random stuff that just crosses toady's debugger.
if you take a look at the bugtracker, there are tons of annoying bugs with low numbers (indicating a long-time presence).
i.e. the soap bug, http://bay12games.com/dwarves/mantisbt/view.php?id=1023 . this one was even confirmed by him 6 months ago.
in this case it may be a little tricky to find the exact cause of the bug, but the other 2 issues i mention are very easy to fix.
the one-line fix i mentioned, for example, and for the blood thing either a switch which disables picking up of splatters, or a changed data structure which uses a data-oriented-design. read this http://gamesfromwithin.com/data-oriented-design and this http://research.scee.net/files/presentations/gcapaustralia09/Pitfalls_of_Object_Oriented_Programming_GCAP_09.pdf
the second one is a very interesting paper from sony's PS3 sdk developer staff.
i have yet to see some effort regarding systematic bug removal. i'm pretty sure a 4 week bug hunt expedition would eliminate half to most of the bugs in the tracker.
toady's activity in the bug tracker is minimalistic, for he's the only developer.

[Frogwarrior]

Did you just suggest a "simple fix" involving revamping the very underlying structure behind all of the code?

[MrWiggles]

Again, we are not privy on how toady has programmed the game hardcode. So, those may apply and they may not apply.

As for the minimum involvement with bug resolution, the change log would suggest otherwise.

http://bay12games.com/dwarves/mantisbt/changelog_page.php

Most releases have 20+ bug fixes.

----
Is this another case where "Toady doesn't fix bugs" mean "Toady doesn't fix the bugs that personally annoy me." ?

[Lord Shonus]

This is a ONE developerprogrammer project from a non-professional who is doing it because he likes doing it, and is gracious enough to share what he is doing. ONE and ONLY ONE person really understands the code enough to know what a "simple fix" requires. If every single person on this planet voted to fix something, and Toady voted to work on something else, he would win. This is not a democracy.

[MrWiggles]

Its a Toad-ocracy.

[anallyst]

well, he's asking for money, i'm asking for getting the bugs fixed.

[3]

You are under no obligation to donate, if that's the way you feel.

[Sfon]

I got frustrated waiting for him to fix the alt-move bug. That is just the way it goes, though. The mountain of bugs 31.xx introduced is far smaller now than it was originally.