Non-Constructive Criticism

Ectara · 2012-08-24T20:00:04

I've been on GameDev since 2009, which isn't long to those that were here before me, but from the moment I joined, through today, I noticed a disturbing trend: thread after thread of people that consistently give non-constructive criticism, rather than helping. I'm sure you've seen the kind; you post asking for help in implementing a new idea you have, or you ask how to implement a well-known technique or format, and at first there's nothing, but then the posts trickle in of people flat-out telling you not to do it, that they don't care for your ideas, and to give up and just use someone else's work. Often, people think they are helping, but they don't realize that they've stopped giving the requested advice, and instead engage in tiring arguments about why they don't agree with the original poster. Nothing gets done, and both parties walk away with wasted time on their hands. I'll speak from my own personal experience here. I am wondering how to complete a well-known and complex task, with a few restrictions to conform to my platform or needs. I've gotten everything from people straight-up telling me that it is impossible, speaking from their years of experience, and that I need to give up, to people telling me to ditch my whole platform, throw out the libraries I wrote, and start over entirely the way they think I should. Throughout all of that, I received no help. I have many dead-end threads, populated only by people telling me to stop what I'm doing because they disagree. I've received no help at all on some topics; some, I figured out on my own, weeks or months later, and some still gather dust because people would rather argue about whether or not it should be done, rather than assist in its completion. Then there are people who will offer their insight, but only after telling you how useless they think your idea is, and how little use _they'd_ have for it. I can tolerate others expressing their opinion to a point. People inevitably want to share their experience, but people without experience in what I'm doing tend to give the harshest criticism of why I'm wasting my time. The worst part is, sometimes I have a specific question, and they give a vague answer, with a flippant remark about how they don't think my work has any merit, so I politely ask them to clarify, hoping to learn precisely what I need to do next, and rather than clarify, they then blast my project with why they don't like it, and how they don't think it's worth anything. Then they restate their vague answer; it's like they didn't even read my posts. I let many a thread die on this site, and a couple others, because all I get is harsh reprimands for what I'm doing, rather than help. The only thing that makes it worse is that they think that they are helping, but really, they're just lowering my morale, and impeding my task. People also tend to be less likely to respond with helpful answers after someone else has already flamed me. Now, I know I have some weird ideas. For instance, I have several virtual machines, each for a specific purpose. Just about every time, people tell me to throw it away, and install x library, and run that instead, or just install the y program, and use that. People don't seem to realize that there's a very specific reason that I need _this_ module, this library, this concept with this set of restrictions. They so carelessly tell me to abandon my project, and start over the way they want me to. Often, the changes that they tell me to make are so drastic, I wouldn't even be on the same project. It has gotten so bad, that I have to add "Please don't tell me to stop working on the project, or to use someone else's tools." A lot of my code is designed to run on an embedded machine. People blast me for not using standard library routines, which don't always exist, and frequently tell me to drop the project and use someone else's library, which will not work for my purposes. After all, if using someone else's high-performance library was the best option for my situation, wouldn't I be doing it already? I'm not in need of guidance as to what my project should be, I need advice on where to go next. I also know that I reinvent the wheel. Sometimes, people don't see the distinction between what I need, and what is already there. I have an image format that can handle an astronomically large amount of formats, with varying bitdepths and offsets, but I needed help with a particular image manipulation routine. Their advice? Throw my library away, write a Targa image loader, and load the image. Not only did that not help, but it didn't give me any advice on my problem. I needed help with some physics logic in my game engine, and I get told to discard my engine and install Unity/Bullet/Havok... the list goes on and on. Not only do I not want to, but that is not an option for what the task's constraints are. It seems the easiest way to "help" someone do something that you don't know how to do is to tell them to stop doing it, and tell them to do something you know how to do. I don't get paid per job. This isn't my profession, and I'm not interested in producing as fast as I can. This is about passion; if I want to write it all from scratch, let me. I don't care that you think it's a dumb idea. If someone were paying me to do a job as fast as I can, I'd use all the tools at my disposal. Sometimes, I just want to have the feeling of accomplishment from having done something with my own two hands. It's less about having the finished product than it is about creating it from the ground up. People tend not to understand this, and berate me for being ineffectual, and tell me to stop what I'm doing, rather than help me. I'm also doing this for me. I don't care what you think of the task, unless it affects whether or not it can be done, or I am trying to get you to use my products. Telling me you don't like it may make you feel better, but it is a waste of time; I'm here to learn, not about your personal preferences, but about academic topics, and programming various concepts. I shouldn't have to justify to anyone that comes to offer help why I am doing the task in the first place. That isn't important; I didn't ask what is the easiest way to get the task done, I asked how can I implement it myself, and what do I need to do next? It is ridiculous, the amount of people that come to a help request thread empty handed, and simply criticize what I'm doing, expecting me to try to convince them that what I am doing is worth their interest. It isn't about them. It is my project, and I am going to finish it. I understand that sometimes I am not doing things the best way that I can. Often, I ask what is the best way to do it, because I know my way is inferior. Sometimes, I get people that point me in the right direction, but other times, people suggest none of the above, and tell me not to do it at all. It's like asking if there is a faster way to get to the gym from your house, and people tell you to not go to the gym; they don't like gyms, the gym sucks, and you can just use steroids. You should go to the hospital. Hospitals are clean, and they have nurses. If your reaction is "...What?", you know how I feel. People really seem to think they are offering valuable advice when they say things like that, and it is hugely discouraging. The project _must_ be finished, regardless of people's opinions of it, and the project _must_ be done under these constraints, regardless of whether or not people like them. TL;DR: I've had one too many threads where, rather than provide coherent help, people just criticize what I'm doing, under the guise of advice, and tell me to abandon what I'm doing and do it their way, regardless of whether or not it would even complete the task I set out to do. I ask that anyone that gives advice to stop and think, "Is this providing actual information? Not just what I feel about it, but am I supplying cold, hard, verifiable facts?" If not, you might just be hurting their cause, by discouraging others from entering the thread, and by providing nothing but a lack of morale on the end of the person in need of your help. I'm not upset or feeling vengeful; I want to express what I experienced in my time on various forums, with the hopes that at least one thread goes on to be more civil after people consider how the other person feels.

LennyLen

5,720

August 24, 2012 05:41 AM

Asking a teacher for help with completing a project is very different from asking a judge what his opinion is of your project.

The teacher knows what the judges are looking for however, so the question is pertinent.

Hodgman

52,718

August 24, 2012 05:48 AM

Also, it's valid for teachers to use the Socratic method, especially science/engineering teachers.

. 22 Racing Series .

Ectara

Author

3,097

August 24, 2012 05:52 AM

[quote name='Ectara' timestamp='1345786191' post='4972893']
Asking a teacher for help with completing a project is very different from asking a judge what his opinion is of your project.

The teacher knows what the judges are looking for however, so the question is pertinent.
[/quote]
But now the analogy isn't. The only way that still makes sense is if the poster responding to my help thread knows the wants of the person receiving my finished product, and I'm making it for me.

Also, it's valid for teachers to use the Socratic method, especially science/engineering teachers.

Playing Devil's Advocate is much more likely. I wouldn't mind it, if it actually led to a solution.

rip-off

11,000

August 24, 2012 09:50 AM

I'm not looking for bad criticism, but I'm also not looking for _good_ criticism. I never asked for any of it, and it is unwarranted. I'm trying to get a job done, and looking for the next step. Criticizing my technique takes me nowhere, whether it is good or bad.
[/quote]
This site takes a holistic approach to "questions". We don't focus on answering the question before us, but also challenging assumptions behind the question, and striving to come up with the best answer, which sometimes is a global rather than local solution.

This is a real benefit. There are many newbies, some intermediate programmers and even a few experienced individuals that get stuck in a dead end and are better pointed down an alternative path rather than struggling to complete the one they are on.

A good question is "Do you have access to math.h?"...
[/quote]
No, that is not a good question, it is a terrible question. One assumes the presence of such basics. One might as well ask if you have a compiler, or a keyboard. The onus is on the original poster to make it clear when they are in such unusual circumstances.

If I have to sell my project to you before I can get any help, then I'm in the wrong place.
[/quote]
You are reading us wrong. When we ask for the high level goal, we're not asking about the project itself. We don't ask beginners the detail of the games they are making. I imagine most of them are terrible - either poor imitations or new ideas that are poorly designed (at least mine were!). Their projects are, by and large, worthless.

But that doesn't matter, and we don't care. We've all been there - we know that when they get more experience, they will work on projects that are worthwhile. They don't need to "sell" the project, they need to sell their current approach. If you're doing something weird and need help, you had better be able to justify the weirdness - especially when there is an easy and obvious standard way of doing something.

What we are asking is for them to get out of the detail of the scenario. When someone asks about game networking, we ask them what kind of game they are making. We aren't asking them this because "adventure games are dead", "nobody wants CO-OP" or "I hate RTS", or something, we are asking this because the type of game affects the networking implementation.

Likewise with your dynamic grammar project. It isn't enough just to be able to syntactically parse an arbitrary grammar, one also needs to be able to make use of the parsed output. I could imagine there are very different implementation strategies, at the higher level, if one was attempting to make a self modifying language versus writing a text editor's syntax highlighter plug-in.

I believe that was the essence of Spline's question - what was your plan for the next step, once the parsing is done. Not questioning the existence of your project, but just not being able to see and understand the global problem, as well as the local one.

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GeneralQuery

1,264

August 24, 2012 11:34 AM

I've been lurking here for over a decade and have spent time in many other forums. Gamedev is *by far* one of the best in terms of balance between expert input, helpfulness and a positive culture.

Ectara, with all due respect, I looked through your posting history and found nothing even remotely inflammatory or provocative in anyone's dealings with you, only the general pattern of probing you to help weigh up the best course of action for your project. No one has to give up any of their free time to help anyone on here, yet they do. The help you have recieved does not flag up as unusual or antagonistic based on my decade of reading, believe me if you want to know what real flaming/abuse is like, have a read of one of the many lesser forums out there. I think there is a big misunderstanding here on your part and I hope you can eventually see this so you will take advantage if this truly excellent community here.

alh420

5,995

August 24, 2012 11:52 AM

[quote name='Hodgman' timestamp='1345780398' post='4972875']
Choose the first option and there's no problem. Choose the last and you're not going to have a good time on the internet.

Yes, now we're down to the heart of the thread. If I choose to ignore what they said and assume they meant well [...]
[/quote]

I should know better then jumping into this thread...
But here, you totally misunderstand hodgman.
It isn't about "ignoring what he said", its about that human communication isn't perfect, especially written, and that you have _no_way_of_knowing_ the actual intent behind the words.
But it is entirely up to you what you assume about that intent and how you react to it.

The only thing you really know in this case is that someone has taken some time out of their day to write a response to you.
You don't even know how well he grasps the english language.
It seems pretty likely, specially on this forum, that he did it because he wanted to help, not because he wanted to start a fight with you.

Telastyn

3,778

August 24, 2012 12:37 PM

The parser/generator is unique as far as I can tell; it reads in grammar, and then generates a state machine in memory, which then can be used to parse a language described by the grammar.

Cool, so something like the syntax highlighting engines in IDEs?

-- Tangent Developer Journal - Delegates - Part 2

Ectara

Author

3,097

August 24, 2012 05:20 PM

[quote name='Ectara' timestamp='1345775994' post='4972856']
The parser/generator is unique as far as I can tell; it reads in grammar, and then generates a state machine in memory, which then can be used to parse a language described by the grammar.

Cool, so something like the syntax highlighting engines in IDEs?
[/quote]
It could be used for this; the parser can either output the next token in the input until the input is finished, or it could generate an abstract syntax tree; this tree could be used for syntax highlighting, compiling something, running an uncompiled scripting language. But yes, an IDE would be an excellent example. It'd be terribly annoying to compile a parser for all of these languages; my IDE alone has about 180 languages and dialects. Providing a simple grammar file for each of the languages is far easier, and much easier to portably add support for a new language.

Alamar

256

August 24, 2012 08:00 PM

Personally, I am a big fan of efficiency, which is why I often start from scratch, or reinvent the wheel... : )

But how can that be efficient, you ask? Because I'm thinking long term... The better I understand how something works now, the faster I can solve problems with it 10 years from now : )

I'm also a big fan of 'learning to fish', so that helps ; )

-Alamar

Non-Constructive Criticism

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Non-Constructive Criticism

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