Celestia Forums

Hello Chris,

I was just scanning the developer's list on SourceForge and see that you are getting ready to release 1.3.1 final.

I also notice there is very little discussion about fixing the many bugs that I and many others have reported via this (Celestia Bugs) forum during the past 3 to 4 months -- and they have persisted from one pre-release to the next without being addressed. But, there sure are a lot of new features -- which have also created even more problems / bugs!

What's the deal Chris?

Am I and other folks wasting hundreds of hours testing Celestia functions and writing bug reports for no reason? It seems to be a complete waste of our time since you do not seem concerned to fix bugs for existing functions before adding new functions.

Are you even keeping track of bugs that need to be fixed?

Should we simply stop testing Celestia and reporting bugs?

Sorry for being so blunt, but I feel like 80% of the time I've put into testing the pre-releases of Celestia has been a complete waste of time .

In addition...

* All of the SourceForge functions of the Celestia project (Tracking, Bugs, RFE, etc.) seem to be ignored except the developers list and CVS.

* The Celestia home web site is outdated and does not have links to any current pre-release versions or extra files (locations, etc.).

* The phpBB forum software should be updated since there are a lot of bug fixes in the newer versions.

* The Shatters.net server seems to be way overloaded most of the time, resulting in poor forum performance.

I have SIX to TEN+ HOURS of time per day to offer you Chris, and have offered my assistance on several occassions, but you have never taken me up on my offer. Do you not want Celestia to get any better? Do you not want any assistance from outside sources other than from C++ programmers?

Please help me (and others) to understand what you want, if anything, from non-C++ programmer Celestia users who want to help.

Thank you Chris.

Well, the reality is that fixing bugs is not as fun as implementing new features... and chris does this for fun.
Don't be despaired, though. Time for fixing bugs will come, when chris run out of new ideas... It happens to me always; a fun phase of implementing, and a long nightmare of hunting bugs.

Geee, maybe Chris could reply for himself on one of these "tough questions" for a change? Instead of other people replying for him, saying "the developers just want to have fun". Personally, I'm sick of reading this reply over and over and over again, month after month, year after year (2002-2003), to hard questions about Celestia especially from everyone BUT "the developers" (aka Chris) .

Come on Chris, talk to us (me), please. I would like to know where you stand on Celestia maintenance and the maintenance of the Celestia web site, file access pages, SourceForge, forums, etc. Is this all just "fun and games" to you, or is this a serious project, as it looks and seems to be, at least to me?

Don't despare Don,
Chris has always been a quiet person on the forum front, and always very elusive.
and has been like that since I have been around here.

But we all love his work, and have to take it as it comes

just continue reporting bugs as and when you find them.
as im sure they are listened to, and very welcome.

Howdy Paul,

I'm trying real hard not to despair, but I've never worked in a near vacuum before, with little to no feedback from the person running the show <sigh>.



-Don G.