[TxMt] [OT] About negative BBEdit comments on this list. A clarification

[Mats Persson]

Last Friday (18 March), an off topic discussion arose around negative 
comments about BareBones/BBEdit due to - seemingly - a comment - 
entirely intended as a joke - by myself. [ 
http://one.textdrive.com/pipermail/textmate/2005-March/003522.html ]

Since I personally hate it when my actions results in someone else 
taking the blame and/or gives rise to wrong impressions, I am trying to 
put the record straight here, on behalf of all innocent users of this 
list, and to show Allan's/MacroMates' complete innocence in this 
matter.

Furthermore, the single intention of this post is to counteract any 
incorrect statements, not to attack any individual. So here goes the 
full disclosure in 7 short-ish points:


In an original post by Mark Smith [ 
http://one.textdrive.com/pipermail/textmate/2005-March/003523.html ], 
Mark was disturbed by the number of negative comments about BB/BBEdit 
on this list recently. I - and others - responded to that post, and 
Mark's replies to mine and Allan's posts made me go through all the 
e-mails that contained "BB", "BBEdit" or "Bare Bones" since Jan 1, 2005 
to establish the true facts of the matter. These are the results I 
found:


Point 1:: ======================

In 865 posts during the period of Jan 1 - March 18, 2005, I could only 
find 14 unique posts that contained what could possibly be construed as 
negative comments against BB/BBEdit. That equates to roughly 1% of all 
posts to this list based upon your interpretation/classification of 
each comment.

I have collected and included all those comments at the bottom of this 
post, in case anyone is interested. It is also important to note that 
during the same time period I found roughly 29 posts with positive 
comments about BBEdit.

However, as a child I was taught to always accept my own errors, and as 
such I have to - slightly ashamed - admit that I had produced the 
largest number - 5 - of the negative comments/jibes towards BB/BBEdit. 
For that I am sorry, and wish to apologise to Allan, anyone offended 
and the guys at BareBones.

In my defence I would like to point out the following:
-- no comment was a deliberate "bitching" sessions about BB/BBEdit, but 
rather just what streamed from my mind at the moment. Imperfect as it 
is.
-- the comments were written within a context, and should be considered 
within that context, and not as free standing quotes.
-- I recounted my personal disappointments in dealing with BB. Having 
used BBEdit as my main editor for 6+ years, I obviously don't think 
badly of it. Others obviously have had a better experience than I. I 
had also missed some minor feature additions that I complained about in 
the latest version of BBEdit v8.

As a point of reference. Just because I - or anyone else - has a few 
negative comments to make about something/someone does not mean that I 
(we) only think entirely badly about said thing/person.


Point 2:: ======================

On 18 Mar 2005, at 17:15, Mark Smith wrote in a reply to Mats Persson 
(me) :
>> Perhaps, you can point out just a few of the 'continual' jibes that 
>> are unjustified in your mind ??
> In the last week, I noticed several. Yesterday I had also prepared a 
> reply to a post by William Neumann in the split panes thread...

Within that time period, it is true that there were more than two 
comments that could be interpreted as negative about BB/BBEdit. 
However, within the whole month of March there was only four comments: 
(in chronologic order below)

In a thread that was perceived as critical towards TM/Allan on 15 Mar 
2005, at 12:24 GMT Mats Persson (I) wrote this:
>>> But you could buy BBEdit, which does have a simple split-view of the 
>>> same document. Although dealing with the guys at BB does have it's 
>>> downsides. You could propose for them to implement a Tab GUI (like 
>>> TM), a User definable Syntax highlighting system (like TM), a 
>>> Project hierarchy file viewer (like TMs Project Drawer) or any other 
>>> item, like I did back in 2001 and many times since up until TM 
>>> arrived. Now you can have a look to see how many of those user 
>>> suggestions they have implemented. (The answer is NONE!! or at least 
>>> none that is as useful and workable for me as TMs implementations)

In reply to my comment William Neumann wrote on 16 March 2005 01:59:28 
GMT:
>>> And unlike some text editor developers I know, the BB guys will 
>>> never tell you if any given feature is even being considered for 
>>> inclusion, much less under active development...

Depending on your interpretation the following posts/comments could be 
counted as well. I interpret them as jokes, and therefore not as 
serious comments.

In an unrelated thread to the two above comments, Allan Odgaard wrote 
this on 18 Mar 2005, at 03:12 GMT:
>>> Competition??? oh.. the rock stars over at BareBones ;)

To which Mats Persson (I) replied on 18 Mar 2005, at 10:29 GMT:
>>> Yeah, I heard about them once. They were pretty big around the time 
>>> of The Beatles weren't they ?? Not seen much good come out of them 
>>> lately ;-)


So I concede that point to Mark, although I still question the 
'continual' aspects originally raised.


Point 3:: ======================

>> 2.     ...don't ever announce planned features = bs
>> Please show me where BB announces their planned features?? I've never 
>> seen that part before !!!  And while you're at it, please show me 
>> where anyone on this list has complained about BB's lack of 
>> announcements ???
> I won't resort to searching the archive and naming names unless I 
> must, but I have seen several posts of this nature in the last couple 
> of weeks. Honestly.

In the above quote, I asked for two answers, neither of which I got, 
but never mind. On the specific point of users of the TM list 
complaining about BB's lack of announcements, the only example I can 
find in this whole year is William Neumann's comment from March 16 
above. I am therefore unable to substantiate Mark's comment. Perhaps 
someone else can ???


Point 4:: ======================

>> 3.  ...added anything significant...
>> I can't recall anyone on this list ever saying that they haven't 
>> added anything significant, they obviously must have. However, these 
>> additions has never been to the true benefit of my work style and 
>> workflow, in contrast to Allan's improvements to TM.
> Two posts with precisely that allegation in the last two days actually.

In the above quote, I respond to yet another specific argument in 
Mark's original post, but get another statement that I am unable to 
verify, as I cannot find these two posts from the "last two days".  The 
only post that I can find that remotely fits into that description is 
William D. Neumann's comments on 18 March 2005 at 13:52:21 GMT which is 
in response to Mark's original point in the first place.
I would assume that no one would initiate a discussion by using 
unfounded statements, and then use points raised in response to this 
discussion as proof of their comments in the first place.  So perhaps 
someone else can find those two elusive posts ???


Point 5:: ======================

>> In my opinion the focus has always and exclusively been on TM, and 
>> never ever on any other app. The only times some other app - like 
>> BBEdit - has been mentioned, is in a qualified reference/point. If 
>> that statement is wrong, I trust that I will be corrected real soon.
> Fine. It was probably a mistake for me to comment,...

Yes and No, Mark !!   I'll admit that I think it was a mistake for you 
to comment in the way and manner that you did. But at the same time it 
was good to bring the issue up for contemplation. Whether it was 
necessary is  perhaps questionable.

> ...but as I mention, there have been a number of posts in the last 
> couple of weeks of this "flavour".

Yes, as stated above in Point 2, there were two posts containing 
negative comments about BB/BBEdit during this "last couple of weeks" 
time period, both of which should be read and understood within their 
correct context, and not isolated from it, as they were added to 
illustrate a particular point rather than anything else. Could those 
two comments have been written better ?? Yes, absolutely, but so could 
almost everything ever written.


Point 6:: ======================

On 18 Mar 2005, at 16:23, Mark Smith wrote in response to Allan Odgaard:
>> but this really isn't what dominates this list, I have 3513 messages 
>> stored, only a handful mentions the other company.
> Half a dozen already in the last few days and always of the same 
> general form. "Try asking Bare Bones for a feature and see what you 
> get" etc.

I apologise for being repetitive here, but I have found no evidence of 
"half a dozen" posts in the general form of "Try asking BB for...". 
There was only one single post of that kind in the whole year up until 
that point, and that was my point included above.

> It appeared to be on the rise, hence my post.

Yes, when you go from zero to one, that is indeed a rise in numbers, 
but on a list that averages 300 posts/month, that's hardly a major 
trend to highlight, or is it ??


Point 7:: ======================

On 18 Mar 2005, at 16:23, Mark Smith wrote in a response to Allan 
Odgaard:
> Its not as though I've got unusual standards.

Perhaps it's me that have unusual standards of speaking my mind. Blame 
it on being Swedish or possibly bad upbringing, if you wish. But please 
forgive me for being imperfect. I am not alone in being that. ;-)


> A bit of friendly banter is one thing, but I  think that disgruntled 
> BBEdit users and Bare Bones hate mail will turn into an albatross for 
> you sooner or later if you let it become a dominant aspect of the 
> community. It will also make it a less interesting and useful place.

Hmm, it was some friendly banter that set off this whole "negative 
BB/BBEdit comments" thing. Funny actually, I thought it would have been 
my glib semi-religious comment in the same post that might cause the 
offence. I guess I was wrong there, huh??

As for "Bare Bones hate mail".  Oh, please, Mark !! Seriously, please 
choose your words with greater care in the future. I have absolutely no 
idea of your life experiences and so on, but to equate anything that 
has been or likely to be posted on this list as "hate mail" is so 
fundamentally wrong and misplaced that it is truly frightening to me 
!!!  I dare not even think what you will make out of this post. Should 
I call my lawyers and have them ready for the police turning up soon 
????????

As for BB/BBEdit issues increasing and becoming an albatross (??) or a 
"dominant aspect" of this ML and making it less interesting / useful.  
I am truly sorry for saying this, but you must really have a very low 
opinion of the users on this list to even think of that as a 
possibility ???

In another post on 18 Mar 2005, at 16:35, Mark Smith wrote:
> I may be looking for help with a module for "ConTeXt per XeTeX" soon, 
> hopefully my even-handed treatment of Bare Bones won't preclude me 
> from getting any.

Mark, please let me make this absolutely clear. **IF**  there exists a 
single individual on this list that would deny you their help due to 
what you have written in your posts on this subject - however flawed 
some may think it is - then that person should F*** off, stand in a 
corner and be ashamed over their behaviour.
IF I can help you I will, but don't ask me about "ConTeXt per XeTeX" 
specific things, because I haven't got a clue. ;-)


CONCLUSION:: ============

I hope that the above will have cleared up any issues raised in Mark's 
original post and subsequent comments.

I will now leave the subject of BB/BBEdit for good, and will endeavour 
to never speak ill of them/it again. I trust and hope that in the case 
that I would falter, someone will kindly remind of my errors, rather 
than build up a head of steam. ;-)

May peace be with us all forever !!


Kind regards,

Mats

----
"TextMate, coding with an incredible sense of joy and ease"
- www.macromates.com -



APPENDIX::  =================================================

The following is a complete (?) listing of all posts/comments that 
could be construed as negative during the the period of Jan 1 - March 
18, 2005: (in chronologic order)  I have added a brief explanation to 
my points below, to illustrate my original thinking and views of the 
seriousness of each item.

In a separate thread on 4 Jan 2005, at 10:55, Mats Persson wrote:
>>> Allan, I sincerely beg you - on my knees, hands firmly clasped - to 
>>> PLEASE NOT implement anything like that in TM. It reeks of BBEdit, 
>>> and is in my mind a completely flawed implementation.

I do not find the BBEdit drawer implementation to be ideal, and the 
above quote is in response to a request which wanted the TM Project 
Drawer to mimic the BBEdit version.


In a separate thread on 14 Jan 2005, at 08:59, Paul Nordstrom August 
wrote:
>>> so when I double-clicked BB opened up... what a shock! Like 
>>> travelling back in time. Honestly I wondered if it had booted 
>>> Classic up, the menu looked so old :)
>>> [Disclaimer, that's BB 7.x not 8.0, so maybe they freshened it up.]

In the same thread on 14 Jan 2005, at 15:35, Mats Persson wrote in 
response to Paul Nordstrom August:
>>> Yes, Paul, I too just worked in BBEdit and hated it. v8.0.3 (looks 
>>> as bad as 7 really) and it was SLOW when I was typing text into the 
>>> document, and that's on an iMac G5 so it wasn't on some slow old 
>>> banger either. TM ROCKS !!

>>>>  is the autosave feature where each file is backed up before each 
>>>> change. Can we please have that in TM for us klutzes?
>>> I tried that feature in BB a long time ago and found it very badly 
>>> executed to be honest, so I wouldn't really advocate for something 
>>> like that in TM. In my mind it's sort of putting a 32bhp diesel 
>>> engine in a Ferrari.

a. light banter really, and nothing of substance. I still contend that 
BBEdit v8 is much slower than v7. That may be due to unique issues on 
my set-up, but why should it be ??

b. the BBEdit implementation of automatic backups of the file when you 
save it, is far from ideal. I think that is also a fair comment.


In the same thread on 14 Jan 2005, at 17:41, Mats Persson wrote:
>>> The last thing I'd like is to be locked into BBEdit like crap 
>>> implementations. (Although I doubt you would ever implement 
>>> something like that bad anyway)

On the same thread as above, dealing with automatic backup and user 
flexibility. BBEdit's implementation is fixed and not easy to change 
which is what I am arguing against.


In a separate thread on 25 Jan 2005, at 16:59, Allan Odgaard wrote:
>>> I think it's just paying tribute to another innovative text editor 
>>> for OS X -- unlike BareBones [1] I do know about the existence of 
>>> such :)  [1] http://www.macworld.com/news/2005/01/18/textwrangler/

In a separate thread on 26 Jan 2005, at 08:13, no_reply at example.com 
wrote:
>>> fell back to textwrangler (funny that the free editor is better than 
>>> bb****. pay less, and they remove the bloat for you).

In a separate thread on 4 Feb 2005, at 00:24, Bruno Bronosky wrote:
>>> For those of you who have not used it, BBEdit amid all bloat 
>>> actually has a few useful features.

In a separate thread on 4 Feb 2005, at 23:43, Chris Ruzin wrote:
>>> I'm just beginning to learn about Ruby and TextMate is much better 
>>> than BBEdit with it.

In a separate thread on 9 Feb 2005, at 20:04, Jeroen van der Ham wrote:
>>> I'd propose to change the Bundle Editor to a Bundle Browser (<insert 
>>> joke about Bare Bones Software here>) where you can browse the 
>>> contents of bundles and not only see it's innards, but also a 
>>> textfield for documentation.

In a separate thread on 17 Feb 2005, at 20:48, Sune Foldager wrote:
>>> That would be "BBEdit Lite", their free version. As bad as the full 
>>> version ;-).

In a separate thread on 15 Mar 2005, at 12:24 GMT Mats Persson (I) 
wrote:
>>> But you could buy BBEdit, which does have a simple split-view of the 
>>> same document. Although dealing with the guys at BB does have it's 
>>> downsides. You could propose for them to implement a Tab GUI (like 
>>> TM), a User definable Syntax highlighting system (like TM), a 
>>> Project hierarchy file viewer (like TMs Project Drawer) or any other 
>>> item, like I did back in 2001 and many times since up until TM 
>>> arrived. Now you can have a look to see how many of those user 
>>> suggestions they have implemented. (The answer is NONE!! or at least 
>>> none that is as useful and workable for me as TMs implementations)

The above comment was written within a context of critical comments 
about TM and Allan's work, which I thought was unwarranted. I tried to 
help, but expressed myself clumsily. Please note that each issue is so 
simplified as to sound generic, but was much more detailed when I 
originally discussed the issues with BB.  Although, harsh in tone, the 
last line retracts some of what I'm saying.

In the same thread on 16 March 2005 01:59:28 GMT William Neumann wrote:
>>> And unlike some text editor developers I know, the BB guys will 
>>> never tell you if any given feature is even being considered for 
>>> inclusion, much less under active development...

In a separate thread on 18 Mar 2005, at 03:12 GMT Allan Odgaard wrote:
>>> Competition??? oh.. the rock stars over at BareBones ;)

In the same thread on 18 Mar 2005, at 10:29 GMT Mats Persson wrote:
>>> Yeah, I heard about them once. They were pretty big around the time 
>>> of The Beatles weren't they ?? Not seen much good come out of them 
>>> lately ;-)

This was nothing other than an attempt at a joke in response to Allan's 
"rock stars" comment. As a visual person I used "seen" whereas "heard" 
would have been a better choice of word. Hardly offending stuff I would 
say.

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