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I know what you're talking about. My experience is mixed though. The biggest problem is lack of comments. If I could doodle on my source code though I'd probably write the notes like that - visually.
I've had a lot of productive "delusional thinking" and have gotten pretty good at sorting the productive from unproductive in that regard. With practice.
Maybe that helps. But yes, what you wrote is relatable. It just doesn't always turn out that way for me.
And in this case, I'd take the half-engineered but working code that I may have had to the perhaps better engineered but nevertheless dysfunctional code I've created like, today to try to recreate what I did.
When I was growin' up, I was the smartest kid I knew. Maybe that was just because I didn't know that many kids. All I know is now I feel the opposite.
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Going to the Dutch mountains where the meat is sour and the girls are dancing (dansmariekes) and there is no internet 
So don't worry about me, I'll be back in a week 
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RickZeeland wrote: Dutch mountains
I didn't know that there were any. 
Hmmm. Chris goes to the South Seas, you're going to the "Dutch mountains". Is there something that we should know? 
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
-- 6079 Smith W.
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I recommend reading "Gulliver's Travels" (or Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World) 
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Quote: Dutch mountains
So, about 10 feet above sea level then? 
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
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OK, so about 100 feet above seas level then! 
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
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Back again from a gruelling expedition in the Dutch mountains, 1000 feet would be closer to the mark.
Although we have bikes with electric support and did not bike for more than about 30 km, the batteries were drained completely during a trip across the Belgian border in the "Voerstreek" !
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So for the gamers among us, Final Fantasy VII and IX recently became available on the PS4.
Took a while, but they're here.
But where's VIII?
This is what I read: apparently the sources for those games were stored on some dev's machine who threw parts of it away when he needed disk space.
The version of FF IX that's not available on PS4 isn't the same as the one you used to play back in the day.
For example, the high res backgrounds in battle arena's are gone and they were only able to salvage the 800x600 (or whatever low resolution they used back then).
Getting FF VIII to work needs considerable work.
So this happened to three of the most iconic games ever, but all from the same studio, could be they were just a bunch of bunglers...
But then I read the source code to Baldur's Gate, another iconic game, got lost because it was on a computer in some basement that was flooded.
Sounds like these aren't incidents...
Anyone here knows what's up and why I've had to fix VB6 software written in the 90's while big ass studio's can't keep their most iconic games? 
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Sander Rossel wrote: But then I read the source code to Baldur's Gate, another iconic game, got lost because it was on a computer in some basement that was flooded.
Maybe they could use Ghidra or IDA to recover the source. Both support exporting binaries back to source code. Although it would take a lot of effort to make it completely human readable.
Best Wishes,
-David Delaune
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Maybe it is like you suggest, and they just didn't have enough storage space to do everything properly...
Whatever the reason though, I hope they sort it out for FF8 because I really want trophy support on it like they did with FF7 
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While FF VII is my favorite game ever, I must admit I haven't gotten the PS4 version 
Just checked out the trophies, the Barrett date looks like a PITA, you go for it from the beginning or you'll miss it.
And for the story you'd rather have Aeris.
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Yeah, it's probably the most annoying one. But if you have played the game as many times as I expect you have, then your are not really missing anything with the story.
Also, if I remember correctly, there is a bug where you can repeatedly increase Barrett's "date score" to make sure you get him - when you are in the Midgar buildings cells, just keep talking to Barrett over and over before talking to anyone else.
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This may just me being cynical, but ... once a company releases a game (and gets the worst bugs fixed so people shut up moaning and buy the thing) their interest in the source code pretty much goes out the window - they have the master binaries, they have the money rolling in. The dev team have been redeployed (to another game or the unemployment office) so who cares where the source is? It's not as if "Attack Dwarves In Space 2" is going to share much with it anyway as the V1 Engine won't support the new graphics cards ...
Sent from my Amstrad PC 1640
Never throw anything away, Griff
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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I guess that was the case back in the 90's... Nowadays they'll need that code for the remaster, the special edition, the HD re-release, the VR re-release, the mobile app edition, legendary edition, GOTY edition, etc. etc.
Anyway, I guess Square-Enix is learning that now too 
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Sander Rossel wrote: Anyone here knows what's up and why I've had to fix VB6 software written in the '90s while big ass studios can't keep their most iconic games?
Most probably because you were not working on a video game but something that is going to be in use for the next 20 or so years.
The average life of a video game (for the studio) is around a year (generous) unless they keep updating it.
So after a year, it does not make them a considerable amount of money meaning spending time and effort on it is not profitable anymore.
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I for one find that 'worrying',I have committed many things that shouldn't be done (Thread.Sleep(10)) to slow down program...
modified 4-Apr-19 9:37am.
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GKP1992 wrote: So after a year, it does not make them a considerable amount of money meaning spending time and effort on it is not profitable anymore.
Tell that to all remasters and re-releases!
Well, to be fair, those weren't a thing in the 90's.
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Back in the 90s...they probably only had Visual Source Safe as source control. Understandably, people would rather rewrite code from scratch rather than use that..."tool".
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I used openVMS CMS. Not transactional based, but I actually had a stable and well designed OS. Never had an issue, and if I could not build from scratch, there was hell to pay. 30 years later, I am unable to drive home the point of weekly builds. I've given up on nightly builds.
Years later, I lost my VSS project because of a network fart. That started my descent into learning of the half-whits that worked at MS. A year later, I forced development to SVN, and I never looked back.
Charlie Gilley
<italic>Stuck in a dysfunctional matrix from which I must escape...
"Where liberty dwells, there is my country." B. Franklin, 1783
“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
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I'm assuming you realize I was joking...
I just can't pass up an opportunity to deride VSS every time it presents itself...
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I'm not. I got burned badly by VSS and cheesy MS coding. One day, my customer's IT department installed WiFi in our area. Since I was working on embedded systems and needed my wired ethernet to talk to the hardware, I used the WiFi for the corporate stuff - including talking to VSS. Our repository was out on a network drive (and in my opinion VSS was never designed for that..."
So, the Wifi hiccuped, and our repository was trashed.
In my efforts to recover it, I came across some angry, dark, and occasionally hilarious rants. The best one was, "Using VSS is like printing all your source code, deleting all of your files, then shredding your printouts...."
I promptly ordered a USB to ethernet adapter and turned off my WiFi.
VSS should be derided.
Charlie Gilley
<italic>Stuck in a dysfunctional matrix from which I must escape...
"Where liberty dwells, there is my country." B. Franklin, 1783
“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
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Oh Sander, such a noob 
Seriously, I'm messing with you. The US can't build the Saturn 5 anymore for similar issues - it just wasn't deemed important. Issues like this almost become mythical when it all comes together.
True Story:
1) Contracted to attempt a port of FORTRAN code developed in the late 70s to the PC.
2) After examination, missing 40+ source files. Did my best reverse engineering, no go. Delivered the bad news.
3) Co-owner of the company accepted bad news, said he knew who to contact. Luckily this guy was not dead (we're all getting older, it happens).
4) Guy says, "Yeah, I know who has the backups, but he had a house fire that leveled his place, let me call him."
5) Guy makes contact, #2 says, "Oh hell, I have no idea where the backup tapes are, but if anyone does, it's xyz."
6) Xyz is called, "Sure, I still have those. We got them from the garage of the house that burned down."
7) I got the original source code.
After nigh 40 years of writing code, I have come to the conclusion that most of what makes the world run is 30 years old. See that old grizzled fart? Buy him lunch and find out what he knows.
I am seriously anal retentive when it comes to backups, source control, etc. It's amazing how most just don't appreciate the value of what they have done. I still have code from the mid 90s I wrote - just in case. I know for a fact the code is still live in Germany.....
Charlie Gilley
<italic>Stuck in a dysfunctional matrix from which I must escape...
"Where liberty dwells, there is my country." B. Franklin, 1783
“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
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In Dutch we have a saying, freely translated "who saves some, has some."
Can't find any English translations, but it basically means that if you save something now you'll have something later.
I guess that's not very popular in software
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Lol, I love it. I've gotten over "supporting legacy code" - I've just made so much money diving in and helping.
Charlie Gilley
<italic>Stuck in a dysfunctional matrix from which I must escape...
"Where liberty dwells, there is my country." B. Franklin, 1783
“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
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