Hi Martin,

No, it was not an instruction. It was a plea. Big difference.

I know that Inkscape is a collaborative effort. I know that there is no central person in charge of bugs. I also know that if the app is failing, one needs to make people aware of the problem in order that it can be fixed.

I was informed this forum was the place.

So you ask 'who should fix this?' I would suggest that collectively, those who wrote the code should fix it.

Over the past 3 decades, I have written millions of lines of code using various programming languages.

To me, the worst thing is Not Knowing there is a bug.

Anyone with serious time invested in writing code knows that bugs are a part of the process.

We hope to catch them in Dev Mode, but, that is not always realistic.

Sometimes, they are only apparent when the code is released into wild.

But, in this case, I already felt I knew what was causing the problem - hence the clue about a Null response.

Certainly, I was frustrated when I posted. My bad.

But, please, do not assume that I am clueless and need mentoring.

I knew approximately what the problem was, and my point about the null response should have indicated that.

Apparently this has now been resolved (thanks Luca) and I'll download the newer stable release soon.

If anyone feels I was unduly critical of Inkscape, I do apologize, and assure that was not my intent. To me it was important to make the team aware of an issue that appears critical, and seems coding related.

Kind Regards,

Gary.

Martin Owens wrote:

Hi Gary,

On Wed, 2021-09-22 at 18:03 -0500, gjr wrote:

...

Fix this.

This is an instruction. You can't give instructions to the inkscape project because the project has no employees.

So, who should fix this?

I know this must be frustrating, It's shameful to have this kind of problem. But the terrible truth is that we all have self responsibility to fix or hire someone who can fix the specific errors that we need fixing in a project that has no corporate backing. The project is at the mercy of fortune to try and tempt people to help fix problems.

...

Seriously, I have lost so much stuff because of this - it corrupts text areas and gradients and I am getting sick of it.

It sounds very serious.

...

For crying out loud, handling a null response is coding 101!

The best I can offer you in some mentoring if you'd like to tackle the problem. I know that's probably not what you want to hear, but it's what I got in the tank.

Let me know, we can work from chat.inkscape.org or big blue button.

Best Regards, Martin Owens

Hi Martin,

I have a great deal of respect for honest opinions.

You said,

I'm not in any way impressed by your original email. But I live in hope that you may be passionate enough about Inkscape to come join our community and help fix issues with us.

Personally, while I feel your initial remark was a tad harsh, especially given that I apologized for being frustrated - and it really was a legitimate concern, I understand why you would be unimpressed with my original question.

To answer your follow up. Yes, I would love to be more involved.

However, after half a lifetime writing code and dealing O/S based stupidity, and pointing out logical flaws, I'm pretty much done with code. Seriously, I can't do it any more. Even for my own work product.

I've always been a musician, a sculptor, a painter, and random artist, often creating art out of essentially crap that other people throw away. While the need to create art has always been a massive influence in my life, in order to pay the bills I had to write code - and sacrifice other passions.

Don't get me wrong, I've always felt writing code in itself is a creative endeavor, especially when one figures out how to do something using native code, without the need for a code library.

Back in the early 1990's I needed to create graphical representations of various computer computer interfaces (basically holding the cable in one hand and using ms-paint, pixel by pixel with the other).

I extended this into generating random bitmap art, just for me, just for fun, until I had to get back to writing code again. In all honesty, my attitude was that yeah, that's looks cool, but it had no validity beyond my personal arrogance - even tough others requested and were given copies of the work. this was in the early 1990's.

About 14 months ago, I got covid, though not severe, and while now fully vaxed, I find myself not only struggling to write code that used to come to me so easily, but also having a hard time trying to interpret what I wrote even just two years ago.

I hear people speak about covid brain fog, though not officially a diagnosed issue, I feel I know what it feels like. I spent nearly 8 months sleeping all day on the sofa. I wasn't tired. I was just so fed up and depressed.

In March of this year, after having survived the bastard winter here in TX, having had no running water for two weeks, crapping in a bucket, not being able to shower, making tea with snow & ice water, it occurred to me that I am wasting what little remains of my life, I'm working 18 hours a day for something which ultimately will be forgotten when I die.

So, I went back to art.

tbh, by accident I discovered that even my old crappy bmp designs may have value, since today, one can shuck anything online as a tee-shirt. I actually did not know this was a thing.

But, all my old crap was low res. So I need to re-do it all, plus create new.

Research said Inkscape would be useful. fwiw, Inkscape has been more than useful.

Inkscape literally got my sad sorry ass off the sofa. It made me want to create again. It helped me turn on that dried up spigot of creativity that I thought was lost.

So, please do not think I am in any way criticizing Inkscape, I am pointing out valid issues, which need attention.

If I suggest there is a problem, it is real. I may not be diplomatic when I do so, but neither are you.

fwiw, I love inkscape. I have affinity and some other apps, but inkscape is my go-to initial creative medium.

You can be as critical as you want about my previous orig post, but, if problems exist, the designers need to know.

Am I to be less opinionated and honest than you when there is an issue? I don't think so.

I believe that honest dialogue is the only legitimate method of communication.

I will help by voicing valid issues. Though maybe, less cryptic next time, and maybe more polite - if I can suggest the possible reason.

With Respect and Kindest Regards,

Gary

Martin Owens wrote:

Hi Gary.

Thanks for you considered reply.

On Mon, 2021-09-27 at 18:15 -0500, gjr wrote:

...

So you ask 'who should fix this?' I would suggest that collectively, those who wrote the code should fix it.

This was perhaps what I was trying to point out. The people who wrote it have no responsibility to your good self to fix it, not even they broke it.

We are responsible to each other *as people*. Not to the *the project*. This puts new contributors at a disadvantage as you won't have any relationships, so won't have anyone to call upon to come to your mutual aid.

And the more you present yourself as a capable programmer, the more other contributors will expect you to approach a problem with solutions, rather than with expectations.

I'm not in any way impressed by your original email. But I live in hope that you may be passionate enough about Inkscape to come join our community and help fix issues with us.

...

Having said that, one would have to question why the docs prop module

would cause a memory leak.

That was one of my fixes. The grids system wasn't cleaning it's widgets up properly and refreshed the entire widget stack *on every modified signal* so tens to hundreds of times per second. Very bad.

Best Regards, Martin Owens Possible Future Friend