Farewell
byuu.org
byuu.org
Hi Byuu. You don't know me, but I've been a fan of your work since the early days of bsnes. I've also seen at least some of your "detractors'" criticisms, while lurking. (My "favorite" was that you don't know enough math to emulate the 3D graphics of the N64, because you didn't stay in school. I didn't know they taught how to write SNES emulators in school either... Maybe I was sick that day.)
Anyway... Please don't be too hard on yourself. I think you're more mature than most(?) of your critics, and more importantly, you've made several comments and actions that make me think you have a genuine desire to self-improve.
Social graces seem to come more naturally to some people than others. The rest of us have to work it out for ourselves. You're a smart person, so I know you can do this if you devote the time to it. Of course, thinking of yourself as smart tends to be an obstacle, and the journey tends to start where you least expect it.
If you'll allow me to give a word of caution, avoid distractions. Spend some time by yourself pulling back from people online, and not writing code either. There are problems in life that no amount of code can help. If you really want to solve this, don't get too caught up in exploring Tokyo either. :)
I'm sorry if bsnes/higan hasn't made you happy, but if you still have some energy left, I know you can find a way to get what you really want out of life.
Thanks for your incredible effort, and godspeed.
It was everything else that was a problem. If I could have just been left alone to code in peace and without all these pesky health and work issues, I'd be very happy to continue.
I think I still have a ways to go on the self-improvement, but it's hit a point where I think I need a few months' break to go at it offline, and maybe let my hands rest a while from typing so much. I ended up coming back to things the last two bouts of depression, so we'll see.
Thanks for the kind words, take care as well!
What about this work made you happy? What was the reward? You might be able to capture it in a different way.
I don’t get the sense that it was something to do with making the people who used your emulators happy, per se, so probably “solving someone’s problem and seeing them light up” isn’t going to do it for you.
I’d guess that helping to conserve other artistic expressions [to ensure people can experience them the same way they did on the original hardware, long after you’re gone] would make you happy? Especially if you could use your specialized knowledge and experience to do so, in a way where it’s not necessarily true that anyone else would have come along to do the same thing if you hadn’t done it.
Perhaps you could volunteer in a consulting/advisory capacity for some of the Archive.org software-library preservation projects? Not so much programming, as pointing out the pitfalls in the architectural decisions of what other people are programming. Like a software security consultant, but for “ensuring the original work is conserved and reproduced with 100% fidelity” instead of “ensuring nobody can exploit the software.”
It's like a really complicated puzzle. I have this game that's not working, and I have this 2 GiB trace log of millions of lines of CPU instructions and registers. I have to sort through it to understand where things went wrong. Sometimes it's obvious and takes five minutes, sometimes it takes two weeks and is mind-bending (like a loop reading from a non-existent I/O register that only breaks because eventually a DMA transfer occurs in between cycle instructions that fetches the correct value onto the data bus, which stays persistent through to the next cycle that compares the value read to finally break said loop.)
I really enjoyed over-architecting the code, and I would build these massively elaborate (read: slow) designs to handle the most ridiculous edge cases (like stacking Game Genie cartridges one after another recursively. It's an incredibly inefficient way of getting more cheat code slots, but you can do it on real hardware, and so I wanted to preserve that experience.)
> I don’t get the sense that it was something to do with making the people who used your emulators happy
That of course brought me joy as well. The tone of the farewell post aside, 98% of people throughout my time in emulation have been absolutely wonderfully supportive. It's meant the world to me.
> in a way where it’s not necessarily true that anyone else would have come along to do the same thing if you hadn’t done it.
I'm under no delusions of granduer, these were "just video games", but I definitely had the sense that if I didn't do this, no one else would. The SNES was a large part of my childhood, and I had the skill and time to do this, so I went for it.
> I'd be very happy to continue.
I would guess that the new maintainers of your projects stand a fair chance of considering your pull requests!
Why?
The way I see it, detaching yourself from your routine environment for a while, disconnecting from everything toxic or anchoring, and instead rediscovering who you are and what you want - in an environment that has no preconceptions or preconceived expectations of you - is a great way to find what matters to you and who you can be, how you can express who you are and how you feel.
Not to mention that working abroad is a great opportunity that is very much different depending on age and personal status, so I do hope he makes the best of it, and really discovers the beauty of Japan and its culture and people.
It's truly been an honor! I've always greatly appreciated the links to my articles shared here, and the discussions with everyone on these and other submissions on the site.
I'm hoping to return one day when things settle down a bit in my life. Hopefully when that day comes I'll have some great new things to share. Until then, take care everyone!
I worked extremely hard on a start-up for half of my 20s and I ended up with basically nothing to show for it. Employers do not seem that interested in my start-up, they want "People with experience scaling large systems." Whoops.
Now I'm sending out my CV and I'm not getting many bites.
But would I trade my breadth of knowledge and learning. Nope. Would I try to become a one-trick-pony? Not at all. Do I still code - Yep totally but on things I care about and enjoy rather than on a yet-another-engagement-driver while also building up on other hobbies.
Also where are you based? DM me if you are looking at roles in the bay-area. (Unfortunately as much as Id hate to see it die, leetcode is unavoidable at a FAANG interview :) ).
I've also had bouts of RSI and it can really be frustrating, especially when what you do shapes so much of how one thinks of oneself, and that starts to whittle away.
Hopefully a respite from coding in my spare time will help my hands recover a bit.
I feel like I have an inverse problem to the one the author describes. Personally I work on projects for a really long time in private, not having to worry about dealing with other people since everything is done by me only, and wonder how I should eventually portray the project to the public. My motivation to do things shifts wildly from week to week, and I can spend months at a time on one single project and suddenly just stop cold one day as if it never happened. I keep wondering how that's compatible with involving yourself with the community, if they'll wonder where I'm at a month from now. In my case the project is specifically meant for contribution for other people or it won't take off (a mod system) so it feels inevitable I'd have to do it some day. But I don't know if I can keep it up after it's announced without getting burnt out by interacting with people, and delivering on the things I want to accomplish. I'm reminded of the author of uBlock Origin specifically refusing donations for this reason, to ensure he feels no sense of responsibility to "make good" on what people give him. He also mentions the same motivation issue.
I have at one point been in a spot where I've worked on something with a similar amount of zeal for months on end, literally every single day, then dropped it out of nowhere, then had someone come up to me and ask me to finish it with them, and then literally being unable to get myself to write more code. Like, I was sitting at the screen, doing nothing at all for hours, unable to bring myself to care. Even though this person reached out to me personally over one of my projects, which had never happened before in my life, and I liked their company! Part of me still wanted it to be finished too. But I just didn't feel like it anymore. I feel a lot of guilt over that, still. So I know I have been in that spot before.
I keep working at my current projects though, regardless of the amount of progress. It's just an interesting hobby right now, if a somewhat obsessive one. I'm always reminded of the portrayal of Robert Graysmith in the film Zodiac, where he explains he does so much investigation into the titular case "because nobody else will." That's exactly how I feel with my long-term projects. Perhaps byuu felt the same at some point. Maybe that attitude is what got me this far all along.
Still, so many times I feel like I'm just grasping at straws or not making the progress I want. But giving it to the community leaves a sense of obligation if I have these goals that are still left unfulfilled, which I easily end up imagining worst-case leading into whatever drama of "such and such project not doing what it envisions." And of course I will never expect someone to pick up the torch, tempting as it feels. They could, but in the end it's their choice, and I have no right to obligate them.
This thought bothers me a lot. What reminded me of this in relation to the article specifically was the author's mention of wishing he could just code in peace without all the extra baggage surrounding the project and other things in his life he describes. Currently I would describe myself as "coding in peace," it being closed-source at the moment, and I'm wondering if I'll end up getting myself into all that someday. Then again, the alternative feels like wandering aimlessly in this solitary coding marathon for months on end at a glacial rate of progress, not quite knowing if my designs or implementations are the "right" way to advance the project, which feels equally troublesome. I don't feel smart (or perhaps arrogant) enough to believe that outright. And also, wasn't I supposed to use this thing if it does get finished? Otherwise why spend so long coding it up at all?
After a while this cycle of thinking wears me out. I can totally understand the author's feelings, even if they aren't quite caused by the same reasons. It's a lot of time spent on a small amount of things, in the pursuit of these potentially lofty goals. I guess it's necessary to step back every once in a while and reframe things.
That doesn't even go into careers, which is a different boat entirely.
All that might have been a random tangent. It's just a thought I've been mulling over.
Anyway, I should say this: Thanks, byuu, for all your contributions to the emulation scene over the years. Give yourself a good block of vacation and go explore Tokyo sometime. You deserve it.
I am only skimming the linked article elsewhere in the thread and it seems too hard on him too.
But they went after my friends. Someone on an imageboard compiled a list of my friends' real names, photographs they had posted, locations where they lived ... really creepy stuff.
I'm stepping down because I don't want my personal friends and the dozens of volunteers who helped develop my emulators caught in the crossfire.