Although I only had patience to play one of his games to completion, he obviously enjoyed making them and Paul Panks added colour to the IF scene, both literally and figuratively.

JWZ’s worst rant EVER was the one where he boldly declared “all groupware sucks” — mainly because Netscape failed at it. It is deliciously ironic that the “new” project he was trying to influence (Hula) also failed. His rant basically said “good software helps you to get laid” and a lot of people mistook the shock value of that statement for actual insight. No, you idiot, good software gets the job done without calling attention to itself.

JWZ is a beer salesman. Nothing more.

Paul pushed my buttons because he seemed to be exactly the sort of person who most annoys me: the relentless self-promoter who — in my twisted eyes — brings nothing positive to the world. Somebody who never learns from his mistakes, but still thinks he’s amazing. Since I try to recognize and root out those elements in my own personality, I get almost gleefully annoyed at those who don’t.

So no, I never saw Paul as a person, and if anybody liked him I didn’t notice (or care). His death was without consequence to me, just a sort of footnote and one last, petty chance to say “I really dislike that sort of person,” and feel smugly that I therefore am not that sort of person.

This thread isn’t about me so I won’t dwell on my own feelings, but it didn’t take long for me to realize my attitude about this was total sh*t. Who am I to claim to know Paul’s motivations or the feelings of those around him, let alone gleefully stomp on them out of some ugly little urge to feel superior and clever and better than he was?

I’ve been holding off admitting this to myself until now, but: yeah, my response to Paul — both in life and death — has showed me something awful about myself. Regardless of my assumptions about his motives in life, it was wrong in every way for me to flippantly post them, and — more importantly — the fact that I so obsessively ASSUMED such things says a lot about the way I deal with the world and the way I feel about myself.

I’m sorry. I was wrong, and I have learned. That’s probably not what Paul would have cared about, but maybe it’s worth something to those of you who were rightfully shocked at my callous garbage.

Cheers,
Rick