Annie I understand what you’re saying but what you see as banter is passive-aggressiveness. It is a tragedy that once we know someone at Autodesk we are afraid to criticize them outright. Very easy to blame the big faceless corporation, and for their part, our friends at Autodesk aren’t tools (or they wouldn’t be our friends). But if you’re not going to speak up about things when a person or people there are listening, when are you going to speak up about it (even if you sound like a dick)?

I’m not surprised Autodesk is as institutionally incompetent as they are. The nature of their relationships with their userbase reinforces it: the management relationships are as incompetent and unrepresentative as you’d expect them to be, and when developers know each other, we’re afraid to criticize.

I do want to say though, I think a lot of that was cheerful banter that got taken very seriously very quickly. I don’t support obstinately sticking to outdated methods any more than anyone else, but I do have a habit of using sarcasm and teasing to diffuse heated discussions.

The fact that Maya is out of date is becoming more and more obvious. When I’m talking to Autodesk guys on GDC while “new” Maya version demos, I can’t really understand do they really believe that e.g. new QT interface is a something we are waiting for? And when I see comment lines in default crappy Script Editor in pure _red_ color, I start to think they don’t know a thing about real life.