I used Notepad++ for virtually all coding I did (Python, JS, various Markup Languages, Action Script back in the day, etc) for a couple decades. The only reason I use VSCode now is because I inherited a nightmare of a legacy spaghetti bowl and needed the function tracing to attempt to figure out anything. I still prefer N++ for most small projects.

Why? Because they feel the need to have local copies of sensitive financial information because… You know… They are computer security experts.

You seem to think that Trump didn’t add access keys for his idols the instant he got back in the door. He loves Putin and Kim Jun Il. They are like, his favorite drinking buddies.

The big difference between the a relational database and a spreadsheet is that “can do” clause in your sentence. In a relational database they MUST have those constraints to be related.

In the Microsoft ecosystem Access is the relational database. Excel is a table manager with fancy features.

Ohhhhh… I fucking hate this. I use Windows locally, but I do support for a render farm that runs on Linux. The number of times I have recieved “it works locally” tickets from an artist who decided to get clever and embed Windows paths in string literals in their scene makes me want to punch a puppy. They don’t even look at the application logs we provide to see that the paths threw errors. We handle repointing their file paths with symlinks normally, but when they use literals it literally fucks the system with escapes. I will never understand why Microsoft refuses to standardize to POSIX with the rest of the world. Aside from them being a US company with decision makers who still think freedom units make sense.

Ummm, 3DS is owned by Autodesk, so you may as well consider them the same thing for this conversation, and Arnold is a renderer (also owned by Autodesk) and not a DCC, so not really relevant unless you are specifically comparing Blender’s built-in render engines to it. The reason I am not is that there are lots of plugins for Blender which can output .ass files to be rendered by Arnold, so it can be utilized if you want to pay the subscription.

Blender is a DCC. Not one that I am super familiar with, I’m a Houdini guy myself, but honestly it is better in a lot of ways than the steaming piles of shit that Autodesk puts out. The question is not one of quality or feature at this point, but one of capital and market share where it counts. If they could figure out what is needed to get the likes of Disney or MPC on board, or even smaller (though arguably still very large/high profile) houses on-board, then they would be seeing much more investment.

Gonna call you out on this, at least partially. It was SideFX, a real threat of a proprietary vendor who has sizable market share in 3D/VFX, releasing an entirely perpetually free learning edition and a low cost indie license who put the screws on Autodesk. Blender contributed to the decision, but it was absolutely not the primary pressure source.

Source: I have a Masters Degree in VFX, have studied the industry for over 35 years, and have worked professionally in it for going on 15.

What you said is patently wrong.

As someone who works with USD daily digging through the bowels of the code and working with the format at a root level, it is 100% something that gaming should (and is) adopting. The Godot team would be frankly stupid not to put full native USD support as a high priority. The ability to store rigs, transform animation, and easily encapsulated asset variations alone makes the format godly. It is also very clean in how it manages asset linking and scenegraphs which makes traversal a breeze to encode. Also, it makes an DCC agnostic format which allows game developers to engage with freelance artists and not care what they use. Houdini, Blender, Maya, C4D, and any future DCC are going to be able to export to it. Hell, Houdini (my preferred DCC) has an entire context dedicated exclusively to working with, rendering, and exporting USD format.

If I wasn’t shit with UI Dev I would offer as this sounds like a great app, but alas.

Damn it… I literally just found draw.io like 2 weeks ago.

Oh hell, I have not had that one yet. I am already leaning away from it with just the random pins showing up on my nav that were not searched for.

You assume that the governments of which you speak are not assisting intentionally. These companies did not write the EULA legal frameworks that allow them virtual carte blanch to take and do whatever they want just because the population is trapped in the endless cycle of coercion that is our life.

Why do all of these companies decide they are so tired of existing?

Plus all the political stuff. The man is patantly off his rocker.

Incompetence might even be a little harsh. Inexperience or incompetence maybe. I prefer inexperience.

Aside from 3 you are essentially creating Stumble Upon.

I prefer the answer of giving the giy the reins and letting him get it so riddled with viruses then when he calls for support replying “sorry, your property your problem. You have absolute dominion over it and thus we give no warranty as we have no responsibility.”

Not that I know of. In the end you are editing the browser rendering parameters. Anyone can inspect the page and see that the opacity on the page is being turned down. Finding where it is happening is the only thing you can really make hard. Have a couple of the pass through scripts be machine generated and you can have it use nonsensical variable names and a bunch of dummies that lead on wild goose chases. It could all be fixable, but you can make it a pain in the ass. Add a redundancy or two and it will make debugging a nightmare because even if one is fixed, the others will make it look as though it has not.

The real answer is to have NEVER do freelance web development inside the client’s firewall. Never. If they try to require it, walk away. If it is inside their firewall then they can just take the source code and stiff you. If they try to spout some BS about security, say that is precisely what you are concerned about and point blank ask them what safeguards they are willing to allow you to put in place for developing in their system. If the answer is none, walk. If they are willing to let you VPN in, run the code from a local copy over the VPN and node lock it so if someone attempts to serve it from another machine it fails.

Apologies. I’m tired and hate businesses taking advantage of “Independent Contractors”.

Bury it six JavaScript and 2 php scripts deep so it is a pain in the ass to find.

Just start suing. Then donate all the money back to the library you sued.