well, in my previous threads, i was trying to work out specific solutions to specific problems for the mame system i'm constructing, but they all seemed to end up in the MAMEdev vs. arcade control discussion. even when i've said, "can we get back to the subject i originally asked about," everyone seems mainly to want to talk about this subject.
this is obviously a huge sore spot, of which i was unaware, since i'm a new-comer to arcade emulation. however, i do have something to say about good software design. i've been passionate about good, clean C code for decades, since i worked on the Unix kernel at Bell Labs in the late 70's and led teams designing large system software projects in the 80's and 90's.
if the MAMEdevs' main concerns are NOT an unwillingness to allow arcade control support into the core MAME code, but simply a resistance to what they consider poor implementations of that support, then maybe we can make everybody happy by submitting modest, "squeaky clean" changes which, over time, bring in support for most of the devices we care about, while keeping mame clean and maintainable.