> So far as I can tell, our biggest long-term management problem right > now is not one of scaring developers away, it's one of keeping track > of all the people who want to get involved and all the things they > want to do. You haven't yet provided an example to the contrary.
well, then I do. I´m scared away. why? exactly because of what james is writing here. it seems that noone except the "core developers" are allowed to criticize django - whenever something like this comes up on the list, there´s someone who fights the arguments tooth and nail. there´s no discussion culture on this list ... as iain already pointed out, it´s too much about "being right" IMHO. > >> Is it worth it in the long term? *If* one of the long term goals >> is to >> attract a growing dev community that can in the future outdo current >> productivity levels, then absolutely yes. You have *no idea* who is >> lurking on here. You could have super geniuses who don't feel >> inclined >> to comment because they see little of that type of discussion or >> because >> they don't feel their input is really wanted. > > Actually, we do have a few "super geniuses" of the web app world > lurking, and thus far when they've commented we've paid attention > worked with their suggestions. guess I have to prove being a "super genius" before .... > >> And here's the catch, they *won't say anything*. Most will just ... >> leave. Another extremely important sales/management truth is that >> the >> people you turn off *will not tell you* while the people who love you >> will yak their mouths off. So you absolutely can not believe that >> just >> because you only *hear* positive feedback that everything is cool. >> Developers who maybe decide they would be more welcome at RoR or >> Gears >> aren't going to say anything here when they make that decision! > > The problem here is that there is absolutely no way to quantify this. > It could be that, just within the last twenty-four hours, five million > potential genius developers have looked at the dev list archive and > immediately written it off for not having enough traffic. Or it could > be that they didn't. so, pointless. > Appealing to something that can't be quantified isn't a useful > argument; appealing to actual examples of people speaking up (and they > shouldn't be hard to find -- software developers are notoriously > opinionated and willing to share their opinions) is. from my point of view, it definitely IS hard to speak up. when dealing with an "open" project you´re having people from different cultures with a different style of communication and a lot of misunderstanding (e.g., from your point of view I probably misunderstood your posting). but it should be one of the aims of a list like this to integrate these different cultures. for example (again, very personal - it´s hard to point that out all the time but I think it´s necessary): the RoR-list seems much more open and "nice" to me. the reason is probably the style of discussion there. > >> Well I can't say I feel the need to do so as the impression I get >> from >> this reply and your blog is that you are more concerned with "being >> right" ( proving Django is doing everything right as it stands ) than >> "getting what you want" ( having Django become as good as it could >> be ). > > No, my concern is with figuring out how concerned I need to be about > this. that´s hard to believe when reading your stuff here ... probably some kind of "misunderstanding". > > Django is not perfect. Django is not always right. Django is not > all-knowing or all-seeing or all-powerful. Django has and always will > have problems of varying degrees of criticality. But right now I > cannot for the life of me figure out whether you're pointing out a > problem that it has, and if so how critical that problem is at the > given moment. IMHO, there is a more basic problem. it´s the problem of not being able to criticize. I´ve done it before and people tend to see it as a personal attack while (from my point of view) it´s suggestions and the will to help and improve the project. moreover, since english is obviously not my primary language it´s sometimes hard to explain what I really mean. if someone comes up with something really stupid which has been discussed a thousand times before, I´m not having a problem telling this person to "shut up" and re-read the discussions. that´s fine. on the other hand, there seems to be a tacit understanding on communicating how great django is. and only the "super genius" is allowed to criticize: http://www2.jeffcroft.com/2006/jul/20/top-ten-things-suck-about-django/ > And then one day, out of the blue, someone new posts to your mailing > list that your project is widely perceived as being closed to > "outsiders", and that your project has serious long-term image > problems. When asked, this person does not supply any examples of > people expressing this perception, and instead becomes combative and > accuses you of trying to defend your project no matter what. that´s exactly how it seems to be (you seem to defend your project no matter what - sorry, but that´s my perception here). why do you need "examples"? could you just, for a moment, assume that iain brings up some important issues. again: it´s really hard to express my perception here because I don´t want to spend the rest of the day arguing with you (althouhg I´m afraid you´d like to do exactly that). > If you were the developer in that position, how would you be reacting > right now? A large part of any good software project is learning to > understand other people's points of view; I've tried to tease out > where yours comes from and haven't gotten anywhere, so now I'm trying > to explain to you where mine comes from. > > If the things you're talking about really do exist as a widespread > perception in the open source community, then we have a serious > problem. But I've reached the limit of where I can go without getting > some more information from you. Obviously I'm going to be skeptical of > what you're saying, because the response we've gotten from developers > so far has been fairly overwhelmingly positive. If that response has > masked a significant undercurrent of dissatisfaction, then we need to > know about it. But if we haven't managed to see it so far, we're not > going to manage to see it without help -- if you want this horse to > drink, you've got to lead it to the water. as already pointed out, you shouldn´t rely on the response you get. > > So if there is a significant image or perception problem we need to be > aware of, I need you to start showing me examples of it. you (james) have been very helpful with a lot of my projects with your answers on the list. don´t take this too personal. I just don´t understand why you´re so keen on defending django. I think I´m just too old and too busy to play games like this. and that´s why I usually don´t speak up - because I have the feeling that it´s senseless to do so. thanks, patrick > > > -- > "May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house." > -- George Carlin > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Django developers" group. 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