On Sun, 10 May 2009, Alex Fernandez wrote:
Welcome back, Christian,
It's nice to be back! (Actually, it's nice to be able to use pine, and to
be able to access the lists as news groups :-)
Apologies in advance for what became a rather long post. There are no
technical insights regarding the actual topic, but instead an attempt to
try and explain "softer" issues. With emphasis on "attempt":-)
Thanks, I already did the wiki part:
http://wiki.lyx.org/Tools/ELyXer
The project currently lives on nongnu.org:
http://www.nongnu.org/elyxer/
Let me know if you'd like to also have a page in the official site, i.e.
www.lyx.org, in which case I'll send you the password for editing those
pages (they are actually wiki pages in disguise). I certainly trust you to
behave responsibly. As a side note, I am certainly willing to give you
commit privileges to the repository. The latter requiers some other stuff
(like me figuring out how to actually do that...). Anyway, I think you
carried yourself splendidly in the (sometimes, typically on Fridays) harsh
world of the LyX developers list.
As to what happened, after some time (and with a certain perspective) I
can tell you my subjective impressions and we can compare notes
afterwards. My offer for integration of eLyXer got quite a hostile
reception: some deserved criticism was received, along with some
undeserved bashing. Apparently it conflicts with some future switch to
an XML format which will solve all problems. In the end very little help
was offered (with the honorable exception of Uwe Stöhr) and much
infighting was caused so I withdrew the offer.
I spent some time reading through most of the posts on these topics today,
and as a way of comparing notes I can give you my (outside) view of the
matter. First off I should say that I didn't actually consider the actual
matter at hand, as anything I'd say would probably be way to late to make
a difference. In that respect I'm of course to blame for not following the
list, apologies for that.
To start with, I can definitely see why you felt that you got a hostile
reception. However, my honest view about your reception differs quite a
bit from your interpretation.... I think you got a "great" reception!
Now I know that you probably think that's odd to say the least, but
consider this:
* Lots of developers _cared_ about the work you had done, which is
a that what you're working on is something that matters!
* Your work (code) was respected!
* Developers discussed it, you and your work inspired others to talk
about the issues involved in exporting HTML.
To phrase it differently: You were treated as just another developer.
Yes, there were certainly differences in opinion and philosphy, but as far
as I could see that had _nothing_ to do with you. Instead, it was about
the actual problem which is simply put ill-posed and generally tricky.
You've probably noticed something else as well: On this list people will
question your choices in how to do things. You may have to argue for why
your solution is bad. As someone who is new (or perhaps I should say "used
to be new":-), you'll have to argue more before others will trust your
judgement.
This lack of trust has nothing to do with you as a person, but rather that
"we" don't know how well you know the topic at hand. LyX is a large piece
of software with complicated relationsships to other softwares, and it's
used in many different ways by many different types of users. This means
that someone new can't have a feeling for the overall picture, actually, I
doubt any of the "old" developers really have the overall picture either.
You (and eLyXer) is certainly solving a problem and acomplishing
something. A big question is if it's the right problem that's being
solved, and if it is solved in a way that'll keep working in the future,
or will this solution be something that in the future leads into a black
pit? It's completely unreasonably to expect that you'd be able know the
answer to these kinds of questions. I certainly don't, and this business
about exporting stuff is especially hairy as I don't think it's a well
defined problem.
So what happens on the list in this case is that people start discussing
it, which in essence is good. Now, I might be a bit too used to the tone
of the list on Fridays, but I didn't see any personal attacks on you. In
fact, to me it seemed that you were mostly treated with respect, or more
specifically, that your work was treated with respect.
Right now my efforts are focused on making eLyXer even better, as you
can see in the changelog:
http://www.nongnu.org/elyxer/changelog.html I have a pending request to
make a better exporter (and copier) from within LyX, but lack expertise
to do a good job currently.
This last part is a bit like greek to me, but I take you'd like to change
something inside LyX? I'm sure others will reply to that.
My hope is that eLyXer will be distributed along LyX on some major
platforms (Windows, Ubuntu, maybe Mac) and more people will have access
to it. (By the way, the switch to elyxer.py has been ready for some time
now, Uwe.)
Since there were hundreds of posts on the topic (which by the way _really_
says that people care about what you've been doing), I can't say I know if
there was a true consensus, but my impression was that distribution should
be fine. At least I think it would be fine.
I guess the important thing is to clearly document (for the end users)
what they can use eLyXer for, and what it will not (ever) be able to do.
That will of course not stop users from asking you to implement the
impossible, but then you can at least point to the documentation;-)
Meanwhile some folks are trying to make LyX export HTML directly but
haven't started figuring out how. I don't think they will ever release
anything, and yet cannot blame them for trying.
I don't see anything wrong with that work being done in parallel, in fact,
to me it's an evolution of your work although you probably think that's
strange. I would also say that if something useful actually does come out
of it, _you_ are the person that's responsible for that work being
started. The reason why credit goes to you is at least twofold: You
created eLyXer; and you put it up for inclusion in LyX, thus starting the
avalanche of posts on this topic. I think both these things were necessary
for people to actually become a bit more serious on doing export from
within LyX.
As for the technical side, I certainly see advantages with doing it from
within LyX, but I also share your concernt that nothing useful will come
out of it. If something does come out if, it'll be great to be able
to use eLyXer as a benchmrk.
sincere regards,
Christian
--
Christian Ridderström Mobile: +46-70 687 39 44
