On 3/10/14 17:07, Thierry Goubier wrote:
Hi Esteban,
I'm not sure my answer will please you or stef, and maybe I shouldn't
voice it, staying being a "customer" instead of contributing "the way
you want it". Hard words, but yours are hard too.
I'd say simply that Pharo is successfull, fairly successfull for
someone like me. It allows me to engage in complex work, in what I do
best and what affords me to be paid and have the freedom to use Pharo.
Some of those things suppose that I maintain and extend fairly complex
packages on top of Pharo, and deal with permanent, multiple
overlapping interruptions (meeting, administrative work, travels,
etc...).
Same here :)
Pharo is great, it allows me to build a significant activity on top of it.
Some of the consequences of that success? I'm looking at things that
works now, not in Pharo 5, 6, or 7. I'm a bit frightened by grandiose
rewritting attempts which will be usable in a version or 2, at best,
and leave an unsatisfying "now" situation. I'll carefully evaluate
what new stuff is integrated. New stuff I look to see if they are
usable (libcgit integration, TxText) and what I see is stuff that
builds on unstable core libs extensions (NativeBoost, Athens)
Why Athens would be unstable?
or nativeBoost?
on top of an already unstable version (4.0), and I'm really not
impressed by the software development process.
what should it be?
You know Igor will not be paid in a month from now, JB should find a job
and esteban has two years to prove that the consortium flies.
So if we do not clean the event and windowing systems, rick and thales
will be in trouble. So we are fighting against time.
The end result is, when I see a bug, I'm already at least two versions
behind you guys...
Why. I do not get why Pharo 3 would be unstable and that far from Pharo 20.
so there's nothing worth reporting. There is some progress on the way
things are being done (thanks Marcus for doing the deprecation API
backporting on 3.0) and not much on others (and I speak of
methodology, not of new features being added on).
If you have the feeling that I don't contribute the way I should or
the way you would like, step back and ask yourself if this is not my
"unspoken" way of me saying that I don't find a way to contribute, or
that contributing effectively is too costly.
And look! This is not a matter of resources, but maybe a matter of
slowing down a bit, so that the poor community members with limited
resources like me that are not full time on Pharo 4.0 development may
catch up :) And please, no more rejection of feedback, even negative.
It just gives me the feeling you are overstreched, and that Pharo has
a problem setting its goals.
Thierry,
I do not have the impression that we go fast.
You see we started Athens more than two years ago. It is a success for
external tools like moose and Roassal but
without TxText Athens will just be a nice package not change the face of
Pharo and we will get there.
Writing the chapter and maintaining Smacc is already a nice tribute to
the community. Just continue that and we will be happy :)
Stef
Regards,
Thierry
2014-10-03 13:44 GMT+02:00 Esteban Lorenzano <esteba...@gmail.com
<mailto:esteba...@gmail.com>>:
Hi,
I'm writing this because I'm sad about what is happening in this list.
I'm seeing a lot of general negativity and non constructive ways
to discuss things.
I'm also seeing more and more people using Pharo for their
particular interests (which is of course a good thing) but less
and less people who contribute back to Pharo.
Finally, I'm seeing more frequently an attitude of "customer",
more than the conviction than this, Pharo, is also yours...
Please people, we (the pharo "core" team) cannot do everything. We
do not have the manpower or the resources to hire manpower. We
would like, but we just do not have the resources (is already a
blessing that we can work on this, for now: INRIA is paying, but
what it pays is *research*, not "pharo the language", so this is a
collateral advantage....)
So, having an OPEN SOURCE project, with limited resources means
that there is a lot of things that depend on the community.
It depends on the community not just to fix, but to enlarge the
ecosystem in general too.
So, I refuse to believe that we cannot be a cool and helpful
community.
I refuse to believe that general negativity and bad humor can
overcome the joy of participating in this collective effort.
So, here some recommendations for enhance the way we participate:
- Be positive. Just "this is a s**t" does not help. Even if it is.
- Be propositional. Just "this is a s**t", and not telling what
you want/prefer does not help.
- Be proactive. Just "this is a s**t", and not report, discuss and
(at least time to time) provide a fix/enhancement does not help.
In conclusion: not helping does not help :)
After all, this is the "pharo-dev" list. I mean, the list of
people wanting to participate from this great, community effort.
cheers,
Esteban, still grateful of belonging to this community