James Mitchell wrote:
Jonathan, I can't seem to find your patch to fix the website anywhere
in bugzilla. Can you point me to it?
James, I understand that this is some kind of attempt at sarcasm. The
problem is that you're obviously not really thinking about what you're
saying.
Oh, maybe you are right. What I really meant to say is "put up or shut
up".
Maybe that's what you meant to say but you didn't have the intestinal
fortitude to say it so you posted the asinine stuff about a patch.
What I was commenting on, the confused message of the front web page is
not a closed-ended technical issue that could ever be resolved by
submitting a patch and you knew that. The comment about a patch was not
made in good faith.
The only excuse for not helping is not knowing how or not having
time. And we have the "how" covered under the FAQ link, and since you
are obviously a very successful part of Freemarker, I doubt this fits
you. So, again, why have you not offerred to help explain things
better?
Let's get some first principles clear here. I do not owe you anything. I
have no recollection of ever having incurred an obligation to you or
your colleagues in any way whatsoever. Some Struts users do use Struts
in conjunction with FreeMarker, so I have some interest in what is going
on in connected things in this space but I have never used Struts
professionally.
So, the basic tone of: "why haven't you done this or that yet?" is
utterly and completely misplaced.
I do not even have to give you any feedback on your web page whatsoever.
But I did. I did something potentially helpful that I did not have to
do. Very simply put: I don't owe you anything.
But James, here is how a well brought up adult reacts when somebody
offers him something.
He says "thank you".
I really suggest that the next time somebody gives you any feedback on
your work, this is the first thing you should make sure to say:
"Thank you."
These are very basic human standards of behavior.
This public thread has fostered some private correspondence where people
just say stuff to me like: "My god what a disastrous state this Struts
project is in". There are a lot of people who think this.
Now, finally, watching you guys in action, I have come to the conclusion
that, basically, the behavior here does not meet basic human standards.
I guess a lot of it is immaturity, people who haven't learned to handle
criticism.
But, as a practical matter, if you behave like this, who on earth is
ever going to give you any feedback on your website or anything else for
that matter?
It is my considered opinion that if you develop anything, be it software
or the website that describes the software or anything else, and you cut
yourself off from considering any people's feedback, your activity will
revert into something that is basically masturbatory.
Did you just come here to complain?
In the case we are discussing, I offered some good-faithed feedback
regarding the front page of struts.apache.org. Actually, Henri Yandell
explicitly asked me what I thought was wrong with the page and I told
him. I thought it proper to answer his question. I believed he was
asking the question in good faith and I answered the question in good
faith.
Trust me, your complaints do not affect the compensation I get from the
ASF. I am richly rewarded for my contributions. In fact, I still get
dividends from time to time. Just the other day I got an email from
someone thanking me for helping with a particularly difficult issue they
had struggled with until Google landed them on a response I had made a
few months back, which helped them get to a solution much faster than
they would have on their own. That's my currency.
Let's try to deconstruct what you're saying implicitly:
A potential user hits your website and cannot, on the basis of the
text there, understand what the product is or does.
I see, so you speak for EVERYONE now, correct?
James, this is surely a straw man. When did I say that I speak for
everybody? Whatever I say is just my opinion. It so happens that on this
and some other matters, I know that some people agree with me. But no, I
just speak for myself.
You seem to be suggesting that this very same individual should offer
a patch to fix this issue.
That's not what I said.
Whatever you said, you did ask me where my patch was. If I consider your
explanation of what Struts is to be unclear, I am supposed to offer a
patch that defines *your* project.
This is not reasonable by any stretch of the imagination. In any case,
you know it was not reasonable. It was an exercise in sarcasm.
You claim that someone who hits the website cannot understand what the
product is or does. How can you claim this unless you actually DO
understand what it is and therefore it must be confusing for someone who
doesn't. Do you see the difference?
No, that doesn't follow logically. Think about it a sec, James. I don't
have to understand what something is in order to draw the conclusion
that the explanation of it wouldn't be understood by most people.
Furthermore, for you to even suggest that this is confusing means that
you actually do care about what people think about Struts. Am I wrong?
Yeah, bzzt! Wrong again. I said to Henri Yandell what I said because he
asked me the question. And I answered.
Anyway, I could comment on the weather. It doesn't mean that I care that
much about it or what people think about it. In the course of a
conversation, I said what I thought about something. It doesn't imply I
care all that much one way or the other.
Note that, given your behavior, if I did once care, by this point, I
would have given this up as a lost cause and not care any more. That
much is for sure.
If not, then why have you only offerred criticism and not a patch?
The interesting question is why anybody would offer you guys anything at
all. Basically, the lot of you behave like an ungracious, ill-bred bunch
of punks.
The criticism is that the text does not explain what the thing is. I
cannot take it on myself to explain what Struts is. And again, I don't
owe you that or anything else. Whatever I offer you is more than I need
to offer.
This is already getting too long. In the part I snipped, you say I don't
get it and so on. I don't honestly see on what basis you think you can
lecture me about getting it or not. It is clear to anybody who looks
into who I am and things I've done that I actually have significant
experience of open source software development. Well, I guess the point
of arguing that I don't get it, is to let yourself (and your buddies)
off the hook. "This guy just doesn't get it so we can shut our ears to
whatever he's saying."
Fine, live in your own masturbatory reality. Fine, Everybody visits
struts.apache.org and understands immediately what struts is from the
text there. If you say so, dude. What do I care? No skin off my back.
You're only damaging yourselves.
Regards,
Jonathan Revusky
--
lead developer, FreeMarker project, http://freemarker.org/
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