Re: Re: about your concept

On Tue, Jul 20, 2004 at 09:27:21PM +0100, Andrew Suffield wrote:
> On Tue, Jul 20, 2004 at 02:35:29PM -0500, James Harr wrote:
> > 
> > > > > Don't get me wrong, I do appreciate your effort and ideas, but
> > > > > be wary that while the foundations are utterly cool, there
> > > > > does unfortunately not seem to be much of an environment to
> > > > > nurture and grow the ideas in.
> > > >
> > > > Haha, you noticed that too :)
> > >
> > > Well, it was hard to miss. People publicly left because of it.
> > > I've thought of (publicly) unsubscribing because of it too. Then
> > > again, I think the project still has a future and I might even be
> > > of some help improving the environment now and then.
> > 
> > I think everyone is afraid of letting the project have a mistake. So
> > they need to get their opinion in and hope someone else implements
> > it. When in reality the people implementing it probably know what's
> > going on more than the people on this board discussing it.

Oh, I don't think we should be affraid to make mistakes. As long as we
spot them in time and fix them. We're only human, we have wildly
different skillsets (not even all into programming, nor should all be!)
and Y is a higly experimental vehicle. We can choose to use those as
our strong points. My arrogant opinion is we should.

I like Y because it is a) lightweight or at least isn't bogged down by
decades of backward compatability, b) has fresh new ideas and c) does
already partly do and where not will be usable as a platform for some of
my own ideas on decoupling user interface and program interface.

I'm not saying my own ideas should supersede others'. I want to use and
build on a platform like Y. I expect others to want to do so, too. There
is no such platform yet, so I am willing to put in time and effort to
help make it come into existence.


> By and large, as far as this context is concerned, it's just people
> who want to use Y to promote their idea,

I don't see much wrong with wanting to use Y to build and try out more
wild ideas on. In fact, it is one of the major cool features of it. An
experimental vehicle should be used for exactly that; experimenting.

Doesn't mean that all ideas will survive their being tried out, but it
is not useful to try and quell everything before the ideas fall flat
on their faces thereby proving they're not fit to stay.

How ideas fall flat on their face is something else. Code, using,
discussion, it doesn't matter. The point is that they be tried out.


> presumably because they can't
> understand how anybody would use it otherwise.

If people insist on finding out the hard way their idea doesn't fly,
let them. We all learned by falling and getting up again. As long as it
doesn't interfere with the main agreed upon concensus and codebase it
would in fact be a very sorry way to not use a perfectly good vehicle to
not try out the idea.


> Out of courtesy they
> get an explanation of why their idea sucks, but in practical terms it
> won't be merged into Y because it's not a useful building block.

Since this is a discussion list, after all, it's good you mention the
courtesy. Besides, not all brainstorming should count as trying to abuse
Y for someone's pet ideas. Y is a pet idea in itself. It can't grow
without more ideas. Better to accept a lot of those for consideration
and trow out the bad ones. But, indeed, the courtesy is important.


> X has the right approach, as always. The current division between core
> and window manager or application functionality is in exactly the
> right place. The implementation can just be done better.

>From my reading of /The Thesis[tm]/, or even from various opinions on
this list, I didn't get the idea that Y was to be a copy remake of what
X did right 20 years ago. Sure we should use what was done right, but I
don't think that's all we can do. Far from it, even.


> Almost every one of these daft ideas that people keep shooting off
> about, belongs externally. So they tend to get ignored, modulo an
> explanation of why they're bad ideas.

Well if it was explanation it'd be welcomed as such. Sentiment I've
seen a lot of, but explanation or even just elaborated opinion lacked.

Points to work on.


-- 
  j p d (at) d s b (dot) t u d e l f t (dot) n l .