Re: Quick question... Is this project dead?!

Casey Allen Shobe wrote:
> Þann Mánudagur 17 janúar 2005 18:12 skrifaði Kimmo Sundqvist:
> 
>> [snip]
> 
> Great.  And hopefully it's in CVS or Subversion or similar, where multiple 
> branches can be maintained and anybody who wishes to can submit changes.

It's in TLA (aka GNU Arch).  There is no central repository.  It takes a 
little getting used to if you're used to CVS, but it's quite a nice 
design once you're over that hurdle.

>>In practice it is not an exaggeration.  The "cabal" (I think that is Andrew
>>and Mark) has refused to communicate about the details, or at least
>>Andrew's style has been so discouraging that nobody has ever tried.

I think Andrew's opinion is that if you can't read the code and work it 
out (as he has) then you probably wouldn't be able to contribute to the 
coding effort at this stage in the project.  I would probably agree with 
that -- this is low-level stuff, and not the kind of thing you should be 
cutting your C teeth on.

That said, I have yet to see Andrew fail to answer a specific question. 
  Things like "What is the architecture of Y?" are too vague.  If you 
are having trouble understanding a specific short segment of code please 
post it (and your thoughts) here and someone will try and help.  If your 
problem is larger or more fundamental I suggest you wait until a bit 
later in the development process.

>>And if the list maintainers are "the problem", sitting on the project and
>>living their lives as if it didn't exist, then who are you gonna call?

With all due respect, how we live our lives is our decision.  And since 
you have no idea how we live our lives in the first place I suggest you 
refrain from criticising.

> This is the case with many successful projects.  I worked on another project 
> for several months, and the maintainer had pretty much abandoned the project 
> (no desire to "lead" things, and no time to develop).  The list there was an 
> anarchy as well, with a very aggravating and opinionated senior developer, 
> and a couple stupid and annoying trollish others.  But arguments and 
> consensus on what "should" happen got nowhere and just caused a lot of people 
> to quit, whereas people ignoring the fighting, not blaming others, and 
> actually doing work did indeed progress the project.

Good to hear.  I might be tempted to implement list kicking for trolls 
if it gets out of hand.

>>Only to hear that the code is useless, because the Y, as far as it was
>>done, is going to be scrapped for a second try.

I don't think we are going to chuck it all away abd start again from 
scratch.  I do suspect that as time goes by we will end up with a 
codebase which has nothing in common with what is there now, but it 
won't be done in one go.

> Well stop waiting and doing nothing then, and find out how you can help with 
> the rewrite effort, or enhance the existing version.  If your changes are 
> worthwhile, you can always port them to a rewrite later.

Changes now would be especially useful.  If you implement something now, 
then when/if the segment you built on comes to be replaced we will have 
a better idea of how it should be built, as we h will have more use cases.

>>The "whiners" are not some annoying minority, preventing all constructive
>>work and discussion.  They are the disillusioned majority that is calling
>>for discussion and constructive work.
> 
> And who is actually _doing_ work?

Casey Allen Shobe, I can say without reservation that you understand how 
this works.  If you work out a way to communicate that to the 
bridge-dwellers, let me know.

> Good projects are quite often redesigned midway through.  But the old versions 
> aren't abandoned while everyone clings to the hope of the next version while 
> sitting idle and waiting for somebody else to come through.  Yes, coding 
> should be done for the Y that now exists, AND effort should be put forth into 
> the rewrite.

This can't be y-devel.  Someone is talking sense...

> Miscommunication and misunderstanding is almost always the case of online 
> disagreements.

True, and I'm sure I've contributed at least my full share to the problem.

> Fair enough, I mostly just didn't want to encourage a bunch more argument in 
> the form of flames on the list.  But what does need to die is useless 
> commentary like "well I don't like what you say so I'm unsubscribing now" and 
> "good riddance then, thank god you're gone", "why doesn't so-and-so do their 
> work", "I feel so oppressed", and "this is a dead project and will never come 
> back".  Mature discussion and planning future developments is fine and 
> healthy.  But the whining and bickering is only going to make things worse.

Yes, I agree, and I apologise for the "Thank goodness for that" post.

Phil