Re: Suggestion Box? ATTN: Dre

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On Monday 19 May 2003 02:33, James Richard Tyrer wrote:
> > The ratio (useful?) suggestions to useful code is about 20:1. If I would
> > have to follow up on all suggestions made I would not have any time left
> > to write any code.
>
> In a way, your are saying that your are too busy writing code to
> design it. :-) 

no, what is being said is that talk outstrips effort. everyone has ideas for 
how to make things better, and only a fraction of those ideas are worthwhile 
ones. so you first have to sort through the noise. but even then you're left 
with such an overwhelming pile of ideas ranging in quality from defensible to 
excellent that there simply are not enough hours in the day to implement them 
all in a short time span.

especially if you wish to put any though into design.

> That is, I feel that a discussion of how things should
> work is a necessary part of design.

that's fine. and that happens. on IRC, in mailing lists, on the phone, over 
pints at the pub, etc... true, sometimes it's just one person bangin' away, 
but that tends to be exception, i've found. also keep in mind that discussion 
is often had in the form of code. a new design will be inspired by and 
eventually supersede current design. code can be communication.

> > In fact, many KDE developers don't have time enough to read a
> > mailinglist like [email protected] at all.
>
> I'm not certain that this is a valid point.  Perhaps they need to make
> time to do it.

make time? hm. you have a recipe for that? because i've only got 24 hours in 
my day, and no matter what i do i can't even stretch that to 24 hours and one 
minute. remember that this isn't a job for most, it's a past time. also 
remember that not everyone reads English quickly, that the noise level on 
some lists is staggering, that coding takes large amounts of time to do and 
get right, that we all try and have lives outside of computers (you know, 
eating, sleeping, excercising, enjoying company and intimacies...)

now, i'm not trying to be an apologist. i'm just speaking from the proverbial 
trenches. feel free to discount what i say as tripe, but in my personal 
experience this is how it goes.

> > If you can't backup suggestions
> > with working code the chances are very small that they get picked up.
>
> It appears to me that it should be determined is the suggestion have
> validity, or need modification, before they are coded.

this often happens, but not in the way that it does in your typical "software 
engineering is a discipline" software dev shop. software engineering 
practices are wildly overinstrumented for 99% of software development tasks. 
other mechanisms can perform quite well...

bottom line is that if you have a better/different idea there is a very simple 
and easy way to suggest it and see it put in motion.. here's the four easy 
steps to Free Software coding happiness according to Aaron:

 1) be around and involved during development cycles. commenting on released 
versions is already too late, even if it can still be helpful/useful.

 2) discuss with developers at the time they are actually doing development. 
but stay out of the way of progress! if your discussion only impedes 
development with no ROI in the form of finished code, you will soon start to 
be dismissed wholesale. and that's a sad and  unnecessary eventuality.

 3) get code written. notice that i didn't say "write code". rather, i said, 
"get code written". if you don't (or can't) write code, you can help by 
writing detailed specifications, useful reports and providing development 
aids such as UI files. you can also encourage/sponser someone to write code, 
or just write it yourself. 

 4) stay as active as possible with your ideas from start to finish. if you 
let up on them, they will dissappear into the wind. your ideas rely on you 
and no one else.

there is nothing stopping one from simply writing lots of lots of articles 
about software, but even in the closed source world that doesn't result in 
software written. just look at all the pundits and how little code they 
actually write compared to how much they write and talk. that includes the 
pundits i agree with ;-)

bottom line is that you can actively engage the process, or you can attempt to 
influence. the former is by far and away more effective.

and those that are actively engaged in the process often do put good amounts 
of thought into design.

- -- 
Aaron J. Seigo
GPG Fingerprint: 8B8B 2209 0C6F 7C47 B1EA  EE75 D6B7 2EB1 A7F1 DB43

KDE: The 'K' is for 'kick ass'
http://www.kde.org       http://promo.kde.org/3.1/feature_guide.php
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