Re: Invitation

On Sat, Apr 05, 2003 at 07:57:42AM +0100, Andrew C Aitchison wrote:
> On Mon, 24 Mar 2003, Sven Luther wrote:
> 
> > On Mon, Mar 24, 2003 at 06:24:03PM -0000, Rob Taylor wrote:
> > > > I don't recall if you discussed the issue on any of the public
> > > > mailing lists
> > > > (at that time, "xpert" would have been the relevant list).
> > > 
> > > I did, and questioned a number of times why no one had replied to my posts.
> > 
> > Maybe a solution of this seemingly lack of response for more or less
> > advanced help asked on the xfree86 lists, would be to create a new
> > mailing list, a bit like the debian-mentor one, which would be a forum
> > for beginer xfree86 hackers or something such, where you could ask
> > questions about technical issues you need help with without being afraid
> > to bother the more advanced members of the team, and without the problem
> > of asking a question and never getting a response, which may well
> > discourage potential future developpers.
> 
> How does debian-mentor work ?
> My impression is that the problem with this is the you *have to*
> bother the more advanced members of the team because they are the only 
> people who can help.

Well, debian is different, we have 800+ developpers, and a host of
wanabee developpers, who read debian-mentors and respond to questions
there. 

Sure, you need a certain amount of of senior developpers, but often the
questions the newbie ask are all the same again, and other people,
having struggled with the same problems and know the answers and can
respond.

And also, it helps to increase quality of the experienced developpers
has well. Even i, who have been with the debian project since 98, i
often ask some questions there about a topic i am not very competent
with, and get good answer instead of the deafening silence that usually
greats one when asking questions on the xfree86-devel list. 

But again, debian is different, it is a much more larger scope projects,
which things like policy and area of packaging being much more dynamic,
and even old-time developper often have to struggle to keep up with the
many changes happening all over.

> In a similar way I think that the xpert list got so full of newbie
> questions because the experts didn't read newbie, and newbies couldn't
> answer each other's questions.

Well, my idea was more about a list for the wanabee Xfree86 developpers,
but it could work for the XFree86 users too. Consider another example,
that of the Objective caml language. There is an official ocaml list. It
was used at first mostly for the ocaml developpment team, and the small
group of users, discution there was mostly of a language-theory nature,
and very high level. As the language gained more popularity, there was
more and more newbie questions, which anoyed a part of the previous user
groups. So a second group was setup were newbie gathered and asked
questions, and if nobody knew the answer, then the question was
repeated, after a time, on the developpment list. It works pretty well.

Now, as said, my proposal was not so much for the users, nor for user
questions, for which there often is a host of other forums as well, but
for a developper specific questions. How many time has someone asked a
question on the xfree86-devel mailing list, and nobody ever bothered to
answer ? How many even are afraid to ask questions there and prefer to
struggle alone in their dark corner afraid of rejection ?

Also, one of the problem of the xfree86 project is a rather lack of
interested developpers, which in much part is due to the fact that there
is a high barrier of entry. The only way to solve that is to find a way
to be more attractive to newbie developper, and altough the lack of docs
is a big handicap, setting up such a list as a kind of
developper-nursery is a good way to change that, and even if some of the
more experienced members have to take some time to respond to the more
difficult questions and to give the first impulse at least. After a time
this involvement will become less and less, as more newbie will become
more mature X developpers and have more capacity of responding to others
questions. 

But all in all, it is an effort well worth doing, and i don't think it
will take more time from the experienced developpers than lost in
endless flamewars and such, and it will be more productive also.

Friendly,

Sven Luther