On 2012-05-10 17:16:37 (+0200), Jos Poortvliet
On Thursday 10 May 2012 11:10:26 Carlos E. R. wrote:
On 2012-05-10 08:58, Jos Poortvliet wrote:
so the choices are usually simple - go with what the maintainers want, end of discussion ;-)
That is not necessarily the best technical path.
But the most pragmatic. In the real world, a technical superior solution which doesn't exist (or is unmaintained) always looses from a hacky but existing or maintained solution ;-)
Your argument there is what I would call "in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king". Comparing crap to something that doesn't exist isn't really a comparison ;) In the real world, what we should be striving for is a technically superior solution (I didn't say perfect, perfectionism is an -ism too) that exists and is maintained. "A hack but existing solution" works on the short run but quickly becomes unmaintainable, doesn't give any opportunity to develop new ideas and ways to use it, doesn't attract any contributors, etc... If "a hack" is the kind of quality we're striving for, then goodbye. It isn't, obviously. "The best technical path" is often difficult to achieve as well, it's always a balance. Where we fail monumentally though, as so many projects, is in communication. Who has skills and experience in certain domains and can contribute something to a topic ? How do we keep people informed about the discussions that are happening so they get a change to weigh in if they can contribute something (too many tools, too many lists, unfriendly tone) ? That is, how to actually *reach out* for other, qualified people's opinions: if we want the better technical solutions, the better quality then that is what we must do, and what we have to want. Back to communication, and broadcasting information, and talking/blogging about what you're doing. Not everyone wants that, some just want to hack whatever they want the way they want, especially if that's how they've always worked (tunnel vision), and if those people in the openSUSE community are just clueless noobs and death-by-bikeshedding trolls, right? (Yes, I'm being ironic.) Note that the former part of the above comes about quite often, and we've all been guilty of that here and then (I'm not excluding myself at all ;)). In essence, it's about being a project and not just people in isolation. That's why our communication channels are one of the most important things and we must use them wisely, and protect them. Leads us back to the recent thread about getting rid of bikeshedding, trolls and vandals. But also, especially on more technical topics, citing the german philos^Wcomedian Dieter Nuhr: "wenn man keine Ahnung hat, einfach mal die Fresse halten" (when you have no clue, just shut up). Sounds rude, but the essence is important, and we mentioned that in the past: before posting, especially on crowded threads, think whether you are actually contributing something useful to the discussion or not. Yes, I know, tl;dr is an antipattern too :) cheers -- -o) Pascal Bleser /\\ http://opensuse.org -- we haz green _\_v http://fosdem.org -- we haz conf