On Monday 05 March 2007 16:27, Pascal Bleser wrote:
Rajko M. wrote: ...
After all posts about IRC, I decided to make a list of my reasons: - One has to pick up pieces of conversation that belong to him in a mess on the screen which takes attention from the content. This is good suited for chat, but not for serious work.
Wrong. That's extremely efficient at getting serious work done because it's interactive and you don't have to wait a day before getting a reply as with emails. You can get it immediately.
Efficient if: 1) you have all involved people present. 2) problem is not complex ie. doesn't need lengthy preparation, 3) troubleshooting process has complex structure where next step depends on results of previous, and description of all branches is impractical. Though, my point was about screen that is not easy to read, and that will diminish efficiency in any case. Luckilly that alone doesn't make a total, so I can agree that they are efficient in some cases.
- Once something is gone from the screen it can be found in the logs, which in effect lowers average speed substantially. Old messages are not important in a chat, so this doesn't make a problem, but in bug solving effort it will make problems.
The point is to act on one item at a time. It's about being interactive, immediate, to get the right people into the channel and get the work done.
It is still problem as discussion can be longer, and important info can fly off the screen. My guess is that it doesn't happen often, so one can have time to search in session logs if necessary.
- Time zones exist and it is another reason against IRC
Yes but that's exactly the reasons for the deficiency of emails for certain use cases. You send a mail, you get a reply 8 hours later while you're sleeping, in the morning you reply, and 2 days later someone sends a much better solution or opinion.
IRC will never give a chance to one that really has advice to read about your problem and send message 2 days later. This actually confirms that email or newsgroups have essential advantage in this respect.
- I have to learn how to use it efficiently, starting with command set, and previous reasons don't help me to see why.
You just have to type the text. No special command set to know unless you're a channel operator.
I tried that on single status meeting that I was able to attend as I was on vacation, and until I type my comment/question, there is few lines between. Not good. Go back and try to type the name to whom you talk. In the meantime there is even more lines between.
There was a comment that email will be essentially repeating what is done on bugzilla.
Yes, it will be, but using medium where threading is supported which will give us easy way to see who is replying to what, which thread goes in right direction. Bugzilla messages are not intended for discussions, and reading beyond first few posts becomes quite annoying experience.
But maybe the point about the triage is precisely to get it done quickly, not spend weeks to discuss it -- exactly as on bugzilla or using emails.
Quickly will not help if it is not prepared. I can't be tricked with status meetings where people come prepared for questions in agenda. If similar will be applied to bug smash fest, than it will be efficient. It means that bugs has to be sorted by hardware and software categories and than published as a preparation for the event making possible to prepare yourself for the event. On the user side it would be advantage to have hardware and software data about computer collected in the same fashion as it is presented on the list, so that people can find what bugs they can help with. This of course can be completely automated trough one script that will collect data, compare to downloaded list of existing bugs, and produce list of bugs that one can help with. -- Regards, Rajko. http://en.opensuse.org/Portal --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help@opensuse.org