Re: So, honestly, is GNUStep a viable development option?

[Gregory John Casamento]

> 1) Because everyone else is doing it -- should be a compelling reason.
> I guess no one looks at it like this, but GNUStep competes with other
> IDEs and Foundations sets. In order to grow, you need new mindshare
> and new blood. You need more people working on the code, testing it,
> and building new apps. If you deliberately choose to appear different
> to people who come by looking at the state of things, you will turn
> them off, and they will choose something else. Apparently that doesn't
> bother a single soul on this list. But it should..."

Because everyone else is doing it certainly is NOT a compelling reason.
    I prefer to think for myself.   The fact is that many projects use
 forums and many others use mailing lists.  It doesn't seem to effect
 how popular they are. 

> 2) Every argument against a forum is outdated. Forums can be set to
> automatically email you. You can have a setting to show you all
> threads of interest to you, and to only show you unread posts. There
> is NOTHING you can do through a mailing list that cannot be done
> through a good forum."

I didn't know that some forums could email you.  Can you reply by
 email?

> 3) Because a forum is widely used, navigation through it is simple. A
> new user can easily search it, and view posts that are of interest.
> Generally, the posts are grouped into categories which make finding
> information much easier. Browsing through the Nabble Archives, by
> comparison, is horrible. I can find something MUCH faster in the
> archives of a forum than I can in a nabble based archive. And if I
> came into a group late I don't have the advantage of  old emails."

gmane stores historic archives of mailing lists.

> 4) Forums allow information to be presented in a strategic way. In the
> masthead above, and the space beside the threads, you can put
> information. You can even (if the group grows) sell advertising space.
> You can have quick links to FAQs and installation guides. It becomes a
> one stop portal to all things GNUStep. And if you can't find it, you
> can ask...right there, without needing to go somewhere else and
> subscribe to something."

This is a good point.

> 5) Believe it or not, some of us don't LIKE having things emailed to
> us. I get a hundred emails a day. I have had to set up a separate
> account just for GNUStep -- which I end up checking just like I would
> a forum. A lot of users who are casually interested would not sign up
> for daily emails... but they might find themselves checking a forum
> daily. More exposure to more people benefits GNUStep."

Filters are a really good thing. ;)

>* There tend to be more "help me" messages on a forum"
>
> WHAT IS WRONG WITH THAT???
> 
> Do we not want to help people who are new and trying to use GNUStep?
> This seems to me to be THE MOST compelling reason for a Forum. Lord
> yes! Let us HOPE there are people who come and say: "Help Me." Let's
> hope that as the answers known by a few become shared in a public
> forum it beomes knowledge shared by all. After time, the WHOLE
> community can share in helping new people get started.
>
> I'm sorry, I don't get this at all... it SEEMS like you are saying:
> "You know what, my friends and I are busy coding and things. We like
> emailing each other. It's what we do. We really don't want to be
> bothered with questions by people like you. If you find something
> wrong, post a bug and we'll fix when we find time. Otherwise, take
> what we give you and be grateful..."
>
> Maybe this isn't what you mean... but that is what it seems like to me.

The email lists are stratified in gnustep-dev, gnustep-discuss, and
 help-gnustep to serve three different audiences, they are, respectively:
 developers, general users, and new users.   Having a clarity of purpose
 for these lists provides the ability to focus and allows developers to
 work uninterrupted.   There's nothing wrong with "help me" messages,
 they do, however, have a proper place. 
 
Also, I'm not convinced that having a forum will go very far to solving
 our problems.  Yes, exposure is important.  But another project called
 gcc, you may have heard of it, has used and still uses a mailing list.
  People don't seem to have a problem with it.   And they don't seem to
 suffer for "being different."   So, incidentally, does Linux.  It's
 called the kernel-dev mailing list.   Linux CERTAINLY hasn't suffered for
 it.   What I'm saying is that, you haven't proven to me any
 correlation between success and having a forum.  Perhaps it will help, perhaps 
it
 won't... but applications will help more.

Your comment:

"You know what, my friends and I are busy coding and things. We like
emailing each other. It's what we do. We really don't want to be
bothered with questions by people like you. If you find something
wrong, post a bug and we'll fix when we find time. Otherwise, take
what we give you and be grateful..."

The last I checked, GNUstep and every other free software or open
 source project out there (with a few exceptions of one's that are corporate
 backed) is a volunteer effort.   Emailing the mailing list or forum
 with bugs is, generally, counter productive because we cannot categorize
 and track them.  I, typically, react to Gorm and gui issues very quickly
 and others if I can when they are posted.   While it's true there are
 some longstanding, minor issues, major issues, when reported, are
 squashed very quickly.

I'm not sure if you're aware of it, but it does seem like you're trying to 
provoke a flamewar for no reason.  All I was trying to do is get some answers 
beyond "everyone else is" out of you.  And you react, quite honestly, very 
rudely.  You really have been quite rude since the beginning.  Rudeness has the 
effect of making people unwilling to listen to you... EVEN WHEN YOU ARE RIGHT 
(I'm not saying you are in this case).    Some people will disagree with you, 
simply because you're being rude... to spite you.

Later, GJC
--
Gregory Casamento -- OLC, Inc 
# GNUstep Chief Maintainer

----- Original Message ----
From: Mark Grice <markjoel60@gmail.com>
To: Gregory John Casamento <greg_casamento@yahoo.com>
Cc: Markus Hitter <mah@jump-ing.de>; GNUstep Discuss Discuss
 <discuss-gnustep@gnu.org>
Sent: Wednesday, November 14, 2007 6:53:43 PM
Subject: Re: So, honestly, is GNUStep a viable development option?

OK... This is my last post on the subject, because there is no sense
in beating a dead horse.

But...

1) Because everyone else is doing it -- should be a compelling reason.
I guess no one looks at it like this, but GNUStep competes with other
IDEs and Foundations sets. In order to grow, you need new mindshare
and new blood. You need more people working on the code, testing it,
and building new apps. If you deliberately choose to appear different
to people who come by looking at the state of things, you will turn
them off, and they will choose something else. Apparently that doesn't
bother a single soul on this list. But it should...

2) Every argument against a forum is outdated. Forums can be set to
automatically email you. You can have a setting to show you all
threads of interest to you, and to only show you unread posts. There
is NOTHING you can do through a mailing list that cannot be done
through a good forum.

3) Because a forum is widely used, navigation through it is simple. A
new user can easily search it, and view posts that are of interest.
Generally, the posts are grouped into categories which make finding
information much easier. Browsing through the Nabble Archives, by
comparison, is horrible. I can find something MUCH faster in the
archives of a forum than I can in a nabble based archive. And if I
came into a group late I don't have the advantage of  old emails.

4) Forums allow information to be presented in a strategic way. In the
masthead above, and the space beside the threads, you can put
information. You can even (if the group grows) sell advertising space.
You can have quick links to FAQs and installation guides. It becomes a
one stop portal to all things GNUStep. And if you can't find it, you
can ask...right there, without needing to go somewhere else and
subscribe to something.

5) Believe it or not, some of us don't LIKE having things emailed to
us. I get a hundred emails a day. I have had to set up a separate
account just for GNUStep -- which I end up checking just like I would
a forum. A lot of users who are casually interested would not sign up
for daily emails... but they might find themselves checking a forum
daily. More exposure to more people benefits GNUStep.

And... This just kills me:

"* There tend to be more "help me" messages on a forum"

WHAT IS WRONG WITH THAT???

Do we not want to help people who are new and trying to use GNUStep?
This seems to me to be THE MOST compelling reason for a Forum. Lord
yes! Let us HOPE there are people who come and say: "Help Me." Let's
hope that as the answers known by a few become shared in a public
forum it beomes knowledge shared by all. After time, the WHOLE
community can share in helping new people get started.

I'm sorry, I don't get this at all... it SEEMS like you are saying:
"You know what, my friends and I are busy coding and things. We like
emailing each other. It's what we do. We really don't want to be
bothered with questions by people like you. If you find something
wrong, post a bug and we'll fix when we find time. Otherwise, take
what we give you and be grateful..."

Maybe this isn't what you mean... but that is what it seems like to me.


On 11/14/07, Gregory John Casamento <greg_casamento@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Mark,
>
> I, personally, could take or leave forums... I don't care one way or
 the other.   The issue I have with this discussion is that you have
 yet
 to show any valid and compelling reason to change *beyond* "that's
 what everyone else is doing."
>
> If you could enumerate some advantages, aside from that, that forums
 have over mailing lists, that would be nice.
>
> The advantages of mailing lists, as I see it are:
>
> * It actually comes to you.   You always know when there's a new
 message because it appears in your inbox.  You don't need to go and
 check
 on a webpage for it
> * You can easily locate your last read message.  With a forum, you
 need to browse backwards to find the last unread message.
>
> GJC
> --
> Gregory Casamento -- OLC, Inc
> # GNUstep Chief Maintainer
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: Mark Grice <markjoel60@gmail.com>
> To: Markus Hitter <mah@jump-ing.de>
> Cc: GNUstep Discuss Discuss <discuss-gnustep@gnu.org>
> Sent: Wednesday, November 14, 2007 1:49:00 PM
> Subject: Re: So, honestly, is GNUStep a viable development option?
>
> Using a forum is incredibly complex?
>
> It is odd how these "incredibly complex" forums continue to be
 adopted
> by virtually every other OS, Language and development system out
> there...
>
> http://www.gtkforums.com/
> http://www.qtforum.org/
> http://www.cairoshell.com/forum/
> http://discussions.apple.com/index.jspa
>
> (I could give you 1000 examples, really...)
>
> And yet I keep hearing from the GNUStep group that forums are
> "complicated" , "useless for regular use",  and "terribly time
> consuming".
>
> This kind of response leaves me shaking my head and wondering...
>
>
> On Nov 14, 2007 11:59 AM, Markus Hitter <mah@jump-ing.de> wrote:
> >
> > Am 13.11.2007 um 14:37 schrieb Mark Grice:
> >
> > > 1. Stop the mailing list and put up a forum. That is the
 preferred
> > > method of communication for most people these days.
> >
> > Perhaps it's the method of communication currently in fashion, but
> > Forii are so incredibly complex to handle (compared to a local mail
> > reader), you'd immediately get rid of users like me.
> >
> > There are systems combining a forum and a mailing list, though.
> >
> >
> > Markus
> >
> > - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
> > Dipl. Ing. Markus Hitter
> > http://www.jump-ing.de/
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Discuss-gnustep mailing list
> Discuss-gnustep@gnu.org
> http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss-gnustep
>


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