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On Sat, Jan 09, 1999 at 03:18:11PM -0500, Roger Scudder wrote:
> On Sat, 9 Jan 1999, Rebecca Ore wrote:
>
> I think it is safe to say that we have all been in the position of
> being a confused, neophyte. I did my first Linux install not long
> after getting my first PC. If it had not been for the lengthy chats
> I had with Chris McKeen at World One BBS (one of the first Bulletin
> Board Systems in DelCo to run Linux) who patiently answered my
> endless questions, I may have been denied that wonderful early
> experience with Linux.
I installed my first Linux RedHat up to the command-line without any
help at all. Chris Fearnley helped tremendously in getting X started
and configured.
I work for netaxs now and bite people who bite newbies or psuedo newbies
as a professional courtesy.
> at ease with the a GUI configuration system. Then there are those who,
> for one reason or other, are more comfortable with a text based interface.
> It is not unusual for those among the latter to actually find the GUI
> intimidating. Your words suggest that you assume all Linux novices to
> be among the former. Rather than make assumptions about the questioner
> I requested specific information about the question.
Did he email both of us? One thing I do in groups is try to catch
newbies and help them before the turbo studs chomp them. I've also had
someone tell me things that were undo-able, as the programmer who wrote
the program said to me in email. The beauty part was when the guy who'd
condescended to me asked a question. I answered it, correctly, having
installed precisely those plugins in the same program he'd misadvised me
on. He did't want to hear it from me and asked again. The whole group
must have had the same opinion of him as I did. Nobody else answered.
I explained it again. He tried it, it worked, and he did have the grace
to thank me.
>
> > For programmers to expect programming skills of everyone smacks of
> > immaturity or the sort of ridiculousness that some artists display when
> > they say that the only people who count in society are artists and
> > everyone else should go away (yes, there are artists who are as arrogant
> > as programmers, with better justification as the money on the
> > top is much better and most artists are better gardeners and cooks than
> > programmers and have better taste in clothes).
>
> Hmmm... interesting insight. You should note that making generalized
> statements about groups also smacks of immaturity... at best. There
> may well be some truth in these words, however it is overshadowed by a
> tone of hostility and prejudice. Words can be like swords. Be careful
> how you wield them.
>
If I could make more than 20K a book wielding them other than how I
wield them, I would.
> > Guy wanted to get on-line. It's a panicky time for a lot of people and
> > attempting to teach a moderate level skill in the middle of a clueless
> > attack is a peculiar kind of aggression that I take delight in
> > countering. I've countered it when I've seen novice despammers have the
>
> Now you're rewriting history. Please show me at what point I attempted
> to teach him a "moderate skill level". The only person making any
> attacks here is you.
>
No, I'm teasing you. I'm the resident despammer scum on the Freedom
Knights list, so I know an attack when I see one, but perhaps you don't.
>
> You certainly wear your rage on your shirt sleeve.. good. I like that.
> As far as how programmers respond to bug reports; please realize that,
> for all but the top crust, programming open source software is a
> thankless job. These people work long and hard to give you something
> that they hope you will find useful and expect near to nothing in return.
I've spent hours patching and testing and reporting bugs and telling
people that no, the patch isn't working, and yes, it is applied. Funny,
I was invited onto the XEmacs list and when I reduced activities due to
friction from other things than bug reports, I was lured back by people
commenting on Rebecca's bug, and how it was fixed now.
With the Gnome project, I suggested a piece of software that had gone
open source, talked to the previous developer, to the Gnomes, then was
asked to help with a new wp project, and was archiving email on this,
plus getting the XML book, when the guy who we all thought had abandoned
his wp project popped back in and took it back. I still can't compile
it. From his descriptions of it, it isn't up to Maxwell. I don't know
whether we'd been further along if the momentum of the team I'd begun to
be part of had not been broken, but given Eric's description of the
community code and Gnome's special way of dealing with it (i.e. any
project start has precidence over a later start), then either a possible
port of Maxwell or a new wp program using XML for document formatting
were halted so he could get back on board.
That's the roots of my annoyance with wp's in Gnome.
> What they usually get is endless requests for added features or fixes.
> People become impatient waiting for these things not giving thought to
> the programmers needs. You tend to come across like Gang Busters in
> your messages, so I don't find it at all surprising that you have been
> meet with defensiveness. I won't suggest that you handle the next bad
> ass programmer you run into any differently. What I will suggest is
> that you try to use a little sensitivity. It won't kill you. Consider
> the other person's feelings and how you might feel if you were in that
> persons shoes.
I got tired of people assuming always that I was doing
something wrong because I was female, non-programmer, fifty-years old,
etc. If the intention is to provide good working code with boundary
conditions for systems it works on specified in configure, then I'm your
beta tester. If you want to provide code that needs to be massaged to
get it to compile -- cool, I'll let you know you succeeded on that, too.
And, while I can make mistakes, I generally do have a good sense of what
I'm doing (i.e., if a Gimp or Gnome package doesn't compile, the first
next thing to try is upgrading glibs and gtk, but if it's XEmacs, try
some variations in configure options).
Boy, you sure do have a biased view of non-programming beta testers,
don't you?
--
Rebecca Ore
Technical flaming is the best flaming of all
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