From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: David Kastrup Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Metaproblem, part 3 Date: Sat, 06 Dec 2014 11:51:03 +0100 Organization: Organization?!? Message-ID: <87fvctoxuw.fsf@fencepost.gnu.org> References: <20141203142859.24393.98673@vcs.savannah.gnu.org> <20141203193110.GF12748@thyrsus.com> <20141203215426.GA15791@thyrsus.com> <87ppbzplcw.fsf@newcastle.ac.uk> <83iohr48kr.fsf@gnu.org> <83388u4bps.fsf@gnu.org> <87egsejkrt.fsf@ericabrahamsen.net> <87tx19jpqz.fsf@uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp> NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1417863100 9387 80.91.229.3 (6 Dec 2014 10:51:40 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 6 Dec 2014 10:51:40 +0000 (UTC) To: emacs-devel@gnu.org Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sat Dec 06 11:51:33 2014 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1XxCxY-0005cM-2L for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sat, 06 Dec 2014 11:51:32 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:54022 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XxCxX-0004fE-Na for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sat, 06 Dec 2014 05:51:31 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:44074) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XxCxP-0004eI-BW for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 06 Dec 2014 05:51:29 -0500 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XxCxJ-0003zD-9O for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 06 Dec 2014 05:51:23 -0500 Original-Received: from plane.gmane.org ([80.91.229.3]:33578) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XxCxJ-0003z3-2E for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 06 Dec 2014 05:51:17 -0500 Original-Received: from list by plane.gmane.org with local (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1XxCxH-0005Th-NO for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 06 Dec 2014 11:51:15 +0100 Original-Received: from x2f51fab.dyn.telefonica.de ([2.245.31.171]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Sat, 06 Dec 2014 11:51:15 +0100 Original-Received: from dak by x2f51fab.dyn.telefonica.de with local (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Sat, 06 Dec 2014 11:51:15 +0100 X-Injected-Via-Gmane: http://gmane.org/ Original-Lines: 73 Original-X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org X-Gmane-NNTP-Posting-Host: x2f51fab.dyn.telefonica.de X-Face: 2FEFf>]>q>2iw=B6, xrUubRI>pR&Ml9=ao@P@i)L:\urd*t9M~y1^:+Y]'C0~{mAl`oQuAl \!3KEIp?*w`|bL5qr,H)LFO6Q=qx~iH4DN; i"; /yuIsqbLLCh/!U#X[S~(5eZ41to5f%E@'ELIi$t^ Vc\LWP@J5p^rst0+('>Er0=^1{]M9!p?&:\z]|;&=NP3AhB!B_bi^]Pfkw User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/25.0.50 (gnu/linux) Cancel-Lock: sha1:8RKysVVsfb5rj4OAtibMAuYMi3s= X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: Genre and OS details not recognized. X-Received-From: 80.91.229.3 X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:179147 Archived-At: "Stephen J. Turnbull" writes: > Eric Abrahamsen writes: > > > It would be nice to explicitly let posters know that they can ask > > someone for help with implementing a feature/squashing a > > bug. There's lots of helpful advice here and on emacs.help, but > > that's not quite the same as knowing that someone has committed (to > > some extent) to assisting you. > > I see worries about "hostile" environment, and suggestions for making > things more welcoming to new contributors. I have to ask, what do all > you folks who are suggesting Emacs change its procedures think is in > it for the mentors and core developers? Profiting increasingly from work done by others. That's actually a bit more of expected payback than for the usual "you developers should jump for joy when I have a good idea for your project that just needs some working out by code runts" offering to free projects where the resulting mailing list threads tend to get even more level-headed developers marked for hostility. The previous active maintainer of LilyPond, Graham Percival, chose to try the effectiveness of mentoring, investing a large amount of work and effort in individual mentoring of several would-be contributors. The outcome overall was characterized as a huge disappointment by him, with less work being done in the time the mentored persons stayed active than he could have done himself in the time the tutoring took. I have seen similar results for hiring outside people for doing free software work: the return of investment tends to be hugely disappointing. The main reason for that is that the people commonly working on Free Software projects tend to be self-motivated and skilled, and their skill level leads to a reasonable return of satisfaction from their work. So to get more people on board, it does not seem effective helping single persons across some barriers of entry that are actually of the kind that will stick around and that will continue to affect the balance of freely contributed work and the satisfaction derived from a job well done. Instead you have to work on lowering the barriers of entry altogether. For better or worse, work will only get done by people developing a vested interest and some loyalty to a project and its goals and community. And it is also useful to try breaking down the barriers between users, power users, and developers as their numbers tend to be vastly different and so even small changes can make quite a difference. A system has to become usable and workable without too many of the "please look aside while I fix this using some magic incantations that you'll never understand" moments for users asking for assistance with the problems encountered in daily work. Texinfo is not really a relevant hurdle for getting Emacs documentation written. Elisp is. Arguably things like lexical bindings have taken far too long to arrive (and they still aren't in XEmacs if I remember correctly) and there is not much in direction of making the language more placatable. Common Lisp compatibility might be one idea for inheriting other people's work on making Lisp a general-purpose commodity but, uh, Common Lisp has not exactly focused on being a concise expressive language easily embraced by its users. At any rate, I am suspicious of any promise of free software prosperity to come from the hands of preachers rather than workers. The danger that one is left with less than what one started with when the motivational Ponzi scheme of rewiring infrastructure to the newest fad breaks down is real. -- David Kastrup