Re: Efforts to attract more users?

[Juanma Barranquero <lekktu@gmail.com>]

On Mon, Jul 12, 2010 at 02:23, Stephen J. Turnbull <stephen@xemacs.org> wrote:

> That's not the feeling I get at all.

Well, there were a couple times when I was in contact with him (I
mean, I was really trying to help him get some code into Emacs), and
that's the feeling I got. If your experience, from the times you've
tried to help him (or mentor him, as you later describe) is different,
lucky you.

> Lennart has had *multiple* experiences where
> he has submitted working code, communications over the integration
> break down, and his code was refused, without anybody ever doing more
> than looking at it and saying "that can't work" (usually with a
> theoretical rationale that for whatever reason Lennart doesn't get).

I cannot argue that what you said has not happened, because I sure am
not going to go re-reading all these old threads. But certainly
there's been more than a few times when nobody said "can't work", more
like "please do the work", only to hear back "oh, that's a lot of time
I don't have right now, just do it yourself". Followed by complains
later on when nobody took on the invitation (which is what really irks
me; I can understand he not wanting to do it, but not his complaining
about others not doing it for him).

> It's a shame that GNU Emacs, of all the projects in the world, feels
> so impoverished that its developers can't take time out to mentor
> somebody like Lennart, show him the ropes, and *teach* him how to make
> submissions that get accepted the first time around and require only
> minor adjustments and checks before integration to the trunk.

What you describe as "can't work" interactions I'd describe as "take
time out to mentor". So far the answer has no been encouraging.

> I think
> in this case the proposed change is such an obvious winner that it's
> only Emacs-side stubbornness that prevents it from being implemented.

Really? Is just that? How nice that you can so fully understand
people's motives (and minds) to know that's the only thing that's
happened.

    Juanma