Re: my latest blog post

[Catonano <catonano@gmail.com>]

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2018-06-08 16:25 GMT+02:00 Ricardo Wurmus <rekado@elephly.net>:

>
> Hi Catonano,
>
> > Andy Wingo has a post in which he lists tasks he'd lie to be implemented
> on
> > Guile, many of them have to do with the file format of the compiled
> files.
> >
> > Some love should go to the quality of the experience too, not only to the
> > tech issues
>
> These are very closely linked.  I mention this because it may not be
> obvious to people like myself who don’t work on compilers.
>
> FWIW, people *are* working on improving the experience of programming
> with Guile.  Some do this by working on Geiser, others by writing
> libraries that are well-suited for exploratory programming with Geiser,
> etc.
>

I know

I'm not negating anyone's efforts

> Mark wrote to Fis in that thread on the Guile mailing list that in order
> to
> > have better error messages, the compiler should be modified (and that
> would
> > be an awful lot of work)
>
> Exactly.  Please note that the compiler is currently being modified, so
> it is not a good idea to start other big architectural changes right
> now.
>
> > I just think that the problem deserves to be mapped out so that people
> know
> > what they're getting into
>
> Certainly.  We cannot demand of other people to do this work for us,
> though.


I'm not demanding anything to anyone

I *offered* to edit the manual in a way that is more bearable in my
opinion, in regard to macro expansion.

I don't now if I will ever be able to offer a proper macro stepping tool

Should I be able, I'd be glad to provide the community with it


> If you follow guile-devel you will also see that some compiler
> changes have resulted in certain regressions, which are debugged,
> addressed, and ultimately fixed.  Losing certain means of debugging
> things would also be considered a regression, and they can generally be
> handled in the same way.
>

Again: I didn't negate anyone's work

I explicitl wrote that what made the difference is not the technology


> Andy’s time is still limited.  What other people can do is discuss
> *specific* cases on guile-devel and work towards a solution.  But please
> do not demand of others to explain everything in detail.  (I’m directing
> this at everyone who heeds my advice to go to guile-devel, not at any
> one person in particular.)  In order to have a positive impact you also
> need to learn enough about the state of the art to ensure that the
> discussions can be productive.
>

I think I demonstrated I am ready to put some effort into this

And I think this remark is unfair

I know Andy was in good faith. I acknowledged again and again that there is
a cognitive (cultural ?) problem

What I proposed is to focus on where we are now so that the right direction
can be envisioned

I didn't scream that I want better error messages _right now_

Maybe the lesson here should be that the quality of the experience should
be taken into account in the first place and not as an afterthough, as if
it was the need of a random user

I was trying to underline the feedback that was brought here by a user

And I brought some feedback myself

Believe it or not, I am trying to _help_ Guile to improve

And the improvement is not technological, it's cultural

And saying I should come on guile-dev and actually provide what I thin is
useful, nowing that I can't (not immediately is not a fair answer either

Because it's equivalent to a "fuck you"

This is discussed in some of the links I provided too

I devolved some time in making my case

It's some articulated and well thoug feedback. Of the kind that the Guile
community is sorely missing

As for macro expansion, how would I have been supposed to know the context
of macro expansion ?

Shouldn't I have been asking ?



> For compiler design I have a lot of things to read before being able to
> contribute meaningfully to a discussion; all I can do is record
> instances where Guile produces poor error messages and try to figure out
> what led to this outcome.  Once I’ve done my work I can share this with
> other developers and get their input.
>

I don't know if I will ever delve into the compiler

For now, I just wanted to understan the store monad

Macro expansion is the first step of compiling, as far as I understand,
anyway.

So taking care that it's reasonably discussed could be a first step in
having more compiler hackers, some day

I am trying to contribute from where I am, not from where you require me to
be

And this is valuable too, to some extent

If you don't see this, than you are confirming the cultural problem that I
strived to depict

Some final remarks:
>
> I should say that I’m rather unhappy with your labelling of the Guile
> community as “toxic” or “full of jerks”.  This has not been my
> experience at all, neither in my communications with the maintainers,
> nor in the response to my modest contributions.
>

Good for you
My experience was different


> I will say that it is a rather quiet community, though.  What you called
> “the silent treatment” is just silence, which is occasionally punctured
> by helpful comments.  As a co-maintainer of Guix I would feel very
> uncomfortable if my replying to some (but not all) emails would be
> construed as an act of aggression, or really any kind of silent attempt
> at communicating something.  In that case I’d much rather *not* respond
> to any emails.
>

Ok, I already applogized to Mark for having assumed that his silence was
aggression, when it wasn't

Someone else made me notice this too

I'll apologize to you too

But if you take a look at thhe guile-user mailing list, and another loo at
the guix-dev mailing list (or even to the guix help mailing list) you'll
get 2 completely different outlooks

Maybe it's not aggression

Still there's something deeply different going on in the 2 places


> With regards to the shouting match on #guile that you linked in your
> blog post, I can only say that I would have likely stepped in had this
> happened when I was around.  Textual communication certainly should not
> reach these levels of apparent aggression.
>

What do you mean with "apparent" ?
I felt it was pretty substantial

I think that person should be reprimanded  and possibly temporary banned
from the channels

My partecipation in the shouting was only a pale substitute of what I deem
opportune

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