Re: maintaining human standards [was: has struts reached the saturation]

[Hey Nony Moose <he...@liveonthe.net>]

Jonathan Revusky wrote:

> Vinny wrote:
>
>> Seriously I'd  rather use Spring, Wicket or Rife than use something
>> made by people like this guy.
>
> Yeah, it's terrible. Just so you guys can make better informed
> technical decisions, I'll disclose ...snip... terrible table manners
> ...snip... horrendous slurping ...snip... belcher and farter.
> ...snip... so that people can make the right technical decisions.
> Jonathan Revusky
> lead developer, FreeMarker project, http://freemarker.org/

(caveat: I have no dog in the fight.   I am somwhat concerned that there
is a fight going on and I am sincerely hopeful for a good outcome for
each of the combatants, and I see irony and sarcasm as possible
train-wreckage removal or beautification devices.   And I'm a user not a
dev, so you won't see me continuing this on the dev list.)

Wow.   Jonathan, you must be very confident of your income stream!  (I'm
not, as a reference point)  You must be one of these "I've made so much
money by now, I really don't care what people think of me" developers. 
(I'm not, as a reference point)  Or perhaps you rely on your technical
skill being so unavoidably evident that you can be publicly "direct"
(ahem) and get away with it.  (I can't, as a reference point) 
:(     ... sigh ...  it is quite different to those of us who have to
hide behind newbie politeness or just pathetic anonymity in case we say
something either so rude or so tehnically stupid that a future employer
will notice it and cut us off their interview list.   It brings to mind
the cartoon of Dilbert going to work in a bathrobe because he'd realised
his *actual* worth to the company.
Mind you I don't agree (a little understated) with the strategy of being
rude as a practice.  I think that one has to factor in the 90%
non-verbal content of face-to-face communications that goes missing in
email conversations.  Perhaps if this entire conversation had occured at
a JUG or cafe (or under the supervision of a panel of psychiatrists and
professional wrestlers), we would have noticed the little smiles
grimaces and so forth that each other were dressing our faces with and
kept some of the lines a little more guarded.   But gosh, here I am, a
nobody giving newbie advice to gurus.  sigh.
Sadly I recall Jonathan's first email to the list, and an early reply
from one of the leads saying a warm "welcome".  Perhaps I'll dig it out
of the archive and repost it for a glowing moment ... like "It was a
nice warm morning in Hiroshima on August 6 and there was the sound of a
plane overhead ... I always liked the sound of airplanes flying over and
... ".
Won't it be disappointing to see the first technical decision of the WW2
Struts merger be that the default presentation whatever is changed from
Freemarker to XXX, purely based on an unworkable inter-team personality
confict rather than any tech criteria?
And I can't understand why this thread hasn't been slashdotted yet ...
"OS Gurus Flay Each Other and Set a New Direction for the Entire
Internet, While MS Laughs" from the my-pattern-is-better-than-yours dept
Oh, by the way ... what's "disrupting the market" mean?

 Mourning Moose


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Re: maintaining human standards [was: has struts reached the saturation]

[Hey Nony Moose <he...@liveonthe.net>]

(picture a mood of mild sadness, at such respected gurus needing to take
to each other with little textual swords, and at my failed attempt at
thinning it down to an ending via a lame Court Jester role ... yet i
will hopefully jest on, tragically awaiting the inevitable end of the
king's patience, finally performing my own litte train wreck alongside
the one that i am jesting for)

Jonathan Revusky wrote:

> Moose,
>
> Open source software, like every other human endeavor, is political.
> It has politics.

yes

>
> I have engaged here in some forthright political speech about
> open-source software development issues. I did not even initiate the
> discussion. It was already going on.

yes, have watched it from the start, including your join, which i
actually noted in my mail.

>
> You seem to have a very basic misconception. You really seem to think
> that people have to agree with my political views to use FreeMarker or
> any other thing I am involved with.

no, i was aware of the valid disconnection of passion/approval and
logic/inclusion, i was parodying its disuse (trying anyway, not very
well) - to some degree i was alluding to the herd-like nature of
humanity, ie: that tragically some really important decisions are made
for absurd reasons with counter-productive consequences ("cut off your
nose to spite your face").  on the other hand it is perhaps also of note
that large numbers of decisions are made on purely relational bases. 
managers don't buy from saleman that they believe have the best product,
they buy from salesmen that they have developed an effective working
relationship with (read: who they *like*).

>
> That is simply not the case. The FreeMarker community is really a
> pretty good community. You can ask questions and make suggestions, and
> we will be as helpful as we can. We always have been. It's not a
> problem. On a technical plane, you can interact with me and the rest
> of the people perfectly well. On a technical plane, if people ask me
> questions here, I will be as helpful as I can.

i imagine so.  i havent used it yet (being a relative newbie), though i
respect it from an ignorant distance.

>
> Using FreeMarker is quite straightforward anyway. We have pretty good
> docs. So the vast majority of people who use it have no interaction
> with us. Very likely, except for the minority subscribe to the list or
> happened on the "Who We Are" page they do not even know who I am and
> don't care. They just use the thing. And that's normal.

sounds normalish to me

>
> FreeMarker was chosen as the default presentation technology in
> Webwork 2.2, not because of the political views of any of its
> developers, but for solid technical reasons.

very good

>
> If this community wants to go the route of making technology decisions
> based on personalities and politics rather than the technical
> considerations, they are free to do so. 

free.  freedom of choice.  what a divine moment in history.  i wonder
how long it will last?  imagine if we lived in a political dictatorship
that actually told us what software to use!  yuk.  perhaps when the
American Microsoft Party wins the 2060 presidential election, we'll all
be executed for treason.  (insert any tyranical political manifestation
of note from the 20th century in place of AMP and you might get a
glimpse ... nazis, taliban, sadam whatsisname, pinochet, ...)

> But this would doom you to technical mediocrity from the start. 

no i'm personally doomed to technical mediocrity by my own feeble
incapacities.  nothing else rates as a criteria.  there's no other
reason so there's no other excuse.

> Other, competing products, that do not operate under these
> constraints, and simply use the best tools for the job, will eat your
> lunch.

nobody touches *my* vegemite sandwiches!  actually no-one *wants* to
touch my vegemite sandwiches ...

>
> Moose, it is very sad that you feel such fear, that you feel obliged
> to interact here anonymously, and even then, to do so with such
> trepidation, lest you might offend somebody. 

this is a fact.  :.(   i can't do anything about it.  i have a mortgage
and a family.  they can't afford me to make a mistake.  even doing this
is a risk.  smell the fear.

> Wouldn't it be great to live without fear, to just be able to talk, to
> say forthrightly what you think about stuff? Imagine the next time
> some pretentious poo-bah at your job says something that you really
> think is just hot air, you could just say: "Hey, that's bull****.
> Here's why." Wouldn't that be great?

yes

>
> Of course, your work environment is not like that. But the open source
> world is like that. Well, I thought it was. Sh*t, maybe I was
> mistaken. :-( But if this is just like the corporate environment and
> we're not getting paid to be here, then what are we doing here? Is
> this just masochism?

no, it's just 1984.   if the only people watching these forums were the
forum users then it would be safe to have an open conversation.  but
gumbies blog stuff like this for the benefit of greasing their future
bosses, and bosses google their incoming employees names to shorten
selection lists.  politicians get elected and news services get watched
based on who spins the best, not who has any visible substance.  people
who speak the truth are living dinosaurs.  it's all spin now.  the
internet is over.  

>
> Jonathan Revusky
> -- 
> lead developer, FreeMarker project, http://freemarker.org/

Useless Moose.
--
lead on nothing,  just trying to cut some code for a dollar ... when
hundreds of Indians and Chinese are about to do it for 99c less. (note
that none of the Indians and Chinese are actively involved in this
debate.  they're busy cutting code, not wasting time on political theory. 

>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Hey Nony Moose wrote:
>
>> Jonathan Revusky wrote:
>>
>>
>>> Vinny wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>> Seriously I'd  rather use Spring, Wicket or Rife than use something
>>>> made by people like this guy.
>>>
>>>
>>> Yeah, it's terrible. Just so you guys can make better informed
>>> technical decisions, I'll disclose ...snip... terrible table manners
>>> ...snip... horrendous slurping ...snip... belcher and farter.
>>> ...snip... so that people can make the right technical decisions.
>>> Jonathan Revusky
>>> lead developer, FreeMarker project, http://freemarker.org/
>>
>>
>>
>> (caveat: I have no dog in the fight.   I am somwhat concerned that there
>> is a fight going on and I am sincerely hopeful for a good outcome for
>> each of the combatants, and I see irony and sarcasm as possible
>> train-wreckage removal or beautification devices.   And I'm a user not a
>> dev, so you won't see me continuing this on the dev list.)
>>
>> Wow.   Jonathan, you must be very confident of your income stream!  (I'm
>> not, as a reference point)  You must be one of these "I've made so much
>> money by now, I really don't care what people think of me"
>> developers. (I'm not, as a reference point)  Or perhaps you rely on
>> your technical
>> skill being so unavoidably evident that you can be publicly "direct"
>> (ahem) and get away with it.  (I can't, as a reference point) :(    
>> ... sigh ...  it is quite different to those of us who have to
>> hide behind newbie politeness or just pathetic anonymity in case we say
>> something either so rude or so tehnically stupid that a future employer
>> will notice it and cut us off their interview list.   It brings to mind
>> the cartoon of Dilbert going to work in a bathrobe because he'd realised
>> his *actual* worth to the company.
>> Mind you I don't agree (a little understated) with the strategy of being
>> rude as a practice.  I think that one has to factor in the 90%
>> non-verbal content of face-to-face communications that goes missing in
>> email conversations.  Perhaps if this entire conversation had occured at
>> a JUG or cafe (or under the supervision of a panel of psychiatrists and
>> professional wrestlers), we would have noticed the little smiles
>> grimaces and so forth that each other were dressing our faces with and
>> kept some of the lines a little more guarded.   But gosh, here I am, a
>> nobody giving newbie advice to gurus.  sigh.
>> Sadly I recall Jonathan's first email to the list, and an early reply
>> from one of the leads saying a warm "welcome".  Perhaps I'll dig it out
>> of the archive and repost it for a glowing moment ... like "It was a
>> nice warm morning in Hiroshima on August 6 and there was the sound of a
>> plane overhead ... I always liked the sound of airplanes flying over and
>> ... ".
>> Won't it be disappointing to see the first technical decision of the WW2
>> Struts merger be that the default presentation whatever is changed from
>> Freemarker to XXX, purely based on an unworkable inter-team personality
>> confict rather than any tech criteria?
>> And I can't understand why this thread hasn't been slashdotted yet ...
>> "OS Gurus Flay Each Other and Set a New Direction for the Entire
>> Internet, While MS Laughs" from the my-pattern-is-better-than-yours dept
>> Oh, by the way ... what's "disrupting the market" mean?
>>
>>  Mourning Moose
>
>
>
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Re: maintaining human standards [was: has struts reached the saturation]

[Jonathan Revusky <re...@wanadoo.es>]

Moose,

Open source software, like every other human endeavor, is political. It 
has politics.

I have engaged here in some forthright political speech about 
open-source software development issues. I did not even initiate the 
discussion. It was already going on.

You seem to have a very basic misconception. You really seem to think 
that people have to agree with my political views to use FreeMarker or 
any other thing I am involved with.

That is simply not the case. The FreeMarker community is really a pretty 
good community. You can ask questions and make suggestions, and we will 
be as helpful as we can. We always have been. It's not a problem. On a 
technical plane, you can interact with me and the rest of the people 
perfectly well. On a technical plane, if people ask me questions here, I 
will be as helpful as I can.

Using FreeMarker is quite straightforward anyway. We have pretty good 
docs. So the vast majority of people who use it have no interaction with 
us. Very likely, except for the minority subscribe to the list or 
happened on the "Who We Are" page they do not even know who I am and 
don't care. They just use the thing. And that's normal.

FreeMarker was chosen as the default presentation technology in Webwork 
2.2, not because of the political views of any of its developers, but 
for solid technical reasons.

If this community wants to go the route of making technology decisions 
based on personalities and politics rather than the technical 
considerations, they are free to do so. But this would doom you to 
technical mediocrity from the start. Other, competing products, that do 
not operate under these constraints, and simply use the best tools for 
the job, will eat your lunch.

Moose, it is very sad that you feel such fear, that you feel obliged to 
interact here anonymously, and even then, to do so with such 
trepidation, lest you might offend somebody. Wouldn't it be great to 
live without fear, to just be able to talk, to say forthrightly what you 
think about stuff? Imagine the next time some pretentious poo-bah at 
your job says something that you really think is just hot air, you could 
just say: "Hey, that's bull****. Here's why." Wouldn't that be great?

Of course, your work environment is not like that. But the open source 
world is like that. Well, I thought it was. Sh*t, maybe I was mistaken. 
:-( But if this is just like the corporate environment and we're not 
getting paid to be here, then what are we doing here? Is this just 
masochism?

Jonathan Revusky
--
lead developer, FreeMarker project, http://freemarker.org/









Hey Nony Moose wrote:
> Jonathan Revusky wrote:
> 
> 
>>Vinny wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Seriously I'd  rather use Spring, Wicket or Rife than use something
>>>made by people like this guy.
>>
>>Yeah, it's terrible. Just so you guys can make better informed
>>technical decisions, I'll disclose ...snip... terrible table manners
>>...snip... horrendous slurping ...snip... belcher and farter.
>>...snip... so that people can make the right technical decisions.
>>Jonathan Revusky
>>lead developer, FreeMarker project, http://freemarker.org/
> 
> 
> (caveat: I have no dog in the fight.   I am somwhat concerned that there
> is a fight going on and I am sincerely hopeful for a good outcome for
> each of the combatants, and I see irony and sarcasm as possible
> train-wreckage removal or beautification devices.   And I'm a user not a
> dev, so you won't see me continuing this on the dev list.)
> 
> Wow.   Jonathan, you must be very confident of your income stream!  (I'm
> not, as a reference point)  You must be one of these "I've made so much
> money by now, I really don't care what people think of me" developers. 
> (I'm not, as a reference point)  Or perhaps you rely on your technical
> skill being so unavoidably evident that you can be publicly "direct"
> (ahem) and get away with it.  (I can't, as a reference point) 
> :(     ... sigh ...  it is quite different to those of us who have to
> hide behind newbie politeness or just pathetic anonymity in case we say
> something either so rude or so tehnically stupid that a future employer
> will notice it and cut us off their interview list.   It brings to mind
> the cartoon of Dilbert going to work in a bathrobe because he'd realised
> his *actual* worth to the company.
> Mind you I don't agree (a little understated) with the strategy of being
> rude as a practice.  I think that one has to factor in the 90%
> non-verbal content of face-to-face communications that goes missing in
> email conversations.  Perhaps if this entire conversation had occured at
> a JUG or cafe (or under the supervision of a panel of psychiatrists and
> professional wrestlers), we would have noticed the little smiles
> grimaces and so forth that each other were dressing our faces with and
> kept some of the lines a little more guarded.   But gosh, here I am, a
> nobody giving newbie advice to gurus.  sigh.
> Sadly I recall Jonathan's first email to the list, and an early reply
> from one of the leads saying a warm "welcome".  Perhaps I'll dig it out
> of the archive and repost it for a glowing moment ... like "It was a
> nice warm morning in Hiroshima on August 6 and there was the sound of a
> plane overhead ... I always liked the sound of airplanes flying over and
> ... ".
> Won't it be disappointing to see the first technical decision of the WW2
> Struts merger be that the default presentation whatever is changed from
> Freemarker to XXX, purely based on an unworkable inter-team personality
> confict rather than any tech criteria?
> And I can't understand why this thread hasn't been slashdotted yet ...
> "OS Gurus Flay Each Other and Set a New Direction for the Entire
> Internet, While MS Laughs" from the my-pattern-is-better-than-yours dept
> Oh, by the way ... what's "disrupting the market" mean?
> 
>  Mourning Moose


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