Where can I post a new debugger?

[François Pinard]

[Jeremy Fincher]

> I think a URL, when linked to an explanatory page (such as the one he
> linked to), is a great explanation.  Why should he have to say the
> same thing twice (on usenet and then again on the webpage) because
> you're too lazy to click a link?

Every single day, I receive hundreds of suggestions to visit various
URLs.  Spambayes is a great tool for filtering most of these out.  I've
been on mailing lists where people had this habit of sending messages
holding URLs, probably with the feeling of distributing pieces of cake.
Most of the times, in my opinion, they were not even worth following.

It is not a question of being lazy, but to make better use of our time,
a resource which is much in demand for many of us.  I rather think the
laziness is on the shoulders of the guys who publish these unexplained
URLs, as they would rather have hundreds of people starting a browser,
than providing a short explanation themselves.

It happens that maintainers broadcast announcement for new releases,
describing solved bugs in detail, telling where the archive or the Web
site is, while failing to provide one or two sentences describing what
the package does.  This is usually an oversight much more than laziness
or bad will, as these maintainers are working so deep in their own
packages, it is so evident for them, that they forget that it may not be
on the mind of each and every reader of the mailing list.

P.S. - Here is another issue, only slightly related.  There is a very
sad trend I observe growing since many years, in which maintainers tend
to over-praise their own time, and more or less despise the time of
their possible contributors.  They ask users to first spouse their work
methods, each maintainer its own set, of course.  This has the effect of
creating religions around packages.  Some maintainers even like that :-).

-- 
François Pinard   http://www.iro.umontreal.ca/~pinard