Bitching about the documentation...

[François Pinard]

[A.M. Kuchling]
>On Tue, 6 Dec 2005 00:05:38 -0500, 
>	François Pinard <pinard at iro.umontreal.ca> wrote:

>> It's a relatively recent phenomenon that maintainers go berzerk, foaming 
>> at the mouth over forms, borders, colors, and various other mania!  :-)

> It's largely to ensure that the ideas aren't lost.  E-mail sits around
> in an inbox until it gets deliberately deleted or gets lost in a disk
> crash or system upgrade gone wrong.

Or sorted properly by the recipient, the way he sees best fit, in the 
tracker of his own choice.

I know I'm repeating myself, but my point just does not seem to get 
through.  The maintainer should manage his way as a grown up, instead of 
expecting the world to learn his ways and manage in his place.

> You may suggest that I should process my e-mail more promptly.

No, I'm not suggesting you how to work, no more that I would accept that 
you force me into working your way.  If any of us wants to force the 
other to speak through robots, that one is not far from unspeakable...

> If the message was important, they'll resend it.

This is despising contributions.  If someone sends me a message which 
I find important, I do take means so that message does not get lost, and 
that it will even suvive me for some while.

> This is why things need to go into public trackers, or wiki pages.

Whatever means the maintainer wants to fill his preservation needs, he 
is free to use them.  The problem arises when the maintainer wants 
imposing his own work methods on others.  Let contributors be merely
contributors, and learn how to recognise contributions as such and say 
thank you, instead of trying to turn contributors into maintainers.

-- 
François Pinard   http://pinard.progiciels-bpi.ca