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On Fri, 7 Apr 2006 10:21:54 +0100, |
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Ciaran McCreesh <ciaranm@g.o> wrote: |
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> * If we're looking to increase the flow of end users -> super users -> |
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> developers, perhaps we should focus more upon improving development |
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> tools or development documentation. |
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I would also suggest creation of a gentoo-dev-help@ mailing-list. |
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Something similar to what, i guess, the homonym IRC chan is, but for |
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people who don't like IRC. Maybe i'm wrong and that's not the |
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intention, but after 4 years of reading on gentoo-dev@ (yeah, today is |
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anniversary of my subscription - yik, that's more than 36K emails in |
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this maildir) , my feeling is that it's not the right place for users |
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to ask technical questions about development/contributing (ebuilds |
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writing, etc.). It's not that i fear this ML, but i see it mainly as a |
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place for dev-to-dev communication on general/important topics (gleps |
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discussion, common sense reminders, random flamewars, etc.), and thus i |
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see the occasional "How {c,sh}ould i do something?" messages about |
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small details as somehow off-topic, and i tend to avoid posting some. |
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Seeing how more numerous this kind of messages are on "Portage & |
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Programming" forums, or on gentoo-user*@ lists, i guess i'm not the |
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only user with such feeling. But forums or users MLs are not really |
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satisfactory for non-obvious questions, because the devs/users rate |
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there is too low. |
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So, what i usualy do when i'm not sure about something, in an ebuild i |
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wrote for instance, is to post it as-is on bugs.g.o, with the |
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questions left open in my report. But they will stay unanswered if |
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the bug falls in the "maintainer-wanted@" oubliettes, or if the |
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assignee is too short in time to explain me why he choosed one solution |
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rather than an other. And even if i get my answer, it will be from a |
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single dev, whereas others might have had a different views on the |
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topic. |
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Finally, i think such a mainling list could give good hints on what to |
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improve in the documentation. Some legitimate questions may point to |
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real lacks in the documentation, and some answers could be starting |
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point for new chunks to add to the official or unofficial handbooks. |
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-- |
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TGL. |
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-- |
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