Thank you, Logan, you put it very well. You're absolutely right there can be an inherent instinct against user-friendliness in open-source software, as well as a kind of hierarchy----and you've identified the source and nature of it, I think. The response to this is not to try to become commercial. The response is to realize that it's a piece of sociology and human nature that we all have to make an extra effort to rise above. It's not such a different issue from table manners---- good food tends to make people act like pigs unless they are careful, so people actually have to explicitly learn to eat politely. It doesn't happen by instinct, it requires leadership and guidance.
For the present circumstance, I think it means that open source projects have to make user-friendliness (both on the forums, in the software, and in the documentation) a core value whether they have any deep animalistic drive to do so or not. It needs to become ingrained in the culture, and examples need to be set. I think Clojure is not too far behind the head of the pack on some of these matters. As Sean Corfield pointed out, Lein is a big part of making Clojure user- friendly; unfortunately, its central role isn't really reflected on Clojure.org. The documentation meanwhile could stand to be improved (many people seem to agree on that point), and that I think will go a long way towards shaping the culture in the right direction. I need to reply to Stu's post on that. (And yes, I intend to help. But I do want to say that talking about things is \also useful. I admit the wrongth of my prolixity in the first post, but I \don't think it's wrong to talk about cultures and processes. Every group of people has to do this at some point, and it may not always fit under the 140 character limit. And not all problems in a programming language community can be solved by programming.) Logan's economic explanation makes sense, but there is still an irony in the way programmers spend their day jobs making life easier for users, but don't always bring the same ethic to bear on their own environment. If I may make yet another homely analogy, it's like a family that keeps one room in pristine condition for guests, but lets the rest of their house accumulate cruft. It's a common but odd situation. And (as anyone who has dealt with Makefiles would know) it can be amazingly durable. We're already vastly better off than Makefiles, but this is no reason for complacency. On Jul 7, 12:03 pm, logan <duskli...@gmail.com> wrote: > I think Yegge clarified in a follow-up post that what he really meant > to say was "say yes to USERS", not "say yes to FEATURES", but in his > typical off-the-cuff ranty writing style, he had accidentally > conflated the two. > > As far as saying yes to every feature, I think that is obviously not a > great idea. It is easy to make the argument that one of the reasons > Java became successful are the features that it said no to: No to > pointers, no to multiple inheritance, no to operator overloading. > > As far as saying yes to USERS. I think Yegge brings up a really > important point about a critical problem that plagues not just clojure > but all open source communities in general. Basically the blowhard who > thinks he is smarter than the average person and who enjoys letting > other people know it. We all have some element of self-interest in our > hearts. When you get paid to write software the reward is obvious. > When you are contributing to open source what is the motivation? If > you have the soul of an artist maybe you just want to create something > beautiful. But there are a lot of others for whom contributing to open > source is an ego trip. They haven't gotten the recognition that they > feel they deserve in other parts of their life, so they decided that > by writing something cool and putting it on the internet then they > will be cool too. > > When you are getting paid for software you have a direct incentive to > make your software as user friendly as possible. If it "just works" > for the users and they like it and they can happily use it without > ever looking at a manual, then you get more users and more money. > People in open source want more users too but they don't necessarily > want it to be user friendly. In fact often I feel there is this huge > incentive to NOT be user friendly. It is like hazing. You get to say > things like "That is not the functional way, I know the right way but > you don't, I am better than you." or "Why would anyone want to do > that? The problem you are stumped on has such an obvious solution to > me that I can't even understand why you have a problem, I am better > than you." There is this attitude of "I figured how to write my > own .emacs all by myself, from reading the forums and the > documentation, because I was too socially maladjusted to ask anyone > for help. Why can't you?" > > This poisonous attitude is perfectly exemplified in this thread by > James Keats. I think it's important to recognize that we are all human > beings, which means that we are herd animals, which means that we all > have genetically hardwired responses to desire to be part of a > hierarchy and we desire to place ourselves higher up on that > hierarchy. This is why we have bullies in kindergarten. But just > because you were bullied in kindergarten does not make it okay for you > to bully newbies over the internet now. Back then it was not okay for > the bigger kids to pick on the smaller kids and right now just because > you are smarter than someone does not make you a better person. We are > herd animals but we are also civilized human beings, we can rise above > our base animal desires to put other people down, we don't have to > give in to our desire to feel like we are part of a special club. > > I think the clojure community has in general been much better about > this than some other open source communities, but as clojure gets more > popular, the ego trippers are starting to join the party, the guys who > want to say "I use clojure, clojure is the best language of all, I am > better than you!" The guys who don't care about the pragmatic beauty > of clojure and just want to be a big man in a new tribe. I think it > would be good to not pay too much attention to such people and say yes > to the users. Say yes to the newbies, yes to the object oriented > people not by making clojure more object oriented, but by not shutting > them out of the discourse and laughing them off as just "object > oriented people". As someone whose name I can't remember right now > once said, "There are no bad students, only bad teachers." -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Clojure" group. To post to this group, send email to clojure@googlegroups.com Note that posts from new members are moderated - please be patient with your first post. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to clojure+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/clojure?hl=en
