On Wed, 04 Jun 2014 00:49:48 +0200 Alan McKinnon <alan.mckin...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Indeed. It really comes down to a judgement call whether to compose a > news item or not. True, it is not always easy; although some of us want or try to figure this out in advance, even predictions won't help to determine how well the users will experience these kind of effects. The more these events happen, the more I think they're aftermath is inevitable, the more it would be nice to redesign to prevent the events from happening. Especially when you get to know the Portage output better, it is hard to judge how well the Portage output still is for existing users; I have no motivation to improve the Portage output for myself, given I can find my way in it in a reasonable amount of time (given the parameters --tree and --unordered-display which are not default). But that's where it stops; though I recognize that it is not as helpful for new users, as well as want to improve it for them, it is hard to know where to start and what kind of output to go for. We're locked down to a particular view; thinking of other views, it'll be hard to see one where there is a benefit that outweighs the costs implementing it. So, then you can come to the conclusion that we have good enough output considering the conditions in which the output can be changed; and as a result of it not changing, we rely more and more on its knowledge. > I myself in my sysadmin day job get this right about 50% of the time > if I'm lucky. I've learned (via hard knocks) that if a number of > people raise concerns, then it very well might not be bikeshedding, > it might be valid. What I'm trying to say was that it is still in some way valid when you bike shed; it isn't so much anymore about the central point being discussed about being valid, but the idea behind why you're discussing that central point. Among other things, this highlights things in the organization and/or respect of the matter at hand; it won't result a change wrt to the central point, but it'll result in a change of organization and/or respect. Just because you can't quickly find out a date to go out with someone doesn't mean you can't do it more organized and respectful next time. > Often as the BOFH I'm too close to the technical problem to notice > the human elements - that needs a view from 10 feet back. When faced with a technical problem; there are 3 or more ways to take a stance, some of which conflicting stances make the human part matter: 1. Aggressive: You want your work to happen and lead to results. 2. Defensive: You want to prevent your work from changing, you want to prevent the results of your work from changing. 3. Neutral: You don't know much about the work, it's not clear what you want; given that, you'll play devil's advocate to learn more of it. Now, with any of these; it is easy to get into the human elements, which have to do with a problem in the organization (expectations, planning, reports, ...) or respect (finding out what works for both). Sometimes the view is too far back, because you're as explained above grown used to the situation; when that happens, you get stuck and either need to make a comprise not in your favor or need to move on. A lot of compromises, some recently, get made; which I'm happy about. A lot of us are here for improving Gentoo, we can't just always agree on the particular way in which to do that; but it'll be the net result of all those (dis)agreements, compromises and walks that count. > News items are probably one of Gentoo's best ideas ever. True that. -- With kind regards, Tom Wijsman (TomWij) Gentoo Developer E-mail address : tom...@gentoo.org GPG Public Key : 6D34E57D GPG Fingerprint : C165 AF18 AB4C 400B C3D2 ABF0 95B2 1FCD 6D34 E57D
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