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Thank you all,
your feedback is appreciated.
You have raised many points and so I probably won't be addressing
them all. But thanks again for all. I did read all the responses.
I will re-read them for more inspiration.
I understand posting on this list is like going into a room with over
a 100 people and saying something. So if 100 people spend 10 minutes to
read this - that's a lot of minutes.
So I don't want to waste your time. Feel free NOT to read this. But if
you do read this, there is an attempt at a joke towards the end. You
might even find it funny. Or not.
I'm posting this through Nabble and it seems to post everything I post
twice. Once as 'Pharo Smalltalk Users mailing list' and as 'Milan Vavra'
too. I have no idea why. Enlighten me if you can.
My original motivation was and is to be able to show to a potential
employer before and/or during the interview the sort problem fixing that
I can do. Even should the job have nothing to do with Smalltalk or Pharo
(then it might be an opportunity for a little Pharo/Smalltalk evangelism
but I digress). If there is an easy way to show that version X has a
problem - then I can show that I have the skills to fix that. If it is
fixed in the meantime I can just point to the fixed version Y and say:
"yeah, I fixed that". If there is some supporting evidence that should
give more credibility to my other claims that are unverifiable due to
the fact that they involved proprietary code that I just can not show
anyone. So their value in an interview is limited because it depends
on trust or a reference from someone else (trust again but vested in
the reference). But the Pharo fix should be an independently verifiable
claim. Of course there is a chance that I hired someone to fix that issue
for me and I don't have the skills. So a few follow up questions should
be in order to see whether or not I know what I am talking about.
On positive feedback. I think negative feedback is ok. Please
do give me negative feedback. I can take it. It can point me to
perceived problems I were not aware of. What I do want however is
***constructive*** feedback. Actionable feedback. If you have a strong
opinion state it clearly but it should be of the kind: "To do [thing]
is stupid/ugly/whatever. We/you should do [something else] because
[explanation]."
I think Peter raised the issue: "is it fair that everyone gets mentioned
even though their contributions are not comparable". I am not ashamed
to say: "YES!". However it is not the same as saying that what I can
(potentially, you have not seen it yet) do is more valuable than what
others did in making Pharo happen in the first place. I had a minor role
in the movie. But I deserve a place in the credits. If there were no you
(all of you who have contributed so far) Pharo would not be what it is
today. A sexy development environment. If there were no me, someone else
would have to step up and do what I did. I am fully aware of that. Me
trying to contribute is a "thank you" of sorts to all of you.
Small contribution with big impact. In a way it is not that small a
contribution considering the impact it can have on Pharo adoption. In
Smalltalk "a little code goes a long way". Consider this scenario,
a true story: I first downloaded my first Pharo back when 3.0 was
new. On Windows XP. I played with it a little. Got excited (sooooo
sexy!). But then came the blow. What? I can not type č? Is my keyboard
broken? Severed cable? No? Oh ok. It just won't let me. There goes my
contact management application. Bummer. It seems the IDE is not used by
anyone in the Czech Republic on Windows. Otherwise someone would have
noticed. Oh. Well. I don't have the skill to debug this yet. I am not
sure how to report this. Oh well let's wait until someone fixes this. And
it gave me the impression Pharo 3.0 is immature technology. This could
be happening in any country that uses č as part of their language
- Latvia, Lithuania, Serbia, Slovakia (Russia, Bulgaria, Croatia -
for the russian characters). A year later Pharo 4.0 came out and it
still was not fixed. Then Pharo 5.0 - same story. I have been learning
Smalltalk in small steps on Squeak and Pharo trying things from SBE
and PBE and my contact management example based on an excellent video
by Laurent Laffont. To cut a long story short only this month I have
reached the point that I was thinking maybe now I have what it takes to
fix this. And the excellent videos of the Pharo MOOC definitely played
a part too. Thanks to everyone involved. Anyway I tried to debug this
issue and it worked. So what if you were able to wave the magic wand to
make that bug go away? I have that wand. I'll see if I can jump through
the hoops of the contribution process although it might take some time.
On a lighter note, I had a bright vision of how I could get some credit
for being able to fix this. I would find hire some really hot hostess
or two for an upcoming Pharo conference in Prague. They would have the
following on their T-shirts. One: 'č, Č, ě, Anyone?' and the other
'Ё ,Л, М, Н, О, П, Anyone?' and 'Ask me how' on the back. :-). And
their job would be to hand out my email address to anyone interested. Or
even point to me standing in the distance. I bet they would command
some attention.
Mentoring. It would be nice to know how to find a mentor for the
contribution
process, possibly beyond.
Thanks for your attention,
Milan
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View this message in context:
http://forum.world.st/Pharo-5-accented-chars-bug-regression-tp4898863p4900875.html
Sent from the Pharo Smalltalk Users mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
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