On Sat, Jan 29, 2011 at 12:13 PM, Simon King <simon.k...@uni-jena.de> wrote: > Hi Volker! > > On 29 Jan., 19:38, Volker Braun <vbraun.n...@gmail.com> wrote: >> People contribute to OSS because they have a itch to scratch, not because >> they read an ad. Only people that are interested in Sage will contribute to >> Sage. You need to focus on getting out the word that Sage exists and what >> its aims are. > > +1. That is how I became a contributor.
+1 >> Potential contributors with less experience are not "losers" that "drag >> everyone down". Everyone started out as a novice. > > A "novice" is someone who just lacks experience. If one just lacks > experience then one can learn. I think an open source project is a > very good way of learning for a novice. Novices, feel welcome to Sage! > > In contrast, a "loser" is someone who lacks experience *and* self- > awareness. > > That's to say, a loser would attack a huge task (since s/he is not > aware that such task can only be tackled with a lot of background), > would create a huge chunk of code that doesn't really work, but by > lack of self-awareness would not acknowledge that it is flawed in the > basic parts. Then, some people would try to explain to that person > *why* it does not work, but, again by lack of self-awareness, to no > avail. > > Have you heard about "trisectors"? I hope I got the right translation > of the German word "Trisektierer". These are amateur mathematicians > who try to tackle classical compass and straightedge constructions. > Ignoring the fact that there is a proof that you can't trisect a > general angle using compass and straightedge, they write up their own > "proof" that it *can* be done, and send it to math professors. If the > professor can't resist to reply to the trisector and point out the > flaws, then the trisector would send back an even longer, even > wronger, and increasingly angry fake proof. > > Such people *do* drag people down. > > In the situation of Sage, there can be (i) experienced mathematicians > who are losers in programming, (ii) experienced programmers who are > losers in maths (but they are interested in maths, for otherwise they > wouldn't try to contribute to Sage), and (iii) = (i)+(ii). > > I don't know a protecting agent against losers, but I expect that the > "sociologists" in the open source community have developed appropriate > mechanisms. Kind of "don't feed the troll" (which also works in the > case of trisectors, as one professor once told me). I don't like the term losers, but I certainly agree that there are people who (non-maliciously) cause drag because they simply lack ability. Sometimes it's a matter of experience or background, but sometimes it's because they simply lack the talent. Unlike many tasks, I agree with the observation that the top 1% can be an order of magnitude more productive than the median, let alone the bottom. What we have going for us is that we don't have to pick the "winners" out ahead of time, as there is an enormous self-selection by the time one has something to contribute. The amount of effort I have wasted towards unproductive people has been vastly outweighed by the times I have reached out to help and the user/new developer has payed back in spades, and continues to do so over the years. This can be an issue for OSS projects, but from what I've seen is fortunately a very small one for us. +1 to having people of all backgrounds--there are many things to work on, and lots of the non-math ones are the most neglected, waiting for someone with the non-math interest to come and pick them up. - Robert -- To post to this group, send an email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to sage-devel+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URL: http://www.sagemath.org
