- Pharo-users - lists.pharo.org

Re: [Pharo-users] Feature requests

by Geert Claes

Hi Andres, I understood from your previous post that you are in favour of a crowdsourcing/brainstorming approach like UserVoice, IdeaTorrent (OLPC, Ubuntu ...), IdeaScale, etc, but please do keep in mind that the Pharo community is still a very small community that relies on a relatively small number of contributors. From the Pharo-Project.org website: "All the discussions about Pharo's direction are open and occur on the mailing list. Everything is transparent and will remain so." so ideas and suggestions from both seasoned Pharoers as well as newcomers are always welcome and nobody's voice is ever or has ever been banned. You mentioned in your post as disadvantages of a voting system that "if you don't have enough population the requests may not reflect the real community needs, as a dev team you may end up implementing something you don't consider relevant.". The problem is not necessarily the voting aspect, but the fact that the Pharo project doesn't really have a "dev-team" as such. The Pharo project consists of a number of contributors who fix and add things mainly because they want and need these things themselves and in doing so contribute to a better Pharo system. I am a bit confused as to what exactly you are suggesting because if (for argument's sake) Pharo were to setup an IdeaTorrent. Lets say certain ideas receive a number of votes and as a result they are then considered "popular". Since the Pharo project does not have a real "dev-team" that can be told what to do, who will be implementing these "popular" ideas? What if contributors (who sacrifice their own free-time) choose to fix or implement valuable aspects (which did not receive as many votes) and ignore the most "popular" ideas? As a side-note: giving people more votes (or allowing to vote against ideas) has a history of causing a lot of drama and add no value :) When you were talking about what "rights" anyone has in the Pharo community, I think the best way to put it (feel free to correct me) is probably that "nobody has the right to tell someone else what to do or not to do" and that "everybody has the right and is encouraged to contribute". The only time the Pharo board will step in is when the community can't reach a consensus. Anyhow, nobody is saying that your idea of a voting system is bad, its just that for such a system to work, the project would need the resources to tackle these top ideas and as it stand this is unfortunately not the case. Pharo has come a long way in two years and its still moving strong :) -- View this message in context: http://forum.world.st/Feature-requests-tp3077333p3079927.html Sent from the Pharo Smalltalk Users mailing list archive at Nabble.com.

Dec. 9, 2010

Re: [Pharo-users] Feature requests

by StÃ©phane Ducasse

sure so express yourself but if you want an impact you know what should be done. On Dec 8, 2010, at 10:17 PM, andres wrote: >> Now the key question is: is it productive to discuss features if by construction we know that we will not have the manpower to do something? > > I think that if you never put the list in public you will never know; if you have your list and I have mine and so does everybody we will always feel like we are the only ones who want that. If we find out that 20 o 30 people want the same thing then maybe we can find a way of making it happen. > >> We can dream and talk but at the end of the day if we say ok it costs 4 man months and changing all the vms (which I would love to see happening). > > I think that there are a lot of things out there that don't mean that you have to change the VMs. > > AndrÃ©s >

Dec. 9, 2010

Re: [Pharo-users] Feature requests

by StÃ©phane Ducasse

I know what is a PEP believe me. We tried that in Squeak long time ago. Stef On Dec 9, 2010, at 2:04 AM, HernÃ¡n Morales Durand wrote: > 2010/12/8 StÃ©phane Ducasse <stephane.ducasse(a)inria.fr>: >>> >>> I know AndrÃ©s did a lot of good work in and for Smalltalk, he >>> shouldn't need to present any credentials here. And besides there must >>> be a nice way to make people listened and to considerate their claims. >> >> I know him too and this is not the problem of trust or achievement as a programmer. >> We consider claim and expectations this is why we sent calls in the past. >> >> Now the key question is: is it productive to discuss features if by construction we know that we will not have >> the manpower to do something? > > Considering the extreme and embarrassing success of, for example, > Python (even with their crappy syntax and methodologies) over > Smalltalk, I think yes it is productive to learn from succesfully > software projects. > > What's wrong with the revisions and improvements process described in > my previous mail? Why nobody considerate it? > > See for example: > > What is a PEP? > ============== > > PEP stands for Python Enhancement Proposal. A PEP is a design > document providing information to the Python community, or describing > a new feature for Python or its processes or environment. The PEP > should provide a concise technical specification of the feature and a > rationale for the feature. > > We intend PEPs to be the primary mechanisms for proposing new > features, for collecting community input on an issue, and for > documenting the design decisions that have gone into Python. The PEP > author is responsible for building consensus within the community and > documenting dissenting opinions. > > Because the PEPs are maintained as text files in a versioned > repository, their revision history is the historical record of the > feature proposal > > (from http://svn.python.org/projects/peps/trunk/pep-0001.txt) > >> We can dream and talk but at the end of the day if we say ok it costs 4 man months and changing all the vms (which I would love to see happening). >> >> I have a huge wish list, believe me and the result is gorgeous now the only thing that I can do >> is to take one of the item and beat it to death and doing it and go to the next one. And I frustrate a lot >> because these are a lot of tiny steps. >> > > Ok, what I'm saying is why don't start organizing the proposals, > evaluations, coordination, decisions, etc. and then the people will > come. > Cheers, > > -- > HernÃ¡n Morales > Information Technology Manager, > Institute of Veterinary Genetics. > National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET). > La Plata (1900), Buenos Aires, Argentina. > Telephone: +54 (0221) 421-1799. > Internal: 422 > Fax: 425-7980 or 421-1799. >

Dec. 9, 2010

Re: [Pharo-users] Feature requests

by HernÃ¡n Morales Durand

2010/12/8 StÃ©phane Ducasse <stephane.ducasse(a)inria.fr>: >> >> I know AndrÃ©s did a lot of good work in and for Smalltalk, he >> shouldn't need to present any credentials here. And besides there must >> be a nice way to make people listened and to considerate their claims. > > I know him too and this is not the problem of trust or achievement as a programmer. > We consider claim and expectations this is why we sent calls in the past. > > Now the key question is: is it productive to discuss features if by construction we know that we will not have > the manpower to do something? Considering the extreme and embarrassing success of, for example, Python (even with their crappy syntax and methodologies) over Smalltalk, I think yes it is productive to learn from succesfully software projects. What's wrong with the revisions and improvements process described in my previous mail? Why nobody considerate it? See for example: What is a PEP? ============== PEP stands for Python Enhancement Proposal. A PEP is a design document providing information to the Python community, or describing a new feature for Python or its processes or environment. The PEP should provide a concise technical specification of the feature and a rationale for the feature. We intend PEPs to be the primary mechanisms for proposing new features, for collecting community input on an issue, and for documenting the design decisions that have gone into Python. The PEP author is responsible for building consensus within the community and documenting dissenting opinions. Because the PEPs are maintained as text files in a versioned repository, their revision history is the historical record of the feature proposal (from http://svn.python.org/projects/peps/trunk/pep-0001.txt) > We can dream and talk but at the end of the day if we say ok it costs 4 man months and changing all the vms (which I would love to see happening). > > I have a huge wish list, believe me and the result is gorgeous now the only thing that I can do > is to take one of the item and beat it to death and doing it and go to the next one. And I frustrate a lot > because these are a lot of tiny steps. > Ok, what I'm saying is why don't start organizing the proposals, evaluations, coordination, decisions, etc. and then the people will come. Cheers, -- HernÃ¡n Morales Information Technology Manager, Institute of Veterinary Genetics. National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET). La Plata (1900), Buenos Aires, Argentina. Telephone: +54 (0221) 421-1799. Internal: 422 Fax: 425-7980 or 421-1799.

Dec. 9, 2010

Re: [Pharo-users] Feature requests

by andres

> Now the key question is: is it productive to discuss features if by construction we know that we will not have > the manpower to do something? I think that if you never put the list in public you will never know; if you have your list and I have mine and so does everybody we will always feel like we are the only ones who want that. If we find out that 20 o 30 people want the same thing then maybe we can find a way of making it happen. > We can dream and talk but at the end of the day if we say ok it costs 4 man months and changing all the vms (which I would love to see happening). I think that there are a lot of things out there that don't mean that you have to change the VMs. AndrÃ©s

Dec. 8, 2010

Re: [Pharo-users] Feature requests

by George Herolyants

2010/12/8 StÃ©phane Ducasse <stephane.ducasse(a)inria.fr>: > Now the key question is: is it productive to discuss features if by construction we know that we will not have > the manpower to do something? I think it is. Who knows, maybe such a wishlist could influence somebody to make a contribution or some research? George

Dec. 8, 2010

Re: [Pharo-users] Feature requests

by Igor Stasenko

On 8 December 2010 15:46, StÃ©phane Ducasse <stephane.ducasse(a)inria.fr> wrote: >> >> I know AndrÃ©s did a lot of good work in and for Smalltalk, he >> shouldn't need to present any credentials here. And besides there must >> be a nice way to make people listened and to considerate their claims. > > I know him too and this is not the problem of trust or achievement as a programmer. > We consider claim and expectations this is why we sent calls in the past. > > Now the key question is: is it productive to discuss features if by construction we know that we will not have > the manpower to do something? > We can dream and talk but at the end of the day if we say ok it costs 4 man months and changing all the vms (which I would love to see happening). > > I have a huge wish list, believe me and the result is gorgeous now the only thing that I can do > is to take one of the item and beat it to death and doing it and go to the next one. And I frustrate a lot > because these are a lot of tiny steps. > Amen. The better native windows support is pending in my head for 2 years (i think). At least that was a first time when i first thought about it and took some effort to experiment with it and implemented a prototypes. But then i left it, because i had other things to do, and because there was not much interest from people to do that anyways :) So, really, if there's anyone who willing to invest good lump of money in it, it could be done in multiple months. Otherwise, the best what you can do is to check/ask about the current state of art then form a strategy and step by step do things which will bring the day when you have your feature request fulfilled closer. > Stef > -- Best regards, Igor Stasenko AKA sig.

Dec. 8, 2010

Re: [Pharo-users] Feature requests

by StÃ©phane Ducasse

> > I know AndrÃ©s did a lot of good work in and for Smalltalk, he > shouldn't need to present any credentials here. And besides there must > be a nice way to make people listened and to considerate their claims. I know him too and this is not the problem of trust or achievement as a programmer. We consider claim and expectations this is why we sent calls in the past. Now the key question is: is it productive to discuss features if by construction we know that we will not have the manpower to do something? We can dream and talk but at the end of the day if we say ok it costs 4 man months and changing all the vms (which I would love to see happening). I have a huge wish list, believe me and the result is gorgeous now the only thing that I can do is to take one of the item and beat it to death and doing it and go to the next one. And I frustrate a lot because these are a lot of tiny steps. Stef

Dec. 8, 2010

Re: [Pharo-users] Feature requests

by HernÃ¡n Morales Durand

Hi, Thanks for bringing this topic to the list. I like the proposal, but I don't like it in the sense that these kind of mails are "good idea" which requires work and we-all-are-always-busy. Here is what I've seen: This is a distributed community. We may learn from other open source software communities. How they specify revisions and improvements, see for example: Community Formal Process Python -> PEP (http://www.python.org/dev/peps/) Jabber -> XEP (http://xmpp.org/extensions/) Plone -> PLIP (http://plone.org/documentation/glossary/plip) In Python this process includes as activities: 1) Documentation 2) Discussion (which is the most important to keep a high rate of participation) 3) Implementation Maybe that's a valid path too. I read the IRC meeting yesterday. I was suprised in the sense almost no comments were made to what we need to learn about the current Pharo users, about the energy spent in peer-reviewing code or proposals, the division of labor, how many active contributors have the Core or Dev packages, why some of them abandoned or joined, etc. IMHO sooner or later, the core team should have a better view of social dynamics here (I know it requires hard work but there are social scientists out there!). How participants participate, to understand the complexities of motivation, involvement, roles, group calibration, etc. Meta-discussing about our participation is not very comfortable or somewhat controversial, because exposes hidden structures of power or implicit social rules. Which are inevitable. But you will gain insight distinguishing between: Proposals Evaluations Clarifications Synthesis Coordination Decisions and see the most common patterns Proposals -> Evaluations -> Agreement/Disagreement Clarifications -> Clarifications Synthesis -> Agreement/Proposal Coordination -> Coordination Decisions -> Coordination I know AndrÃ©s did a lot of good work in and for Smalltalk, he shouldn't need to present any credentials here. And besides there must be a nice way to make people listened and to considerate their claims. Cheers. 2010/12/7 andres <andres(a)lifia.info.unlp.edu.ar>: > Ok, so here goes an attempt of defining how I think feature requests could > be handled and why I think that the meritocracy is not always the best > choice. > > UserVoice and similar sites > > The idea is to let people ask for features they want in a quick way. I think > my question about native window support could be a good example: someone ask > if a feature exists. If it doesn't, he can just go and record somewhere > "hey, I would like X". If other people also want X they can put a vote (or > more than one) into the feature. Since votes are finite per user you have to > think where are you putting your vote. > > Generally the product owner would choose some of the top ranked requests and > decide to implement them. How many requests are selected per release or what > is the criteria for choosing them is up to the product owner (e.g. you may > choose #1 and #3 in the ranking, since #2 may be too complex for a given > release). I guess that as long as the rules are clear (e.g. choose at least > 1 feature request from the top five or whatever the dev team feels is ok for > them) things would run smooth. > > Of course you can consider alternatives, like giving contributors more votes > to encourage participation, get an extra vote for each bug you found, etc. > > Advantages: Its easy, it welcomes newcomers, it allows to re-think your vote > or change it if you see that someone posted a feature that you also require, > it allows the dev team to measure the user's expectations. > Disadvantages: if you don't have enough population the requests may not > reflect the real community needs, as a dev team you may end up implementing > something you don't consider relevant. > > About Meritocracy > > While I understand the idea behind "first do something, then ask for > something" I don't think it is always the best choice. For someone to commit > to do something he must feel he is inside a community, and that takes some > time. Of course I'm not saying that someone who just downloaded Pharo should > dictate what will be included in the next release, I'm just saying that his > voice shouldn't be banned because he hasn't yet contributed. And I am > convinced that it is more likely to have a newcomer commited to a cause if > you listen to him rather than if you say "first do something, then I may > listen to your requests". > > But what concerned me the most was this: > > The only influence we deeply understand is ***Contributions*** with either > videos, pdf, ads, promotion actions or ST code. > So if you want something to happen for real in pharo then you should > consider how you can make this happens. > > So how do you measure someone's contribution and the rights he has? Talking > about pharo at my university counts for changing a line of code, writing > some slides for a method, creating a bunch of screencasts for some classes? > Also, contributing to Smalltalk in general counts as a contribution to > Pharo? Up to what extent? And if I contributed and you never knew? Should I > present my credentials asking for your reconsideration? My point is that, > while contributions are fine and I also like for people to give in return > for what they received, it is sometimes hard to measure and be fair to > everybody. As you explained it seems that the decision rests in the > subjective view of the core developers. That model is of course a valid one, > I just consider it is not how healthy communities are built. > > Best regards, > AndrÃ©s > > -- HernÃ¡n Morales Information Technology Manager, Institute of Veterinary Genetics. National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET). La Plata (1900), Buenos Aires, Argentina. Telephone: +54 (0221) 421-1799. Internal: 422 Fax: 425-7980 or 421-1799.

Dec. 8, 2010

Re: [Pharo-users] IRC meeting notes

by Sean P. DeNigris

Log at http://pastebin.com/Y7MFaddK -- View this message in context: http://forum.world.st/IRC-meeting-notes-tp3077265p3077350.html Sent from the Pharo Smalltalk Users mailing list archive at Nabble.com.

Dec. 7, 2010