[Seaside] Frustrated with Squeak and Magma

[goran at krampe.se]

Hi Warren!

"Warren Henning" <warren.henning at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 9/6/06, goran at krampe.se <goran at krampe.se> wrote:
> > Reading more than the first paragraph of the mentioned swiki page is a
> > good start. :) :)
> 
> You're pretty clever and stuff, I'm impressed.

Mmmm.

> The best way to grow
> the Squeak community is to poorly document everything and then be
> snotty to people who find it frustrating (don't let this stop you from
> claiming Smalltalk is God's gift to computer programming). I recommend
> more gradients, more pictures of mouses, and possibly other measures
> to to make the UI widgets even more non-standard, less usable, and
> ugly than they already are. Keep driving away new people and you'll be
> a winner.

Oh boy. Ok, let me take this as a list (and yes, I am a bit annoyed
while writing this and I know I should not post in that state of mind -
but whatever):

1. I sprinkled my email with smileys. They have a meaning. Sure, there
was a little itsy bit of "criticism" in there - because the Swiki page
about Magma installation is short and explains what to install. Take it.

2. I would say that your original post was a bit "snotty" as you put it
- but *without* the smileys:
	"I want to scream because I have no idea whether I'm doing things right
	or not and I can't figure out how to help myself."

3. I actually wrote *answers* didn't I? Do you think I bothered to write
down answers and post them to you only in order to be "snotty"? No. I
was trying to help you and also making a little point (I admit) that you
might have read the installation note a little bit more closely. I stand
by that.

4. This continuous notion (among many newcomers) that we (oldtimers or
whatever) are somehow in debt to "you" is beyond me. We welcome
beginners and we are aware of several issues with Squeak etc - but we
sure don't need to feel guilty for not doing things that you seem to
think that we should be doing or should already have done. In short - we
owe you nada. This is open source. Dig in, be happy, have fun, get help,
help us - ...or don't.

5. Magma is a one man tour de force (Chris Muller). He has documented it
quite a bit, I use Magma and it is a marvellous piece of software. If
you have a question about it he might appreciate that you actually post
to the mailinglist of Magma (and not Seaside). Chris is always awfully
helpful.

6. The best way to get really fast help is actually to meet up on IRC.
If you happen to drop by and see "gokr", then that is me. I will gladly
help you with Squeak, I know quite a bit of how things work and I gladly
spend some of my time helping newbies - as many can attest.

7. Even if Seaside is an active list you might be better off using
Squeak-dev. More people.

8. Racking down on Squeak and "us" doesn't really make us feel *more*
inclined to help. Just a reflection.

Ok, "my steam is blown off" and now I am happy again. :)

So welcome to our community and let's start over! Any other question? (I
am being sincere, really) And did you get Magma installed? Did my
answers help?

regards, Göran