[squeak-dev] not everyone _can_ be a package czar!
Tim Johnson
tjohnson at iwu.edu
Mon Dec 15 19:57:29 UTC 2008
On Dec 15, 2008, at 1:33 PM, Keith Hodges wrote:
>>> So when I fix a bug in magma do I have to contact 6 different czars?
>>
>> Hopefully not. Hopefully you would not also have to understand the
>> entire packaging system. (Or open your firewall to allow IRC packets
>> to pass...)
>>
>> - TimJ
> Oh come on what's with the negativity!
>
> http://www.jwirc.com/chat.html
Oh, shame on me, I feel compelled to answer. ;)
IRC is fleeting, temporary, ephemeral...
IRC is cliquey...
IRC is messy...
IRC is addictive...
IRC is an old, old friend of mine.
Suppose someone has a question about the packaging system. That
person decides to try IRC for a solution. The person asks his
question on IRC, and one or more of the following happens:
1) The one person qualified to answer the question is not there.
2) Nobody answers the question.
3) Other conversation ensues, and the person is not able to tear
himself away to return to the original problem.
4) The question is answered.
Should the result be #4, that leaves the community with one more
person now understanding the answer to the problem. Should another
person in the future have the same problem, that person will be stuck
trying his luck with the four steps above. Or, that person can try
searching Google, and then come up with an IRC log, which he can then
try to parse. That is, if the conversation took place in the public
channel. If the question was answered via private message, then the
exchange which took place on IRC will not help anyone but the person
who originally sought the answer.
Please don't think I'm dissing IRC as a whole. I just think it would
serve the community best if everyone was on the channel, 24 hours a
day, every day, always listening and answering. That's a lot of time
spent on IRC. Maybe that's your goal :)
- TimJ
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