Perhaps it would be useful to split the mailing list into core/contrib and support lists? I would be happy to help out answering questions - a lot of them come directly to me anyhow because of the gitcasts site and such. Scott On Sat, Jul 26, 2008 at 12:11 AM, Junio C Hamano <gitster@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > "Scott Chacon" <schacon@xxxxxxxxx> writes: > >> On Fri, Jul 25, 2008 at 9:09 PM, Junio C Hamano <gitster@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: >>> ... >>> These two are directly related. They might be friendly and well-meaning >>> folks, but I agree that they haven't earned our trust yet. >>> >>> But I do not think it matters that much. >>> ... >>> It's also somewhat interesting to observe that several people I have never >>> heard of in the git circle are simultaneously doing new git books, >>> apparently never asking for much technical advice from core git people, by >>> the way. >> >> To be honest, I have asked for a fair amount of technical advice from >> many helpful people in the IRC channel over the past few years. In my >> case, one of my best friends - the guy I've been working with for the >> last 4 years - is Nick Hengeveld, who has something like 50 commits in >> there - why email the list when I can yell a question over the cube >> wall? I'm sure you all have more important things to do than review >> my book for newbies - I asked Nick to do it. > > Ah, Nick. We haven't heard from him for quite some time. I've actually > been missed him from time to time whenever http related issues came up. > Please say hello to him for me ;-). > >> If I could code C worth a lick, I'm sure I would have contributed more >> to this list, but since I have nothing that I feel would be helpful to >> you, I've passively followed the list. I'm sorry that you do not >> consider me a "git community member" just because I don't code C, and >> so I can't contribute helpfully to core. > > I realize I may have sounded somewhat harsh, but that was not my > intention. And I do not think what you said is fair, either. > > We have had quite a few end user questions on this list, but I do not seem > to recall any of the names of the book writers, whose books are presumably > aimed at these people, answering them. Granted, core coders may be busy > bunch of people, and the questions and comments from new people sometimes > tend to be lost in flurry of patch floods. I and other core coders would > have greatly appreciated if non-coder experts like yourself helped these > threads that have never panned out. > > I am not complaining. This cuts both ways. The patch floods do tend to > discourage new people from asking basic questions, and lack of answers > even more so. But it is not healthy for people who design and code not to > hear end user feedback. I personally would want to see the list traffic > to be inclusive. > > The people who design the new features and write code should have easy > access to the issues the users of all levels have with the software and > the documentation (and what they find useful as well). What I am most > afraid of is that both "We do not bother the coders" and "We are too busy > to answer every newbie question" mentalities would lead to a fractured > community. > -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe git" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
