Date: Thu, 05 Sep 1996 07:07:53 -0700 From: "Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@time.cdrom.com> To: Paul Richards <p.richards@elsevier.co.uk> Cc: Nate Williams <nate@mt.sri.com>, rkw@dataplex.net (Richard Wackerbarth), current@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Latest Current build failure Message-ID: <7205.841932473@time.cdrom.com> In-Reply-To: Your message of "05 Sep 1996 13:09:05 BST." <57buflxixq.fsf@elsevier.co.uk>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
> Not everyone likes to work this way. Some people are happy to spend > their time working on their pet projects regardless of whether they > ever get adopted or not. Others prefer to discuss proposals up front > and see if there's interest in the idea before wasting their time on a > solution that no-one's ever going to be interested in. Perfectly true, and I'd never suggest that either approach is without its time and place. Now let's take it to the next stage, however, which is where many mistakes can be made if it's not handled right by the presenter or presentees. Let's say you're in the latter camp and you've thrown a proposal out for discussion. There are two "forks" down which the conversation may now travel: 1. Non-technical discussion. Here you have your rebuttals and commentary which doesn't really attempt to grapple with the core issue for which the proposal was originally raised at all. Things like "your proposal sucks and your mom dresses you strangely" or even "sounds good but you know, when it comes right down to it, I'd really almost rather watch the lawn grow than debate the details of an area of the system for which I've so little personal interest. Could you maybe just go implement it somewhere with a group of like-minded folks and leave me alone to work on my stuff? I'll take a look at whatever it is you came up with after it's finished and see if I can use it. Thanks." [Note: This is what so many would really *like* to say, but that's not very polite so they feel compelled to stretch the message out over 4-5 more carefully worded emails :)] A frequent and unfortunate side-effect of non-technical discussion is that it also rapidly leads to divergent threads, any intrinsic value of which is more or less irrelevant to those who joined a mailing list to read postings on a specific range of topics. 2. Technical discussion. All this generally requires is two or more enthusiastically (or at least motivatedly) interested parties to sustain a reasonably healthy point-and-rebuttal refinement process. Comments may be tossed in from time to time from those watching with interest on the sidelines, much as people shout encouragement to prize fighters in the boxing ring, and the whole process generally bears a lot of useful fruit. I enjoy these discussions, whether I'm participating or not. If the conversation has taken the second fork, then you're probably in good shape because you're an engineer and you can handle tech-talk all day without getting your nose too out of joint, though those who don't handle honest technical criticism well may be in for some rough waters. If the conversation takes the first fork, then you're already in rough water and you have to be pretty good if you want to avoid winding up on the rocks at this point. Finesse rather than brute force is the key there. Jordan
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?7205.841932473>