Still poking my head in here once in a while :) On Thu, September 13, 2007 03:38, Aaron Griffin wrote:
Wow. Simo said exactly what I've been feeling for some time now, much more concisely that I even had formulated the thoughts.
Likewise.
That's our problem. We have a disparity here between people who don't know common software development practices, and those who do. Those who know these processes expect everyone to implicitly follow them, and those who don't know them think they're silly.
I've got no experience in the industry... so I guess I can ask here: care to lay them or something down for the uninformed?
This is what we're lacking. And sadly, it's a word everyone hates. We're missing "process".
Last semester I did Organisational Behaviour as the first subject in my business degree. At the end of the course I was wishing I'd used Arch as a focus for my assignment - I could see a lot of issues. That's why I tried to start the goals discussion. We need process, but to formulate those processes, we need to know what we are working towards.
That said, we have always held that the mailing lists are our proper channel of communication. This is important. Hell, it's critical. Saying "hey guess what!" on IRC doesn't cut it. The mailing list not only informs everyone (not all devs are on IRC) but also has archival history.
Exactly. IRC is a secondary, convenience channel, just in case developer Y is online. It annoys me when people say "oh but we discussed it on irc" -- I'm timezone "handicapped" compared to some of you or often cannot make it online.
We need to communicate. We need to follow processes. If you find a bug or a user report, and you're unclear about it - **say something**. The great word being flung around these days is "unilateral" - we're not a group of 30 independent people doing their own things, we're a group of 30 people working together.
Guys, seriously. We're floundering. Something needs to be done, and it's not up to one or two of us. It's up to all of us.
Agreed. Seeing as many people will just "ok" this thread and let it lie... these are some ideas i've thought of in the past... Aaron's defined the problem, let's solve it. - Scheduled Monthly Meetings. Importantly, people need to prepare for the meeting, and be ready to make a decision on the topics listed on the agenda. No more "lets just leave it for the list". - Groups. Divide ourselves. We don't need everyone in a meeting to discuss a mkinitcpio/kernel change, only those interested/concerned/involved with it. Smaller groups will make decisions much easier. Impromptu meetings are easier to organise, and at the end you can say "Kernel group decided this: agree/disagree". - Goals. We need direction. Direction is needed to make decisions. Goals give a foundation for decisions. - Checks. Keep an eye on each other, keep each other in check. If someone's ignoring a bug, or not doing something, make it known, send a mail, point it out. If you don't have time to do something, send a mail to the list and ask someone else. This is where groups would help, making something more people's responsibility. - Stop waiting for arch-repos. It's still not here. We can do some stuff now. James