On 6/13/2011 9:49 AM, TreKing wrote: > On Mon, Jun 13, 2011 at 4:41 AM, Al Sutton <[email protected] > <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: >> Yes, Googlers may have the 20% time, but if you were told you >> could have 20% of your time to do what you want would you really go >> and choose to spend it in the lion pit that is Market support? > > To answer your question, yes, if I had 20% free time and gave a shit > about the product I was working on, I would dedicate some minimal > amount of that to answering questions and helping build a good > relationship with the people using said product. I already spend a > good chunk of time helping out on the Market "support" forum, sans > 20% free time to spare.
At the risk of annoying any lurking Googlers out there, I have to agree with TreKing on this. I would also make an effort at developer support for any product I worked on. I still make an effort on a product I worked on over a year ago, in fact, and I periodically contribute to the Android NDK forums. But I spent about five years doing developer support, and I really don't mind it. A vast majority of developers rate developer support as somewhat below "root canal" on the things they'd enjoy doing, and my suspicion is that, through random chance, the set of developers who work on the Android Market all fall into that category. Face it: Programmers are not typically the most outgoing of humans. Some even fall into the Autistic spectrum (e.g., Aspergers) and consider social interactions to be painful, but many are just not as practiced (or comfortable) at making public statements. And simply being WILLING to do it often makes it easier and faster through practice -- I've worked with some awesome developers who tell me it takes them WAY longer to do support than it took me (for instance, when I was on vacation and they needed to take over for a week or two). > I'm not saying they should devote millions of dollars to customer > service employees, phones lines, and the whole shebang. I'm saying > that at an absolute minimum there should be ONE person from the > Market team that we can all point to and say "this person contributes > and helps developers with Market issues". > > Look at this list: post a general framework question and more than > likely Dianne will slap you with more information that you thought > you needed. Having issues with the tools? Xav is all over it. > Graphics question? Cue Romain. Don't understand the compiler? fadden > will probably answer your questions. And every other Google product > I've ever needed help with has a group, blog, and / or forum that > has massive contribution from their respective Googlers. On the NDK forums there's David Turner as well (in addition to Dianne and fadden who also post there frequently), just to give another call-out to an awesome Google developer support engineer. > Where is the ONE single individual that cares enough about their own > product that they take time to help out every once in a while? > Again, I'm not expecting miracles here - how about answering one > support forum question every day? One a week? A month? As I said above, it's not (necessarily) about caring, but about having the people (and English?) skills necessary, along with willingness to interact in a public forum. Obviously you're willing to post in a public forum. So am I. I'd put money on the guess that none of the senior engineers on Market tend to post in public forums much at all, if ever. Though the additional pressure of being the public face of a developer tool might be what prevents them from wanting to post. In any event, the vitriol aimed at them isn't going to encourage any of them to step up, if they do end up reading any of these threads. If I were going to start working on the Market at Google tomorrow, I'd be hesitant to enter the fray, given the emotions built up around the Market -- and any prior problems wouldn't have even been my responsibility. Imagine if it were your fault that it had broken one or more times...jumping on to the forums now would require quite a thick skin. Tim -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Android Discuss" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-discuss?hl=en.
