Hi Michael, as I wrote: I don't want to have a long discussion here and I stick to this. I don't want to make this thread one of the funny but useless discussions that arise when people post their rants and hope to make their comments looking nicer by decorating them with some funny puns and stories. But you asked for it. :-)
All fruitful considerations of any matter need open minds on both sides (yes, of course this includes "my" side!) and a certain amount of tolerance and politeness - nothing you can expect in an e-mail discussion. ;-) And of course: all generalizations are bad! :-) So let's talk about this in Koper. Ciao, Mathias michael meeks wrote: > Hi Mathias, > > Well - I look forward to OOoCon :-) > > On Thu, 2005-08-04 at 18:21 +0200, Mathias Bauer wrote: >> I don't want to start a discussion about the spec process on this >> list, but I also didn't want to ignore your (IMHO) unqualified rant. > > So - this is a straw man. Ultimately all process has some marginal > benefit - of course, otherwise no-one would propose it[1]. I'm certain > that people can think of lots of good reasons why it should take ~10 > times as long to start a business in Germany as in the UK[2], or why it > should take ~25 times as long in Venezuela[2]. I'm also certain that > there are some excellent reasons for this - in the long term - etc. > etc. > OTOH. some Economists think that taking 4 man-months to start a > business is rather excessive - and leads to people getting de-motivated > and not bothering - which hurts everyone, lowers quality of service, > freedom of choice, etc. etc. It also appears there is a different > national balance in what people are prepared to tolerate in terms of > stifling process :-) > > So - yes, even the most crazy process has some marginal use - but it's > *vital* to balance the benefit vs. that :-) - and that's particularly > true for trivial / small tasks. That is - unless the process is designed > to slow down change - which, I guess is legitimate enough in some > circumstances. > > I'd like to argue that for small businesses / tiny features the > regulatory burden should be extremely light. > >> You might argue that the specification does contain too much things that >> *currently* appear useless, but you should consider that none of us has >> a working crystal ball, so we don't know wich information about a >> particular feature might be important in one or two years. > > Then surely, the work can be done at the time (in the future), as/when > it's needed instead of doing large amounts of work for an admittedly > vague & unquantifiable, and potentially unused future benefit. > >> I can show you enough "good" examples where exactly this happened >> because people provided only "some simple level of functional spec" >> as you suggested. > > I look forward to hearing about them when we meet in person. > >> I understand that you obviously are not interested in the stuff any >> longer once it is integrated > > Haha :-) you understand wrong. > >> Nevertheless I hope to see you at the OOoCon and I'm looking forward to >> having some interesting and inspiring conversations with you, of course >> also about the spec process. :-) > > Quite :-) I'm hoping to propose a 'Design Requirements' process - such > that nothing is ever written without first reviewing all previous work > in the area, reading all relevant patents, research papers, getting a > full security design review, getting crypto approval, holding several > meetings to elect the iTeam from the community ... > > Amusedly, > > Michael. > > [1] - for a great example of me getting carried away with over-complex > process, see the 'GEP' proceedure - a less used piece of junk I've yet > to see. > [2] - http://rru.worldbank.org/Documents/PapersLinks/551.pdf -- Mathias Bauer - OpenOffice.org Application Framework Project Lead Please reply to the list only, [EMAIL PROTECTED] is a spam sink. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
