I think the GWT gang sums it up pretty well in their "Please Be Friendly" section...
http://code.google.com/webtoolkit/makinggwtbetter.html#befriendly As they say, "There's never a reason to be antagonistic or dismissive toward anyone who is sincerely trying to contribute to a discussion" Now I do see your point that people could just lighten up a little bit and make some mental separation between saying "this code is very, very stupid" and "you, some actual person, is very, very stupid". I've seen code that's very stupid in plenty of projects and, heck, I've even written some code that was very stupid. We should be able to identify that a piece of code is stupid without walking on eggshells around the topic. This doesn't waive your responsibility to keep things friendly. It doesn't add to the discussion to use overly colorful language or curse words that will obvious inflame people's emotions. The first rule you should keep in mind is that no-one *has* to work with you here. Don't be unfriendly, it doesn't help you or the project and you will create distance between yourself and your potential collaborators. ----- "Adam Heath" wrote: > Replying to one of my own mails... > So, people took offense at the subject of the email I wrote. That's > the only thing I can see wrong, and what people are complaining about. > Ok, I can see that people may be offended by that. So what? Here's why. > If people would take the time to look at the possibility that I may > have found something broken, and it *does* turn out to be true, then > woo! We have identified a bug, and we can go about getting it fixed. > That's a good thing. The problem wasn't known before now, but now it > is, so one unknown bug is gone. > Or, the other possibility is that I am wrong, and then I'm just an idiot. > Wouldn't it be better, to spend time reading the actual mail, reading > the actual code, and seeing if I am right or wrong? Instead, what has > happened, is that people haven't even looked at the code in question; > the immediate response is to attack me for even suggesting that a > problem exists. > When I sent my original email, I had spent time debugging and reading > code. Instead of acknowledging that useful endeavor, people go on the > offensive. Are we as a community not capable of taking criticism at > all? Even when bugs actually *do* exist? > Note, I was not criticizing any particular person. This code is very > complex, with a lot of moving parts. Some of those parts may have > been added over a period of years(altho most are from before the > apache era days), so there may be a whole series of circumstances that > cause this issue I have to occur. > ps: If anyone responds to this mail saying that I am being compative > in *this* mail, then they are fucking around, wasting time. I'm sick > of such people reading *way* to much into these things, and reading > them unlike any normal sane person would understand them. This is a > repeat problem on this list with some people, over and over not > talking about problems as they are discovered, and instead just > attacking the deliver. > pps: If you haven't figured it out from my first ps:, yes, I'm pissed. > ppps: Actually, not really. Just upset that others have converted > this very simple thread, about *fixing* a problem, into on attack on > my character. -- Ean Schuessler, CTO Brainfood.com e...@brainfood.com - http://www.brainfood.com - 214-720-0700 x 315
