On Apr 27, 2013, at 6:46AM, Jorge <[email protected]> wrote:

> On 24/04/2013, at 23:50, Mikeal Rogers wrote:
> 
>> I feel really bad for people that ask incredibly simple questions on this 
>> list.
> 
> I feel really bad whenever I read *your* posts dismissing other people's work.

Nobody is telling you not to publish what you like, nobody is telling yo not to 
promote it, responsibly. But, it is disrespectful to the community to steer new 
users in a direction that is not consistent with what the majority of node 
users are using to solve these issues. Many people posting to this list don't 
know that there are a few people who respond to, literally, every post about 
flow control to promote their favorite library, and that they do not represent 
the majority of node users, which one would expect the response to be on **the 
nodejs mailing list**.

> 
>> The solution nearly everyone in this community uses is the async library: 
>> <snip>
> 
> How can you know?

With actual numbers, which I provided.

> 
>> Its currently depended on by 1901 other packages.
> 
> Cool, but there's many many more than that users of node.

Roughly 6.7% of the registry is using async, it's significantly larger than any 
of the libraries posted repeatedly by you and others in response to simple 
questions. Async is the second most depended on module in the registry, second 
only to underscore. If every functional programming question was flooded with 
alternatives to underscore I'd be writing the same email.

> 
>> It's the defacto-standard for flow control in node.js.
> 
> How can you know? (You *can't*)

We can look at actual numbers and metrics, which I've done.

> 
>> The only people that don't use it
> 
> The "only" people? Are you implying they're just a few? If not, you wouldn't 
> say 'only'. You can't know how many people don't use it.

You're right, we don't know the exact number of users, but we do have enough 
metrics to have a good idea of the disparity in usage between different 
libraries.

> 
>> are people that prefer to do everything by hand
> 
> How can you know? (You *can't*)

Many people prefer to do everything by hand, isaacs is one of them, i was for 
years. These people exist :)

> 
>> and people that wrote their own pet library,
> 
> Why "pet" library? Your prejudices? Dismissing other people's work?

"pet" because you make it your job to reply to every question on the list 
promoting a library that, by all accountable measures, it not very widely used.

> 
>> anyone asking this question is unlikely to fall in to one of those 
>> categories.
> 
> People asking this question want to hear valid answers for this question.

People asking questions want to know what the community is using to solve them. 
A portion of that community, which you eagerly represent, will always use 
libraries that differ from the most widely accepted ones. The answers on this 
list, if we were to help new users achieve their goals, would represent usage 
and acceptance in the community at large not the loudest opinions of people 
that choose to use or write alternatives.

Go ahead and build what you love, that's great! But try to be a little 
responsible for the experience of people new to node and recognize that most 
people probably want to use what *most* of the other node developers are using.

> 
>> This list fills up with people advocating the library they wrote
> 
> Which is fine. They're proud of their work and that's fine.

That would be great is this list was a marketing tool for libraries, it isn't, 
it's the support structure for people new to node. Please treat it respectfully.

> 
>> that almost nobody uses,
> 
> How can you know? (You *can't*)

Why do you hate numbers?

> 
> 
>> If this is to be a place for new users to ask simple questions we need to 
>> find a way to discourage this behavior.
> 
> It is your behaviour what ought to be discouraged.

Let me ask you a question: do you think that when people ask a simple flow 
control question on the nodejs mailing list that what they really want isn't an 
answer consistent with what most node developers use but what you, in your 
opinion, think is better?

Many of us have strong opinions about flow control and don't flood the list 
with them and instead direct people toward what most other people seem to be 
using. Myself and others on this list are probably not the "typical" node users 
and we point new people in the direction of modules they will probably find 
easier than what we would personally choose. That's because we want to help 
people find what they are looking for, not what we *want* them to choose. I'm 
asking that you do the same.

This isn't about *your* library and *your* work, it's about trying to help 
people new to node find what they are looking for. If someone asks about 
generators nobody is going to fault Bruno for mentioning that his library 
supports both generators and callbacks, that's entirely relevant and being that 
generators aren't widely adopted elsewhere Bruno, and his library streamline, 
probably have more experience working with them than anyone else. But, when 
someone asks how to do async iterations they should get a simple answer that is 
consistent with what most people, especially new people, are doing.

> 
> Bye,
> -- 
> ( Jorge )();
> 
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