"If I say 'people from country X are lazy' or even 'many/most of them are lazy', most people of that country, especially those who are definitively not will be rightfully offended. It is a generalisation that creates a bad reputation which is unfair."
As a Greek believe me I can sympathize with anyone been called "lazy" , I would never dare to believe that Pharo developers are lazy. I think , and this is only an assumption, that coders and not just pharo coders, love to improve their code and they see documentation as something that it takes them away from what they love doing. So for me at least is not a question of laziness. The problem is that I cannot state a negative opinion without the possibility of someone being offended. "open a bug entry." thanks Stephan I will do so :) On Fri, Jun 20, 2014 at 1:47 PM, Sven Van Caekenberghe <[email protected]> wrote: > You are not targeting me, you are targeting everybody, that is why I, as a > member of this community trying to improve things, feel offended. > > By saying 'the class comments are not good', you imply all of them. > > If I say 'people from country X are lazy' or even 'many/most of them are > lazy', most people of that country, especially those who are definitively > not will be rightfully offended. It is a generalisation that creates a bad > reputation which is unfair. > > Of course you don't have to call out individual people, but if there are > large packages out there (inside Pharo even) with 10s or 100s of classes > with zero comments, then we as users have every right to say WTF !? And for > me, those are terrible parts (with respects to documentation), because it > is very hard to even start looking at the code and find your way. > > Spec _is_ partially documented - the website www.spec.org and the papers > are pretty good - it took Ben and Johan lots of time and I appreciate that > a lot. > > The problem of Spec is that it is a bit strange, hard to get your finger > on (it is a UI specification, abstraction and composition layer, not a GUI > toolkit as such). It confuses people (things are called model, but these > are UI models, not domain models). Furthermore, it evolved a lot so that > there are historic inconsistencies between current code, examples and > documentation. > > But I know you are helping to improve Pharo, especially around > documentation, so I am not angry at all - I know for a fact that the > situation around documentation has been improving a lot, and improvements > accelerated in the last year. > > On 20 Jun 2014, at 12:17, kilon alios <[email protected]> wrote: > > > " It sounds a bit like there is no documentation at all" > > > > Ι never implied this, and I refuse to believe that my wording can sound > like that. I just say that the class comments are usually too small and > many important classes are not documented at all. I don't know why you > think I targeted you specifically with my comments. > > > > "terrible parts" is not the word I will use. I find the lack of > documentation frustrating but that does not make the classes themselves > "terrible". Pharo has its fair share of messy code but I have failed to see > something I would call terrible. > > > > Its awesome that you spent large amount of time documenting, but all I > said is that documenting key classes in the range of 10-15 lines each > should not take a lot of time and pharo developers should do it. Thats my > opinion, you are more than welcome to disagree or ignore it. > > > > I am willing to help any way I can. I am not willing to put blame on > people. > > > > I do feel however because I believe I am a logical person that people > that are introduced to Pharo will be disappointed in this department as I > am. I think this is unfair to Pharo, because you guys have put a lot of > effort in it that partly goes to waste. Imagine what would happen if people > had easy access to the libraries , how many more would contribute and help > pharo. > > > > I cannot imagine where I would be if there was no PBE or PFTE or the > class comments that already are in there. For me any form of documentation > is like bread and butter. > > > > Am I unreasonable ? > > > > I hope not. > > > > > > > > > > On Fri, Jun 20, 2014 at 11:45 AM, Sven Van Caekenberghe <[email protected]> > wrote: > > I am a bit offended by the generalisations in your remarks, Kilon. It > sounds a bit like there is no documentation at all. > > > > There are several books, covering many of the high level aspects. > > > > There is lots of documentation in the image, many class comments are > pretty good, as are many method comments - even quite a lot of > implementation comments can be found. > > > > OK, there are some terrible parts as well, and some people seems to make > a sport out of _not_ writing any comments at all - please call them out > specifically, but don't generalise. > > > > I have spent a large amount of time documenting all code that I > published as well as writing separate high level documentation and > tutorials for most of it as well as for Pharo in general. I know many > others who did the same. > > > > On 20 Jun 2014, at 10:10, Yuriy Tymchuk <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > > I have not worked with spec a lot, but I think that it’s nice in terms > of comments, they are very helpful. Also lately I’ve worked with Roassal2 - > no comments at all, but you can ask Alex for help :) > > > > > > Uko > > > > > > On 20 Jun 2014, at 10:06, kilon alios <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > > >> yes good idea Damien , thank you. Right now I am working with Rubric > building a new workspace tool basing it on the rubric example. Spec and > Morphic are on my list too. > > >> > > >> Should I open also an issue on the bug tracker with a slice of my > class comment ? Or is posting it here enough ? > > >> > > >> > > >> On Fri, Jun 20, 2014 at 10:47 AM, Damien Cassou < > [email protected]> wrote: > > >> > > >> On Fri, Jun 20, 2014 at 9:10 AM, kilon alios <[email protected]> > wrote: > > >> Saying that I will start adding class comments wherever I can but > obviously the people that have created the code are far more qualified than > me . > > >> > > >> > > >> I suggest that you ask on this mailing list when you would like to > have documentation on a class and you can't write it yourself. That way, we > all will read the answer. Hopefully, someone, will merge this and write a > class comment. > > >> > > >> > > >> -- > > >> Damien Cassou > > >> http://damiencassou.seasidehosting.st > > >> > > >> "Success is the ability to go from one failure to another without > losing enthusiasm." > > >> Winston Churchill > > >> > > > > > > > > > > > >
