Hum de dum. Been working on code for five clients, for the last
15 hours, and what's this? An old fashioned flamewar?
On Monday, July 9, 2001, at 10:52 AM, Zeev Suraski wrote:
> Sascha,
> As a matter of fact, some of your negative contributions, i.e.,
> having a horrible attitude and a limitless ego, caused PHP's
> development a great deal of damage.
I have this to say, about that....
I'm a doc guy. Not much social status here. I read C, and write
and patch it, but my contributions to the PHP project itself are
primarilly about docs, about making php usabe, and viable, for
PHP users.
You know what would make me really happy? Chucking the code that
generates the most bug fixes, the most doc notes, the most
complaints and questions.
Why? Excessive WTF factors. You want to know where our greatest
bug problems are? Look to the supposedly "bogus" bug reports.
Want to know what code sucks the most for end users? Look to
errata notes, and bug reports. If it's complex to learn and
understand, then it's broken.
Period.
If your code sucks, people will complain.
I don't care how skilled or insightful or how elegantly abstract
your C is, this isn't C. It's PHP. I don't care how great your
"über ideas" about code constructs, or new functions, are, if
you *don't* make them easier to use, while adding important
value to PHP users, your *code* is the problem, not the user,
not the docs.
I don't even know (haven't looked) at who wrote it, but the two
most damaging contribs in WTF terms have been our OO, and
sessions. Both have generated lots of confusion, scorn,
derision, errata, and bug reports, for being
not-quite-straightforward and sensible.
Of course, if neither of these two slams hit you two, why don't
you compare numbers on your personal code, and see who has had
more bug complaints/doc complaints/etc about your code, as
viewed by those who have to work with it on a daily basis. (I
have no idea who I just pissed off, but please realize the bug
reports and errata are more than just "bitchy users", they are
also ratings on how usable the code is.... and both of these
fail.)
> Perhaps I'll be surprised, but my guess is that most people
> could live seeing you disappear from the PHP Group and PHP
> development in general, a few lightyears before they would like
> to see me disappear from there.
Nobody is irreplaceable. There's thousands of guys waiting to
get the same fame, or power, or bragging rights, as you two.
Many are as, or more, talented, knoledgeable, skillful, or
educated as you both, but weren't in the right places at the
right time.
> It doesn't mean that neither of us has to step away from this
> project, but perhaps you should finally take some time to
> figure out the meaning of the word humility, like our Norwegian
> friend once suggested.
<cough>
The very concept of the star-chamber-like "php-group" has raised
some eyebrows. ESR's book highlights both the advantages, and
disadvantages, of this process. If this was an open-source
project, one of you could just fork off, :-) ....but right now
you're having a war in front of the troops.... bad.
I suggest you both learn to STFU[1], and listen. Humility is not
something you can teach, so much as something you can learn.
Others choose not to learn it, and eventually they are ignored
for being the always-right-and-insulting-you-for-it individuals
they are, which, of course, is exactly this kind of person that
*nobody* will listen to. Nobody cares about you if you're right
if you're right *all the time*.
Since I've suffered ego-driven scorn from both of ya'll over the
last year or so, I'd say some general STFU time is needed, so
you two can calm down, and ascend to guruhood behavior, rather
than fighting like feudal warlords in ancient japan. Maybe you
can give the PHP lists wisdom instead of simple flamewars.
> At 20:35 9/7/2001, Sascha Schumann wrote:
>> Zeev,
>> I've given you more than half a year already to add the
>> necessary logic to support accepting strings as input and
>> exactly nothing happened.
Hey, Sascha, we (as a project) get patches that take *years* to
commit. Since I feel like the newbie in this war, I'll put it
this way:
1. It doesn't matter if the code "works".
2. It doesn't matter if *you* "really need it".
3. It doesn't matter how long it takes, doing the hasty wrong
thing is worse then "doing nothing".
I sugest you chill, and watch a few good movies or read a book.
(You too, Zeev). I recommend _Gödel, Escher, and Bach, The
eternal Golden braid_, and if you've read that, try Joyce's
_Ulysses_ or the movies in the Wim Wenders section of your local
movie rental store.
>> And I certainly don't want to burn all
>> the dynamic of the PHP project by sitting around and hoping
>> that you "may" change your license at some undetermined point
>> in the future. Thanks, but no.
I hate the license too. (Check the archives if ya want...) It's
not like it's unchangeable, though.....
However, it can't be changed by attacking somebody publicly.
That's a really bad way of trying to do something.
It _can_ be changed by respecting an author's work, and
appealing to their sense of community, their sense of
collaboration, their love of code, of the language(s), and by
providing them with other channels for income.
-Bop
[1]STFU=Shut The Fuck Up.
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