| ben.ford You should know that your unconstructive post and actions kept me from trying to contribute to this project for 14+ months. While you made an attempt to sound nice, your words and actions effectively took on the roll of the classical (ie, Tolkienesque) version of a Troll: someone who stands at the mouth of a bridge with a cudgel, threatening to ban anyone who attempts to cross for not being "nice" in your interpretation or providing criticism that is sufficiently non-negative. I refrained from responding earlier in hopes that I could somehow phrase this in a non-confrontational way. But I suspect that is part of the game you are trying to induce us to play: "be nice" and non-confrontational or get out. It's a way of keeping the dev community from seeing that their emperor has no clothes. As for me, I lack the natural skill to respond to such childishness in a timely fashion and in a way that is actually constructive. I can say this now with more confidence because, (1) after a year it is absolutely clear that I was providing constructive criticism, and as for being "nice", well, more on that below. And because (2) Puppet is a dying product whose marketplace is necessary shriveling under a host of factors that cannot be addressed here. I cannot say with confidence that anything would change if the devs were to follow my advice given above. It might, however, give me (and therefore others) more confidence that moving forward, the time investment in learning puppet would pay off. I should also note that my advice isn't limited to this particular project. As to one particular point you made: > And no unit test in the world will ever catch something like the directory sort hiera documentation bug That is of course nonsense. Any unit test for this feature would eventually fail as soon as someone edited one of the cases. About tone.... > please do keep your comments constructive and adopt a kinder tone. The fact that you had to mention this suggests to me that you incorrectly confound both "non-constructive" with "negative" and "kind" with "non-negative". In every sense of the phrase, my criticisms were constructive.
- I explained the context in which it was written.
- I did not blame or shame individuals.
- I did not focus on specific mistakes.
- I offered several specific suggestions for improvements.
A "kinder tone" is not appropriate for the context. This is a story board commendation, which explains how users expect to use the software in a broad sense. I am expressing what users demand. Developer feelings should have no role. Nor is "kindness" implied by the code. The code regrettably applies the word "nice", one of the worst words in the English language for its vagueness and ambiguity. The word "nice" over the centuries has lost any real meaning; sometimes it means "polite", sometimes "kind", sometimes "agreeable", sometimes "passive", sometimes "orderly", sometimes "aesthetically pleasing", but often nothing in particular. This was true when I learned 35 years ago from a 90 yr old English teacher and it more true today. The code at least specifies courteousness, politeness, and respect to fellow members, but these are also highly ambiguous, culturally-specific concepts often defined in terms of each other. For instance, respect has conflicting connotations: from seeing "eye to eye" to "admiration" to treating someone as greater than themselves. However, even with a broad understanding of these concepts, it is not conceivable that an issue board for a popular software product would ban pointed criticism which includes negative observations about said product. And in no way could my statement be applied to fellow members of the community. Finally, I will point out that your comments were neither constructive nor kind. In your second paragraph, you sandwiched a faint-praise in between two negatives and a falsehood, as if I told my girlfriend, "I appreciate a women who smells nice. The perfume you wore last time was extraordinary. But please wipe more thoroughly next time." Nice sounding words to convey contempt are simply... hypocritical. Furthermore, they effectively kept me OUT of contributing for fear of violating some vague and arbitrarily interpreted code of conduct. Your actions closed off a well-thought-out broad-based and constructive feedback which was based on decades of experience. What would you say to someone who did that to you? |
