Hi Francois and all,
On 1 Aug., 05:52, Francois Bissey <francois.bis...@canterbury.ac.nz>
wrote:
> In the case of sage-marketing, no impact what so ever since I had no clue
> such a list existed.
QED...
> It is a
> bit of pity. sage-on-gentoo generates a bit of traffic on the gentoo-science
> mailing list and the occasional thread here.
sage-on-gentoo? Is that yet another list I haven't been aware of?
> I guess there are a number of emails that I had with Burcin about sage-prefix
> and some other members of sage-on-gentoo that would be material for sage-devel
!!!
> but some people may object us discusing it here.
!!!
That would be more than a shame, IMO! See below.
> Plus some of these people actually favor private email.
I could understand that the technical details of a sub-project are
discussed in private or on IRC or on a small list. But eventually,
people must be made aware of the results obtained.
If there were good results then all will benefit, and one must not
forget that acknowledgement by the community probably is the most
important reward for voluntary unsalaried contributors.
And if the results are negative ("we didn't solve the problem and
encountered the following obstacles:..."), there is still the
possibility that people from the crowd have a good idea or a fresh
view on the problem, so that progress can finally be made.
There is yet another psychological aspect, in particular for new
potential developers:
When I started working with Sage and asked a bunch of questions, I was
very impressed that I got a response typically within a few hours, and
that a bug that I reported was fixed within one day and the bug fix
released within a fortnight. I found it very encouraging, and it was
one major reason for me starting to contribute.
But what could happen today?
A novice has a question. Out of the novice's ignorance of the
specialised lists, s/he would ask on sage-devel or sage-support. Two
things could happen.
1) People are busy with their small lists, and are not reading sage-
devel or sage-support frequently enough. Thus, the question remains
unanswered for at least a day - compared with one or two hours when I
was "young". Or worse, it falls off the first screen, and isn't
answered at all. Big frustration, novice is leaving.
2) People object to discuss certain topics on sage-devel or sage-
support. Say, the novice has a question on coercion. Then, s/he may be
pointed to sage-algebra. That's the first frustration: S/he is
required to join yet another list, repeat the question there, and wait
for an answer. But since not many people read the small list, the
novice may wait a couple of days. Big frustration, novice is leaving.
That's why I think that the attitude of banning certain subjects and
interning them into specialised lists is dangerous for Sage.
Best regards,
Simon
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