Re: [Pharo-dev] Some clarifications (was DebugSession>>activePC:)

[ducasse via Pharo-dev]

--- Begin Message ---
So when I read your emails everything looks perfect from your side. 
So let it be.

Stef


> On 16 Jan 2019, at 23:15, Eliot Miranda  wrote:
> 
> Hi Stef,
> 
> 
> thanks for taking the time to respond so thoughtfully.
> 
> On Mon, Jan 14, 2019 at 12:20 AM ducasse  > wrote:
> Hi Eliot
> 
> I would like to make some clarifications. 
> 
> Preamble: 
> --
> I was thinking that I should not reply but I think that I have the right to 
> clarify a bit because I do not like several points. 
> I reply as Stef "the guy that had the vision of Pharo and that spent 10 years 
> pushing and building Pharo.”
> So I think that it makes me credible enough.
> 
> You do not have to defend your credentials.  The community is aware of your 
> contributions.
>  
> 
> My points:
> -
> - With you this is always the same: I’m too emotional and it ends 
> everything. Stephane is emotional 
> so we cannot communicate with him. You often place yourself as a 
> professional and that I’m emotional. 
> Could you stop this little game because to me it starts to be a bit 
> boring? Or I will just put a filter and 
> trash systematically your emails. 
> 
> I do not say "Stephane is emotional so we cannot communicate with him.".  I 
> do think you let your emotions show too much and that it makes communication 
> with you difficult.  But more importantly, a leader is more effective if they 
> can reign in their emotions and not criticize people in public, and so on.  I 
> mention your emotionality not to denigrate you but to hope that communication 
> in the community can improve.  You have as much to gain as anyone, arguably 
> more, from not taking things so personally and being less emotional.  If we 
> analyze the above statement we see that it is coercive: stop criticizing my 
> emotionality or I will stop reading your emails.  One could instead be open: 
> "Why is it that you criticize me as being emotional?", "Can you give me 
> evidence of me being emotional?" etc.  Instead you open with a defensive 
> position, and with a threat.  If, later on, having started filtering out my 
> emails, you found you had to respond again, because we have common interests 
> and those interests cause us to need to interact, you will put yourself in a 
> weak position having to back track on your filtering.
> 
> 
> - Last week you told us that time bombing our process was a bad idea 
> in an answer about settings
> keeping references instead of releasing them. 
> 
> No.  I said that my opinion is that time boxing releases is a bad idea. This 
> is not about settings, it is about the content of releases. For me, a release 
> is done when it satisfactorily meets objective release criteria: tests pass, 
> a subset of new features planned for the release are functional, etc.  That 
> releasing something that is incomplete or broken does not help.  I base this 
> on long experience with VisualWorks, Qwaq and Squeak.  
> 
> First this had nothing to do with the problem.
> You see P7 was delayed because we considered that the system was not 
> ready but P7 should be released.   
> May I make the remark that the world is using time-based delivery?
> 
> May I make the remark that what others choose to do does not make it right?
>  
> - About CMake, you may be right that makefile is better than CMake 
> but a part of the world is using 
> CMake and the net result is that we lost our effort and 
> infrastructure just to follow you. Ronie uses CMake.  
> Igor which I consider as a talented developer used CMake because he 
> thought it was the best tool 
> he should use. 
> 
> Yes, and I disagree about the way that they use it, and for good reason.  I 
> have defended my use of Makefiles for a long time, for objective reasons.  I 
> have also proposed good ways for using CMake (to derive a platform-specific 
> header file defining available platform-specific features).  But my objection 
> to Igor's process was that he generated sources on each build.  And my 
> objections to Ronie's use of CMake for the minheadless build are that a) it 
> is slow and b) explicit feature sets are much better than the implicit 
> feature sets that arise when using CMake.
>  
> - About infrastructure and process.
> I wanted to check the REplugin this week end because we should use it 
> since the world
> is using Perl reg-expression and I could not find the code of the 
> plugin on github.
> I saw that some plugin code is not even versioned and only available 
> on a strange ftp and it was surprising 
> to me. I’m still surprised that after 3 years (when esteban requested 
> that all plugin code are grouped together
> in a single place, this is still not the case). 
> 
> Esteban is free to move the code into VMMaker.oscog.  VMMaker.oscog below to 
> 

Re: [Pharo-dev] Some clarifications (was DebugSession>>activePC:)

[Eliot Miranda]

Hi Stef,


thanks for taking the time to respond so thoughtfully.

On Mon, Jan 14, 2019 at 12:20 AM ducasse  wrote:

> Hi Eliot
>
> I would like to make some clarifications.
>
> Preamble:
> --
> I was thinking that I should not reply but I think that I have the right
> to clarify a bit because I do not like several points.
> I reply as Stef "the guy that had the vision of Pharo and that spent 10
> years pushing and building Pharo.”
> So I think that it makes me credible enough.
>

You do not have to defend your credentials.  The community is aware of your
contributions.


>
> My points:
> -
> - With you this is always the same: I’m too emotional and it ends
> everything. Stephane is emotional
> so we cannot communicate with him. You often place yourself as a
> professional and that I’m emotional.
> Could you stop this little game because to me it starts to be a
> bit boring? Or I will just put a filter and
> trash systematically your emails.
>

I do not say "Stephane is emotional so we cannot communicate with him.".  I
do think you let your emotions show too much and that it makes
communication with you difficult.  But more importantly, a leader is more
effective if they can reign in their emotions and not criticize people in
public, and so on.  I mention your emotionality not to denigrate you but to
hope that communication in the community can improve.  You have as much to
gain as anyone, arguably more, from not taking things so personally and
being less emotional.  If we analyze the above statement we see that it is
coercive: stop criticizing my emotionality or I will stop reading your
emails.  One could instead be open: "Why is it that you criticize me as
being emotional?", "Can you give me evidence of me being emotional?" etc.
Instead you open with a defensive position, and with a threat.  If, later
on, having started filtering out my emails, you found you had to respond
again, because we have common interests and those interests cause us to
need to interact, you will put yourself in a weak position having to back
track on your filtering.


- Last week you told us that time bombing our process was a bad
> idea in an answer about settings
> keeping references instead of releasing them.
>

No.  I said that my opinion is that time boxing releases is a bad idea.
This is not about settings, it is about the content of releases. For me, a
release is done when it satisfactorily meets objective release criteria:
tests pass, a subset of new features planned for the release are
functional, etc.  That releasing something that is incomplete or broken
does not help.  I base this on long experience with VisualWorks, Qwaq and
Squeak.

First this had nothing to do with the problem.
> You see P7 was delayed because we considered that the system was
> not ready but P7 should be released.
> May I make the remark that the world is using time-based delivery?
>

May I make the remark that what others choose to do does not make it right?


> - About CMake, you may be right that makefile is better than CMake
> but a part of the world is using
> CMake and the net result is that we lost our effort and
> infrastructure just to follow you. Ronie uses CMake.
> Igor which I consider as a talented developer used CMake because
> he thought it was the best tool
> he should use.
>

Yes, and I disagree about the way that they use it, and for good reason.  I
have defended my use of Makefiles for a long time, for objective reasons.
I have also proposed good ways for using CMake (to derive a
platform-specific header file defining available platform-specific
features).  But my objection to Igor's process was that he generated
sources on each build.  And my objections to Ronie's use of CMake for the
minheadless build are that a) it is slow and b) explicit feature sets are
much better than the implicit feature sets that arise when using CMake.


> - About infrastructure and process.
> I wanted to check the REplugin this week end because we should use
> it since the world
> is using Perl reg-expression and I could not find the code of the
> plugin on github.
> I saw that some plugin code is not even versioned and only
> available on a strange ftp and it was surprising
> to me. I’m still surprised that after 3 years (when esteban
> requested that all plugin code are grouped together
> in a single place, this is still not the case).
>

Esteban is free to move the code into VMMaker.oscog.  VMMaker.oscog below
to the community.  It is wrong to expect me, a member of that community, to
do all the leg work.  The VM is called opensmalltalk-vm for a reason.


> - Did it not look strange to you that Esteban left the VM list in
> the past?
> Esteban looks like a reasonable and stable person to me.
>

Would you like to expand on this?  I find your sentence 

[Pharo-dev] Some clarifications (was DebugSession>>activePC:)

[ducasse]

Hi Eliot

I would like to make some clarifications. 

Preamble: 
--
I was thinking that I should not reply but I think that I have the right to 
clarify a bit because I do not like several points. 
I reply as Stef "the guy that had the vision of Pharo and that spent 10 years 
pushing and building Pharo.”
So I think that it makes me credible enough.

My points:
-
- With you this is always the same: I’m too emotional and it ends 
everything. Stephane is emotional 
so we cannot communicate with him. You often place yourself as a 
professional and that I’m emotional. 
Could you stop this little game because to me it starts to be a bit 
boring? Or I will just put a filter and 
trash systematically your emails. 

- Last week you told us that time bombing our process was a bad idea in 
an answer about settings
keeping references instead of releasing them. 
First this had nothing to do with the problem.
You see P7 was delayed because we considered that the system was not 
ready but P7 should be released.   
May I make the remark that the world is using time-based delivery?

- About CMake, you may be right that makefile is better than CMake but 
a part of the world is using 
CMake and the net result is that we lost our effort and infrastructure 
just to follow you. Ronie uses CMake.  
Igor which I consider as a talented developer used CMake because he 
thought it was the best tool 
he should use. 

- About infrastructure and process.
I wanted to check the REplugin this week end because we should use it 
since the world
is using Perl reg-expression and I could not find the code of the 
plugin on github.
I saw that some plugin code is not even versioned and only available on 
a strange ftp and it was surprising 
to me. I’m still surprised that after 3 years (when esteban requested 
that all plugin code are grouped together
in a single place, this is still not the case). 

- Did it not look strange to you that Esteban left the VM list in the 
past? 
Esteban looks like a reasonable and stable person to me.

- You are systematically telling to me that I’m offended when people 
criticized us. I’m not offended by critics.
We are not offended by critics. 
We have internal emails that are much more violent about our own 
process. 
We are not blind and we reflect on our own process and we invite people 
to REPORT problems. 
Now we ask people to be credible when they do it because we are busy
- report situation
- step by step reproducibility
- proportionality of the voice versus the problem
- and not been offensive

We did not see any official reports about problems that we may have 
introduced. 

- You are vocal about “instability". And you report that one method 
changed. Seriously?
Are you not exagerating a bit?
Let us talk about instability:
- When we talk about instability we talk about the fact that we 
cannot use for real ephemerons 
because they corrupt the memory and that we get random crash.
- We had instability when we have memory leaks that randomly 
slows down Pharo. 
- We had instability which delays our release with a bug in FFI 
that made cairo crash on windows 64 bits.

If you want to interact with us (and not only me, because I’m the tip of the 
iceberg
and many people are frustrated by your attitude), let us start with positive 
communication and attitude:

- You express your problems and we see how we (together) can fix them. 

- You can contribute by writing tests and by entering bug entries in 
the bug tracker.

About Pharo:

We understand that some people do not like it but we do not force anybody use 
and make business with it. 
Now I want to make something super clear: Pharo will not sacrifice agility and 
improvements on the altar of 
compatibility with Squeak. 

Pharo will change because Pharo is agile and because many things should be 
improved. 
We pay real attention about backwards compatibility. Much more than people 
think. 
Because we have many external projects and libraries that we support. 
Now if Pharo is used to build the VM then we will have to find a way to pay 
attention. 
And we will reinvest in building a process that checks this. 

Our problem is that integration time cannot take hours and right now validating 
Pharo is
a bit too long. We will work on it. 

We strongly advocate to invest in tests. Tests are a good mechanisms to support 
evolution. 
If you have tests we can automatically rewrite deprecated methods and we will 
use this more often. 

We finally start to have:
- a better compiler and not an ancient one which reported error as