Justin C Calvarese wrote:
> Georg Wrede wrote:
>> Alexander Panek wrote:
>>> Hello NG citizens,
>>>
> 
> ...
> 
>> I think (or should I say, my guess is) that it's about the recent shift of power in D development. In the old days, it was this NG, and none but this NG that was the source, the forum and the ultimate judge, of what was and was not to become D features.
> 
> The newsgroup was the place to discuss possible changes, but there was no confusion that Walter was the one who made the actual decision.
> 
>> Today, it seems, the majority of new decisions are created outside this NG, and handed to us "as given". And most of the time it's Andrei that first tells us about the things.
> 
> The majority of new decisions have always been made outside of the newsgroup, but we'd all find out when we read Walter's surprising post in the newsgroup.
> 
> But now it seems like Walter has a spokesperson who makes the announcements for him.
> 
>> I would downright expect this to *piss off* quite some participants. I for myself have taken a vacation here (as the regulars probably have noticed) because I feel D is in /very good and competent hands now/.
>>
>> Before Walter brought Andrei really into this, I kept writing that we really need some Academic Rigor, Thorough Insight, and Profound Diligence, at this stage of D development. After some 12-18 months of this, Andrei suddenly started participating. Thank you, Walter!
>>
>> I think that JCC could corroborate this by finding the appropriate quotes (man, did I ever see a person more adept at that! But, please don't do it JCC, this time I'm rhetoric!)
> 
> There's no need to drag me into this. I'll let you do your own research. ;)
> 
> I don't know what's going on here. I've known Kris and John for quite a while from their involvement in D projects, and I trust that they don't have any agenda except to improve D and spread the joy of D. But other people might have other goals.
> 
> In any case, I don't see any signs that the D community is splitting into 2 factions (as the OP seems to suggest): pro-Phobos and pro-Tango (or anti-Tango and pro-Tango). If anything, it just seems to be some sort of nebulous disagreement between Kris and Andrei.
> 

Hopefully. I've just seen those threads got out of hand a bit, especially the last one deep down in a subsubsubsubmessage. Sure, it happens all the time everywhere that some people just can't come to a consensus on one topic, but that's no reason to "go on the warpath" (this sounds way more evil in English, than the pendant to that phrase n German :P).

I just wanted to appeal against verbal violance and a fractal newsgroup.. :P ;)

Walter Bright wrote:
> janderson wrote:
>> BTW:  Does anyone have any websites on effectively dealing with people (face to face).  Its actually something I am continually trying to improve in myself.
> 
> These two have helped me a lot:
> 
> "How to Win Friends and Influence People", by Dale Carnegie
> 
> "The Power of Positive Thinking", by Norman Vincent Peale
> 
> They're the classics, and for good reason.

Thanks.  I'll try to order these from Amazon.

BTW for anyone else I found these for those books:

http://www.westegg.com/unmaintained/carnegie/win-friends.html
http://www.marin.cc.ca.us/~don/Study/Hcontents.html

They give a good summery.

Hum, BTW, let me recommend this Google presentation that featured on slashdot some time ago:
"How Open Source Projects Survive Poisonous People "
http://video.google.nl/videoplay?docid=-4216011961522818645
Note that the talk is more than just about "poisonous people", but community management in general.
(And just to be 100% clear, I'm not calling poisonous to anyone, I didn't even read that stdio/standard-libs threads, so I don't know what went on there)

-- 
Bruno Medeiros - MSc in CS/E student
http://www.prowiki.org/wiki4d/wiki.cgi?BrunoMedeiros#D

Bruno Medeiros wrote:
> Hum, BTW, let me recommend this Google presentation that featured on slashdot some time ago:
> "How Open Source Projects Survive Poisonous People "
> http://video.google.nl/videoplay?docid=-4216011961522818645
> Note that the talk is more than just about "poisonous people", but community management in general.
> (And just to be 100% clear, I'm not calling poisonous to anyone, I didn't even read that stdio/standard-libs threads, so I don't know what went on there)
> 

I think this is well worth watching, even for non-open-source products.

-Joel

Alexander Panek wrote:
> Please, step back a bit and think twice about what you're going to post, for the sake of productivity and helping each other. There's no point in killing each other, verbally, as we're all grown up and shouldn't actually let ourselves be led by our animal instincts that much.

It's not right to expect John Reimer and kris to be silent without some kind of resolution.  They have aired grievances with a backing, and it is understandable that these should not simply be silenced for the purpose of 'keeping the NG together.' They have said specifically what about Andrei's online presence they found objectionable, so a general counter to such arguments does not do them credit; the correct way to respond to such points is address each of them individually and specifically. Calling it a dead horse because we do not share these objections is unfair to them, as I see it.


When I first read the stdio threads, I very much agreed with the JJR's and kris's point of view: Andrei seemed very pushy, seeming to repeat the idea, 'Phobos is now really good at IO, so why isn't Tango.' Andrei raised objection after objection to what Tango did: first speed, then readln discarding the newline; then speed again; then objecting to the call-chained code sample; objecting to Cout(a)(b) in general instead of Cout(a,b); then objecting to C/stdio incompatibility. Taken in context, it is easy to see this as an attack on Tango:
   1. Andrei talks about Phobos improvements.
   2. Andrei starts 3 successive threads questioning Tango's collections, and IO
   3. kris and Sean asked Andrei to submit Tango tickets; Andrei didn't.
   4. Comparisons between Phobos and Tango ensue; Tango appears to perform better, so Andrei's objections could be taken as 'excuses' for Phobos

Could.

This is certainly how I read it at first, so JJR and kris's posts about Andrei seemed spot on. However, on re-reading the stdio threads, with Andrei's posts in particular, his responses seem much more straight-forward: the objections he raises *do* have merit, and he seems  to be trying to help avoid bad design decisions in Tango IO -- a tough critique, but an altruistic one.

Yes, he does compare Tango with Phobos at times, like in http://www.digitalmars.com/webnews/newsgroups.php?art_group=digitalmars.D&article_id=51365 but that can be interpreted as him pointing out how a 'bona fide programmer' would see the choices for D. The comparison is to illustrate the problem, not to flame Tango.

He even completely admitted a mistake to James Dennet: 'If you did, fine. I take that part of my argument back.'


So, from the evidence of this alone, Andrei seems not to be following a secret agenda. However, he has (IMHO) made a few mistakes which make his D persona appear very aggressive:
    1. He, apparently without any evidence, implied that Tango's IO is probably not 'up to snuff' -- an allegation which seems to be completely unjustified.
    2. He didn't submit tickets for Tango.

I cannot understand why Andrei did #1 -- I will assume this is just a mistake, and I hope that Andrei acknowledges it as such.

#2 is very important: submitting tickets turns a Tango bash into a constructive design discussion. However, it is possible to understand Andrei's hesitance: having already pointed out the problem, couldn't kris or Sean simply submit the ticket?

In future, I hope that Andrei will do as kris and Sean ask and submit a ticket, if just to show good will.


I hope that kris and JJR could re-read Andrei's posts from the last week or so, supposing that Andrei didn't make the mistakes mentioned above. Hopefully, you will agree that in that light, Andrei seems straight-forward.

Hope that helps,

Reiner

Reiner,

I pretty much set myself up for the disaster on my last post in the stdio thread. Dave litterly dissected my innards on that last response, so I'm missing a lung to breathe and gut to eat at the moment. :) But, reluctantly, I'll admit I deserved some of it.

But thanks for pointing those things out.  I don't necessarily agree with all the things here, but I'm satisified to move on simply for lack of anything more useful to add.  There's more important things to worry about. I allowed myself to get sucked into something that I really should not have been a part of.

-JJR


On Sun, 01 Apr 2007 23:26:03 +1000, Reiner Pope wrote:

> Alexander Panek wrote:
>> Please, step back a bit and think twice about what you're going to post, for the sake of productivity and helping each other. There's no point in killing each other, verbally, as we're all grown up and shouldn't actually let ourselves be led by our animal instincts that much.
> 
> It's not right to expect John Reimer and kris to be silent without some kind of resolution.  They have aired grievances with a backing, and it is understandable that these should not simply be silenced for the purpose of 'keeping the NG together.' They have said specifically what about Andrei's online presence they found objectionable, so a general counter to such arguments does not do them credit; the correct way to respond to such points is address each of them individually and specifically. Calling it a dead horse because we do not share these objections is unfair to them, as I see it.
> 
> 
> When I first read the stdio threads, I very much agreed with the JJR's
> and kris's point of view: Andrei seemed very pushy, seeming to repeat
> the idea, 'Phobos is now really good at IO, so why isn't Tango.' Andrei
> raised objection after objection to what Tango did: first speed, then
> readln discarding the newline; then speed again; then objecting to the
> call-chained code sample; objecting to Cout(a)(b) in general instead of
> Cout(a,b); then objecting to C/stdio incompatibility. Taken in context,
> it is easy to see this as an attack on Tango:
>     1. Andrei talks about Phobos improvements.
>     2. Andrei starts 3 successive threads questioning Tango's
> collections, and IO
>     3. kris and Sean asked Andrei to submit Tango tickets; Andrei didn't.
>     4. Comparisons between Phobos and Tango ensue; Tango appears to
> perform better, so Andrei's objections could be taken as 'excuses' for
> Phobos
> 
> Could.
> 
> This is certainly how I read it at first, so JJR and kris's posts about
> Andrei seemed spot on. However, on re-reading the stdio threads, with
> Andrei's posts in particular, his responses seem much more
> straight-forward: the objections he raises *do* have merit, and he seems
>   to be trying to help avoid bad design decisions in Tango IO -- a tough
> critique, but an altruistic one.
> 
> Yes, he does compare Tango with Phobos at times, like in http://www.digitalmars.com/webnews/newsgroups.php?art_group=digitalmars.D&article_id=51365 but that can be interpreted as him pointing out how a 'bona fide programmer' would see the choices for D. The comparison is to illustrate the problem, not to flame Tango.
> 
> He even completely admitted a mistake to James Dennet: 'If you did, fine. I take that part of my argument back.'
> 
> 
> So, from the evidence of this alone, Andrei seems not to be following a
> secret agenda. However, he has (IMHO) made a few mistakes which make his
> D persona appear very aggressive:
>      1. He, apparently without any evidence, implied that Tango's IO is
> probably not 'up to snuff' -- an allegation which seems to be completely
> unjustified.
>      2. He didn't submit tickets for Tango.
> 
> I cannot understand why Andrei did #1 -- I will assume this is just a mistake, and I hope that Andrei acknowledges it as such.
> 
> #2 is very important: submitting tickets turns a Tango bash into a constructive design discussion. However, it is possible to understand Andrei's hesitance: having already pointed out the problem, couldn't kris or Sean simply submit the ticket?
> 
> In future, I hope that Andrei will do as kris and Sean ask and submit a ticket, if just to show good will.
> 
> 
> I hope that kris and JJR could re-read Andrei's posts from the last week or so, supposing that Andrei didn't make the mistakes mentioned above. Hopefully, you will agree that in that light, Andrei seems straight-forward.
> 
> Hope that helps,
> 
> Reiner

Bruno Medeiros wrote:
> Hum, BTW, let me recommend this Google presentation that featured on slashdot some time ago:
> "How Open Source Projects Survive Poisonous People "
> http://video.google.nl/videoplay?docid=-4216011961522818645
> Note that the talk is more than just about "poisonous people", but community management in general.
> (And just to be 100% clear, I'm not calling poisonous to anyone, I didn't even read that stdio/standard-libs threads, so I don't know what went on there)
> 

What the h*** are "poisonous people"? Is it some kind of terrorist?

L.

Lionello Lunesu wrote:
> Bruno Medeiros wrote:
>> Hum, BTW, let me recommend this Google presentation that featured on slashdot some time ago:
>> "How Open Source Projects Survive Poisonous People "
>> http://video.google.nl/videoplay?docid=-4216011961522818645
>> Note that the talk is more than just about "poisonous people", but community management in general.
>> (And just to be 100% clear, I'm not calling poisonous to anyone, I didn't even read that stdio/standard-libs threads, so I don't know what went on there)
>>
> 
> What the h*** are "poisonous people"? Is it some kind of terrorist?
> 
> L.

It's just a catchy frase about a very normal thing: people who drain human resources (time and focus) from a project and not always on purpose. It's a good video with well presented insights of group dynamics, applicable to any kind of community.
The only thing that is a pity is exactly this, it's not about dealing with 'poisonous people' perse, as if they were some kind of different breed, it's about (mostly technical) community / group management and disruptions. There is something potentially 'poisonous' in all of us, which is well worth remembering.

Lutger wrote:
> Lionello Lunesu wrote:
>> Bruno Medeiros wrote:
>>> Hum, BTW, let me recommend this Google presentation that featured on slashdot some time ago:
>>> "How Open Source Projects Survive Poisonous People "
>>> http://video.google.nl/videoplay?docid=-4216011961522818645
>>> Note that the talk is more than just about "poisonous people", but community management in general.
>>> (And just to be 100% clear, I'm not calling poisonous to anyone, I didn't even read that stdio/standard-libs threads, so I don't know what went on there)
>>>
>>
>> What the h*** are "poisonous people"? Is it some kind of terrorist?
>>
>> L.
> 
> It's just a catchy frase about a very normal thing: people who drain human resources (time and focus) from a project and not always on purpose. It's a good video with well presented insights of group dynamics, applicable to any kind of community.
> The only thing that is a pity is exactly this, it's not about dealing with 'poisonous people' perse, as if they were some kind of different breed, it's about (mostly technical) community / group management and disruptions. There is something potentially 'poisonous' in all of us, which is well worth remembering.

Yeah, I know, that's what I was getting at with my 'terrorist' comment. I forgot to use a smiley to note the tone of my post :)

Much like we're all very capable of turning into "terrorists" (I mean, you don't get born "a terrorist), we also all have our poisonous moments. The last year I just got very allergic to these "generic" labels.

L.

Reiner Pope wrote:
> Alexander Panek wrote:
>> Please, step back a bit and think twice about what you're going to post, for the sake of productivity and helping each other. There's no point in killing each other, verbally, as we're all grown up and shouldn't actually let ourselves be led by our animal instincts that much.
> 
> It's not right to expect John Reimer and kris to be silent without some kind of resolution.  They have aired grievances with a backing, and it is understandable that these should not simply be silenced for the purpose of 'keeping the NG together.' They have said specifically what about Andrei's online presence they found objectionable, so a general counter to such arguments does not do them credit; the correct way to respond to such points is address each of them individually and specifically. Calling it a dead horse because we do not share these objections is unfair to them, as I see it.
> [...]

Please, don't get me wrong. This was not anyhow directed, it was meant as a reminder for *all* participants. Don't put words in my mouth! ;p