Re: Cairo as common graphics context

[Richard Frith-Macdonald]

On 25 Mar 2006, at 19:46, Stefan Urbanek wrote:

I'm not going to go further with the discussion about whether the  
state of the project can be tracked from the mailing list and  
changelogs ... we will have to just disagree about that ... you say  
it cannot, but it's what I do.  Of course there are a lot of other  
supplementary resources (bug tracker, wiki etc) but the mailing lists  
and changelogs are undoubtedly the primary ones I use.

> Same problem again. "We need new coders". But new coders need to know:
> - what is the state of the project
> - what parts need help
> - what kind of help is needed (very concrete om the form: feature/ 
> functionality is not implemented and is crucial for this or that)
> - what is needed for implementing the missing feature/functionality  
> (this should be filled by anyone who knows the best the area) (*)
> - ...
>
> (*) and THIS is the reason WHY ANY input from core developers is  
> more than crucial. Noone is expected to actualy code anything, but  
> what is expected to make the project progress is that who knows how  
> to do something, should give the knowledge to others.

All very well, and we have the project task list, bug list, and wiki  
stuff for this, but it's fundamentally only workable up to a  
point ... after which people need to ask specific questions.  The  
fact that we already HAVE the mechanisms to inform people is proof  
that it's not the lack of these that is causing a problem ... but  
rather the lack of manpower (both to code and to keep communications  
etc up to date).  If anything, we may have too many mechanisms for  
communicating information about the project status.

> I did not expected that anyone will immediately start coding  
> anything, as Alex mentioned in his previous email in this thread. I  
> was upset, because there was NO input from people responsible, nor  
> an impulse from anyone to the responsible to give the input.

From my reading of the mailing list, I saw your initial query at  
14:53 on the 15th, and Adam's response about 30 minutes later.
Now I understand that it wasn't the sort of response you wanted ...  
but I'm confident that that was because he assumed (reasonably imo)  
that you were a developer.  And had you actually been a developer  
intent on coding, a dialogue in which detailed questions were posed  
and answered would probably have ensued.