Re: drive-by enlightenings

[William Leslie]

2009/9/18 Alan Grimes <address@hidden>:
> William Leslie wrote:
>> This list is addictive in a bad way; and I should probably stay clear
>> of it. It seems to mostly be assertions about what the project should
>> be by people who have no interest in contributing, and even less
>> interest in reading the archives or even the wiki, which clearly
>> outlines the issues in the various kernels that the developers had to
>> deal with along the way.
>
> Link plz.

http://www.gnu.org/software/hurd/hurd/ng.html

>> It is probably the case that the lead engineers, with decades of
>> experience developing the software that you probably haven't even read
>> the wiki for, are a lot smarter than you, know what the current issues
>> are, and better understand how to get there. Making statements for
>> which the rebuttal is in the wiki will not make you seem particularly
>> insightful. Attempted drive-by enlightenings benefit nobody.
>
> Crusty old engineers, as a rule, have forgotten more than they know.
> They don't know the current best practices, nor do they have much (or
> any) appreciation for what the user community actually requires.

In the absence of people suddenly joining and submitting patches
regularly, I'd say that they *are* the user community in this case!

> For the record, I got into operating systems in 1994 and abandoned my
> project around 2004. So I'm not, by any means, a drive-by critic. If
> such records exist, the date I joined this list should also be of interest.

Apologies, it was five in the morning and I took some code-induced
frustration out. It probably wasn't a good idea.