Re: Do have programs have poor documentation?
I am not subscribed and I don't actually have an email reader that can
respond to mailto: links, but...
Xen wrote:
[...]; call it the Linux Support Arena, or the Linux Support Agenda
even, people on the side take on the customer support role of
filtering.
They act like they try to get the complainer off of the back of the
developer of writer, much like front-desk personnel often does. The
real
writer or developer however is often much nicer to you and your
complaints
or observations, of course, true.
Your mileage may vary. :))
What you perceive as front desk support people are often the distro
packagers
who often concentrate on packaging rather than serving as broker between
user and upstream.
I, for example, regret that Debian has no means to help me getting
attention
for some miserable regressions around /dev/sr since kernel 2.6. It would
be
great to have a comittee to which i could present my cases and which
orders
the linux-scsi department to seriously consider my fix proposals.
On the other hand this committee could order me to implement UDF 2.6 so
i would have to read OSTA specs or get fired from my programmer's seat.
(Not clear what's worse. OSTA or eternal boredom.)
-----
I really mean that the people who man the mailing lists and such act
like representatives of some company, in this that company is just the
project they associate with. This is only natural I guess.
But they also exhibit the same behaviours as "regular" front-desk
people. I consider that less natural.
I mean in general those people would not even be packagers. They would
be considered "support volunteers". But just as with front-desk
personnel, they often don't really know what goes on behind the scenes.
So when you end up in an argument, it is an argument with less real
knowledge than you would hope and so opinions can be more extreme.
The result is that aggressive treatment is also more pronounced.
In general as a developer for me it works best to talk to developers in
that sense since we talk a common language. But other people (even if
they are developers) talking on behalf of other people towards me, about
the opinions OF those other people....
I say never trust anyone to speak the truth about what some other person
wants or doesn't want. They often do not even know the other person they
are speaking on behalf of. They think they do, but they don't.
So basically people acting as intermediates just results in a lot of
miscommunication.
As a result arguments are often lacking content. Debates seem to go on
with sides on opposite ends of the spectrum but neither of them knows
the Real Data because the actual (developers) (or writers) aren't
involved, that might have a more nuanced opinion about everything.
I am sorry to hear though that you have had trouble with the SCSI
people. I thought the Linux Kernel was reasonably open to comments and
"submissions" of a kind.
-----
We just love our systems more and take more offense when they fail.
-----
Erm no not really.
-----
You probably can't imagine the personal stress levels I've had in my
life
;-).
I lost power supplies, displays, a southbridge radiator, and several
burners. Never a hard disk, strangely. But interesting parts of their
content.
-----
I've been locked up somewhere. That should be enough :p.
-----
Linux does not promise anything. GPL version 2:
"Also, for each author's protection and ours, we want to make certain
that everyone understands that there is no warranty for this free
software."
-----
That is just deceitful. Many Linux proponents do their best to
advertize. Like any "company" selling a product, not always full-truths
are told. Many times negatives are denied or hidden. That is just the
nature of the game, You might say.
Just look at this page: http://www.libreoffice.org.
It is basically an advertisement filled with promises. The legal
fine-print then doesn't matter much, that's just an excuse. "OUR PROGRAM
is the BEST program in the world" "But if it fails to work, screw you."
There is not much honesty in any place that tries to sell a product,
even if for no money, in direct competition with other products. The
positive you will hear, the negative you will not.
That LibreOffice page is basically indistinguishable from any other
product front-page, commercial or not. It uses the same (to me) lousy
web-style that has developed in the last few years. Wide banners
suitable for tablets, every commercial website these days looks the
same. Those are not informative websites, they are advertisements.
Completely devoid of information, and impossible to read on a regular
computer. Much too big, etc.
Dropbox.com was one of the first, I meant to say. It is comprised of...
well you can see it. Huge text, almost no information, just some
"slander" even, empty words, one sentence per page, pretty image to go
with it. That's it. You read it and you still know nothing. Oh it does
something, great. This webpage doesn't attract anyone. It gets people
onboard who already know about the thing. That's how it is designed. I
meant to say, that's how it works, and that is I guess why it was
designed that way.
If you sell a lot on second hand market places, you will find that often
the more you say the less people will be interested. So a lot of people
hardly say anything at all. Then people will buy, and if they complain
after the fact, you already have your money. Scarcity of information
does not preclude a sale, but overabundance does. So in order to sell
something, it is better to be succinct and not say too much. Then people
will find out the negatives after they've been scammed ;-).
That's why there is so little information on those pages. The only way
to find out about the product is to try it, which is what they want. The
page is basically a huge "Click Here To Enter" button with no
information. But anyway.
"Linux is great, just try it, everyone can use it."
Err.
"Just use autofs, it will solve your problems!" (Nothing against the
autofs developer).
"KDE is equally as good as Windows these days, you don't really need
Windows for anything if you don't use Photoshop."
Err.
"I have installed XXX on my wife's laptop and she likes it. She can use
it just fine."
"It's not like Facebook is any different on a Linux desktop."
(or whatever that phrase was.)
I mean. All of those phrases are promises and sort of advertisements.
Linux doesn't promise anything, but people do. And then later you find
out that you've been scammed in some way. It's the same with everything,
this is not exclusive to (Linux) and (Linux) didn't invent it.
It's what people do. They try to promote the thing they like. And lie
while doing so.
There are some in the Windows crowd that do the same and there are a LOT
in the Mac crowd that do (or used to) do the same. I am not very
familiar with other industries. So I wouldn't know where else it
happens.
Except, as said, on market-places.
-----
> And thus the "emergency mode" problem turns out to be about the need for
> becomming an insider at an inappropriate moment of time.
Yes exactly. And this is always the case with whatever problem. You
want to
focus on solving your problem and not on spending 26 hours on filing a
bug
report and discussing it with developers first who want your aid into
solving theirs.
... but how shall we improve if the users are too much in a hurry to
explore
what really causes the problems they perceive ?
-----
At that point your system is not fit for consumption and you should
say so (or at least that'd be my position on that).
-----
> When you need a skilled friend,
You would be hoping that Linux itself would be that friend,
GNU/Linux is just a contraption of software.
It can be your pet but not your friend.
-----
*Shrugs*.
-----
-----
No wonder you have problems with Linux. It can smell the enemy and
growls.
-----
I thought it was inanimate :p.
-----
I sometimes think I should have emigrated to Italy and drowned in the
sea
where it was warm.
Here i can only wish you that 2017 gets lighter for you than the
previous
years were.
-----
That sounds like a good thing, thanks :p.
-----
Reply to: