Re: So, honestly, is GNUStep a viable development option?

[Mark Grice]

OK... This is my last post on the subject, because there is no sense
in beating a dead horse.

But...

1) Because everyone else is doing it -- should be a compelling reason.
I guess no one looks at it like this, but GNUStep competes with other
IDEs and Foundations sets. In order to grow, you need new mindshare
and new blood. You need more people working on the code, testing it,
and building new apps. If you deliberately choose to appear different
to people who come by looking at the state of things, you will turn
them off, and they will choose something else. Apparently that doesn't
bother a single soul on this list. But it should...

2) Every argument against a forum is outdated. Forums can be set to
automatically email you. You can have a setting to show you all
threads of interest to you, and to only show you unread posts. There
is NOTHING you can do through a mailing list that cannot be done
through a good forum.

3) Because a forum is widely used, navigation through it is simple. A
new user can easily search it, and view posts that are of interest.
Generally, the posts are grouped into categories which make finding
information much easier. Browsing through the Nabble Archives, by
comparison, is horrible. I can find something MUCH faster in the
archives of a forum than I can in a nabble based archive. And if I
came into a group late I don't have the advantage of  old emails.

4) Forums allow information to be presented in a strategic way. In the
masthead above, and the space beside the threads, you can put
information. You can even (if the group grows) sell advertising space.
You can have quick links to FAQs and installation guides. It becomes a
one stop portal to all things GNUStep. And if you can't find it, you
can ask...right there, without needing to go somewhere else and
subscribe to something.

5) Believe it or not, some of us don't LIKE having things emailed to
us. I get a hundred emails a day. I have had to set up a separate
account just for GNUStep -- which I end up checking just like I would
a forum. A lot of users who are casually interested would not sign up
for daily emails... but they might find themselves checking a forum
daily. More exposure to more people benefits GNUStep.

And... This just kills me:

"* There tend to be more "help me" messages on a forum"

WHAT IS WRONG WITH THAT???

Do we not want to help people who are new and trying to use GNUStep?
This seems to me to be THE MOST compelling reason for a Forum. Lord
yes! Let us HOPE there are people who come and say: "Help Me." Let's
hope that as the answers known by a few become shared in a public
forum it beomes knowledge shared by all. After time, the WHOLE
community can share in helping new people get started.

I'm sorry, I don't get this at all... it SEEMS like you are saying:
"You know what, my friends and I are busy coding and things. We like
emailing each other. It's what we do. We really don't want to be
bothered with questions by people like you. If you find something
wrong, post a bug and we'll fix when we find time. Otherwise, take
what we give you and be grateful..."

Maybe this isn't what you mean... but that is what it seems like to me.


On 11/14/07, Gregory John Casamento <greg_casamento@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Mark,
>
> I, personally, could take or leave forums... I don't care one way or the 
> other.   The issue I have with this discussion is that you have yet to show 
> any valid and compelling reason to change *beyond* "that's what everyone else 
> is doing."
>
> If you could enumerate some advantages, aside from that, that forums have 
> over mailing lists, that would be nice.
>
> The advantages of mailing lists, as I see it are:
>
> * It actually comes to you.   You always know when there's a new message 
> because it appears in your inbox.  You don't need to go and check on a 
> webpage for it
> * You can easily locate your last read message.  With a forum, you need to 
> browse backwards to find the last unread message.
>
> GJC
> --
> Gregory Casamento -- OLC, Inc
> # GNUstep Chief Maintainer
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: Mark Grice <markjoel60@gmail.com>
> To: Markus Hitter <mah@jump-ing.de>
> Cc: GNUstep Discuss Discuss <discuss-gnustep@gnu.org>
> Sent: Wednesday, November 14, 2007 1:49:00 PM
> Subject: Re: So, honestly, is GNUStep a viable development option?
>
> Using a forum is incredibly complex?
>
> It is odd how these "incredibly complex" forums continue to be adopted
> by virtually every other OS, Language and development system out
> there...
>
> http://www.gtkforums.com/
> http://www.qtforum.org/
> http://www.cairoshell.com/forum/
> http://discussions.apple.com/index.jspa
>
> (I could give you 1000 examples, really...)
>
> And yet I keep hearing from the GNUStep group that forums are
> "complicated" , "useless for regular use",  and "terribly time
> consuming".
>
> This kind of response leaves me shaking my head and wondering...
>
>
> On Nov 14, 2007 11:59 AM, Markus Hitter <mah@jump-ing.de> wrote:
> >
> > Am 13.11.2007 um 14:37 schrieb Mark Grice:
> >
> > > 1. Stop the mailing list and put up a forum. That is the preferred
> > > method of communication for most people these days.
> >
> > Perhaps it's the method of communication currently in fashion, but
> > Forii are so incredibly complex to handle (compared to a local mail
> > reader), you'd immediately get rid of users like me.
> >
> > There are systems combining a forum and a mailing list, though.
> >
> >
> > Markus
> >
> > - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
> > Dipl. Ing. Markus Hitter
> > http://www.jump-ing.de/
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
>
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