World: r3wp

The problem is really a lack of directions, something like "I would 
really like you to work on the test scheme now".

Or, Riechart has hired them all so that they are no longer active 
in the community!

I've said before that I don't care if the community is shrinking. 
It will grow again at final release of R3.

It would be nice to have some evidence for that belief

We see much more activity every time something new happens in the 
community. I don't post in the LIST-VIEW group anymore, but does 
it mean that people stopped using it? I didn't stop.

It's never a one-way thing for programming languages. When there 
is stuff to talk about, activity always bounces back.

Petr: first wait. no need to make a duplicate, i expect Carl's to 
be good, i'm just worried about his "bob the artist" idea (that doesn't 
really work, the only way is to create a visual tool), but i may 
just be understanding this wrong.

Petr, one problem in releasing often, as I did with VID 3, is that 
you get Petr to complain everyday :)

Is that really bad??

takes away some time, unless you just ignore all comments (at that 
point, one can just not release at all...), and it is sometimes frustrating 
when the same comment you have answered many times gets made every 
day.

i don't mind too much, but Carl might not want that.

ouch!

there is less trust in Gabriele than there should be. :-)

(notice how few comments I made during that period :-))

well, it's ok if you don't trust me, but then i'd suggest writing 
your own code or giving suggestions when I ask for comments (Petr 
always escapes when I do that ;).

each person has their area of specialisation

Pekr's is to criticize

heh :) well, that's not bad actually, it's just that there are times 
when i should focus and not look at altme, but i end up not doing 
that.

I would personally have gone underground with VID3. I understand 
why Carl works the way he does. Sometimes it's a lot harder to code 
from other people's directions/criticisms than your own, if it depends 
on turning your entire code base upside down to fulfill a small requirement. 
It just takes longer to finish things.

i think this is Carl's way to focus - as henrik says, just go underground 
and get the thing done. i do agree with petr that this is not nice 
to the community though.

It's his way of staying in the zone

Gabriele - your perception of user feedback is wrong in two things 
- 1) your design was so complicated, that average programmer (me) 
was not able to understand it in all aspects, hence repeating questions, 
and Carl also mentioned he had some difficulcy in studying it 2) 
just one user (pekr) commenting - let's face the reality - it just 
shows devastated state of REBOL community. I try to name the situation 
as I can see it.

Having a critical voice is very important

Otherwise one is developing in a vacuum of feedback

It is not possible to do any serious development or planning. VID3 
was supposed to be done in 3 - 4 weeks. Then "one month" break came 
for you to work on Qtask, which, in fact, took 6 months? Cyphre is 
fixing critical View bugs for 3 months already, with no result. And 
those are the facts. Just don't understand me wrongly - that is nothing 
about your, Cyphre's or anyone's skills, or Qtask causing it - but 
those are still the facts.

So I ask - where is input from others? Volker? Ladislav? Anton? Cyphre? 
And event hose available? We are simply all pretty much busy with 
our primary jobs, and that is it.

petr, the thing is, if you don't know how to make that design simpler, 
and i obviously don't (otherwise i would have made it simpler), then 
what's the point? how does your criticism help?

Graham and Pekr, it really depends if you are designing the thing 
or criticizing it. If the coder has to obey uninformed (let's face 
reality here. :-)) design wishes and not his own, the work takes 
longer to finish.

RT was at one time looking for some marketing person. And I know 
it could be eventually me (if I would be natively speaking english 
person), but I would not take the position. And why? Because I need 
some means to do management work. And you can't get any kind of communication, 
when Carl goes to stealth mode in for two months ...

hey, petr, i said i agree with you about this part, i'm just saying 
that being open takes a lot more work.

Would it not lead to a better result though?

I know that I offended you because of endless questions and worries, 
but in the end I was probably alone (well, maybe after Henrik), who 
actually tried to deeply study new VID. And even if you would criticise 
me and it would hurt my ego :-), it would still be nothing in comparison 
what is still the outcome of the whole situation ....

graham, not always. however, it has other advantages. if the host 
code was released, i could have worked on a linux or mac port, or 
helped fix the gfx bugs since richard is busy. if i can't compile 
myself, then i can't help in any way.

offended

 - no, you didn't, as i say it's frustrating sometimes, but that's 
 because i can't ignore you, so it's my problem really.

graham: to make an example Carl made to me, imagine you are painting. 
would it be better to be alone, or with a crowd behind you commenting 
at every brush stroke?

Great artists perform infront of audiences :)

audiences that watch, or that tell the artist what he's doing wrong? 
:)

they vote with text messages !

American Programming Idol

and the artist is reading all the messages, right? ;) you should 
just try once, i guess it'll be fun.

If you open up a design process even to highly qualified people, 
you are already on the first step towards design by commitee, which 
is entirely against REBOL's design philosophy. If the people are 
less qualified, it's the second step and you can end up trying to 
handle more noise than getting actual code done and the project will 
then truly move at a snail's pace.

I'm sitting in that position in my job projects, which has caused 
about two full years of delay, because I'm forced to write crap code 
to meet some silly deadlines. That code then later needs to be rewritten 
to meet my own personal quality requirements when no one else is 
looking at me or judging my work before it's done.

I'm sure Gabriele has a complete picture of VID3 in his head and 
it does no good to trample around on that picture, before he gets 
the chance to complete the work. I'm also certain that Carl has tried 
both things and going underground simply works best.

Ever noticed that most good movies has one script writer and that 
the script writer is also the director? And that most bad movies 
have 5-6 different script writers and a different director?

Actually I do it all the time.

I read all the messages and take notes ..

Every few days I release a new iteration of my software.

Henrik - I am not sure I was causing some major delays! I asked at 
times, when no active development was ongoing, so? Let's be realistic 
here - when is Gabriele available to finish it? I bet it would take 
him some 2 - 3 weeks part-time? And that, my friend, is the problem. 
Guys are busy with things, which do have higher priority. So unless 
someone commercially does not buy them free time to do so, the point 
is moot ...

Graham you are probably not in a situation where you need to start 
on a new project or build a program from scratch. Do you read messages 
and take notes on day 5 of project development after the design requirements 
are settled?

The fact that Gabriele is here talking to us suggests he has nothing 
to work on now ... also waiting for Carl!

Henrik .. I did a GUI mock up and the released the mock up.  Then 
I took suggestions after that :)

Graham, yes, but you didn't get comments during the mockup design 
process did you?