[Starson17]

Originally Posted by chaley

For example, it is likely that Starson17's comment (post #22) is a mild criticism of my PHP-Calibre web server work.

It always amazes me how poor I can be at expressing myself I'll be generous to myself and say it's partly due to the limitations of text as the communication channel and the limits on time.

He didn't say I was a bad person, but instead said (assuming I am not inventing things) that my time could have been more productively used elsewhere. In this case we probably different ideas of 'productive', but even such a short discussion causes some reflection on the matter.

I read the quotes above and thought "What the heck is he talking about ...?" and looked up #22. Ah yes, says I, I can see why he might have seen mild criticism in that, even though the PHP/Apache content server had not even crossed my mind.

The discussion in progress was about code that could do a certain job, but had a somewhat geeky interface and why a developer might spend time working on a different interface. It was proposed that the developer might do such work out of "generosity" to the community at large. My comment was "If the geeks are being generous, and they often are, I hope they'll provide something new, not another version of something we already have. There's so much to do and so little time to do it."

I'm saying that if a developer looks to the wishes of the community to maximize his "generosity," I think he'll make more people happier by adding a new capability, not a new interface. However, I also strongly believe that developers should give what they want to give, not what others want them to give. Even if no one wants a feature beyond the developer, if that's the feature he wants to work on, that's the end of it - and he should work on what he enjoys/wants. Only if he's casting around for the desires of the users to find something to give, should my comment be considered (and others may disagree).

So, Charles, it wasn't a criticism, mild or otherwise, unless you think you should work on what I (or others) want you to work on in preference to what you want to work on. Once you start doing that, I think you'd stop enjoying it.

As for getting things wrong, we all do that. In almost all cases, the ignorance will be shared by *many* people, and the clarification effort helps everyone. Sometimes the ignorance points to how something should be done, resulting in changes to calibre. On the other hand, sometimes one sees the combination of ignorance and hostility (e.g., "how could that anyone think that XXYY is acceptable!" or "My way is the only way."), and this is unfortunate.

I suppose that all I am really saying is 'hang around and contribute'. We need people who care.

Yes!

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