[ros-dev] Open-source and newcomers

[Alexandru Lovin]

On Sat, Jul 18, 2009 at 12:04 AM, Aleksey Bragin <aleksey at reactos.org>wrote:

> You do know I don't hate you, rather vice versa, I try to help any
> newcomer.


He did that with me, and I am not a valuable developer.



> As Dmitry said, your point of view is slightly biased. Try not to
> engage into argument with everyone, and try to do some analyze: a
> newcomer is a foreigner to our team. A guest. Who is always received
> nice at first. Later, if the guest behaves good, he's benefitting his
> staying. If the guest tries to set some new orders, demand something
> or anything else - he might get a negative perception.


Exactly what I did. And I think I didn't get a negative perception - nobody
goes "oh great, that guy again" on IRC, not even when I talk.


> What I want you to be sure about: newcomers, especially as valuable
> as developers are received very good and welcomely. Then, it all
> depends on a particular person, his social abilities, and interaction
> with other members of our team. Which is, in general, very friendly
> (how else could we work for so many years and not ran away?! ;)).
>

This is the most important part of Aleksey's e-mail. I have seen people join
the channel and say "hi, I can be a dev, what do I do?" No one told them to
go away. Everyone just told them to pick a thing to do and what the rules
are (e.g. if you submit a patch, you don't commit it yourself, another
developer reviews it first and then submits it if it's ok, mentioning your
name - same for translations).

Haven't seen your story on IRC but inside this project, smart assing
requires style, near-perfect knowledge of English, delicate manners, awesome
charm but most of all, a great sense of right and wrong. Two people do this
in a fantastic way: another Alex and a cook-programmer-writer-gentleman
who's generally very busy. You're either born with this or not, you can't
educate it. There was a discussion earlier on this mailing list about how
commits should be formatted. These people included insults in a template,
Alex. It doesn't even matter what the template was for. This is not because
they're evil or aggressive, but because this is how they work -
affectionately. Affectionate insults, bragging, kicking, banning or whatever
else. Don't think "affectionately" excludes "rationally," though. When they
need to be rational, they are. This was the case when you got banned. No one
cared who was right, it's just that no one wanted to have a troll hanging
around shouting who-knows-what. They don't have time to carefully weigh
every aspect and every nuance of what you said. The rules are very elastic
but no abuse.

That different Alex, at one point, fixed a very old bug. After doing so, he
said:

"I have fixed the oldest bug in ReactOS history"
"Thank you"
" *unzips pants* "

Now, before you say these people are evil, read this:

http://www.somethingawful.com/d/news/magic-internet-prism.php

I'm not saying you are one of those, I'm just saying "don't become any of
those."

And then, watch this:

http://www.somethingawful.com/d/comedy-goldmine/lowtax-speaks-at.php

You should be able to behave correctly after paying attention to all of
that.

This project might look like it could be much more and it could fail and all
that. This was "predicted" so many times...but ReactOS still goes on. I did
have my own ideas about the project, but you can't implement a clone of the
Vista Aero interface without having the display functionality working darn
well (I didn't suggest that, just an example).

So, patience. As either a user or a developer. No one wants you dead or
banned or anything else. People are not reluctant to newcomers - not these
people.

I believe we have met Stefan's doppelganger! (read: evil other self)


>
> On Jul 17, 2009, at 7:00 PM, Alex wrote:
>
> > Hello all,
> >
> > Open-source and newcomers
> > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> >
>
>  > P.P.S. Before posting a reply, please take a look inside you and try
> > to see if that reply is based on "I just hate this guy!" :)
> >
> > Thanks!
> >
> > --
> > Best regards,
> >  Alex                          mailto:care2debug at gmail.com
>
> _______________________________________________
> Ros-dev mailing list
> Ros-dev at reactos.org
> http://www.reactos.org/mailman/listinfo/ros-dev
>



-- 
Alex Lovin - www.erasereality.3x.ro
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