Removal of inline playlists controls

[Mark Kretschmann]

On Mon, Sep 7, 2009 at 12:32 AM, Seb Ruiz<ruiz at kde.org> wrote:
> 2009/9/6 Nikolaj Hald Nielsen <nhnfreespirit at gmail.com>:
>> I just got back to find that one of the features that I have spent
>> quite  bit of time and energy on recently have been completely removed
>> from git master.
>>
>> From the commit text:
>>
>>  "Remove inline playback controls from the application, as discussed
>> on IRC. We gathered that this
>>   feature did not provide great feature value to the product, and
>> instead added redundancy with a
>>   third (!) toolbar equivalent. It also increased complexity in an
>> already crowded playlist layout
>>   configuration UI."
>>
>> "... as discussed on IRC" : How can you even pretend to have had any
>> discussion about this without including th person whow rote the
>> featere in question? I call BS!
>>
>> "We gathered..." : I would very much like to know who "We" is.
>> Especially since this commit mail was also forwarded to the amarok
>> mailing list, giving the impression that this is an official and final
>> Amarok decision.
>>
>> "...this feature did not provide great feature value to the
>> product..." : Honestly, at this point I could not care less about the
>> actual arguments for this decision. I am mainly pissed to no end that
>> I was not asked. It just might be that I actually have a plan or a
>> reason for adding this stuff.
>>
>> In the past when people have asked me how Amarok was run as a project,
>> I have always answered that it was a pretty pure meritocracy, with any
>> major issues being resolved in a discussion where all interested
>> parties could have a say. This however reeks of a quick and dirty call
>> by some of the old guard carefully crafted to exclude me from having
>> any say, and quickly published to the amarok mailing list so even if I
>> did raise hell it will be hard to revert soince it has already been
>> made official. I do _really_ hope I am wrong in seeing it this way!
>>
>> If this is how things will be done in Amarok in the future, I am going
>> to have to seriously reconsider my involvement, as it is just not
>> worth the aggregation to get sidelined like this.
>
>
> Chill out guys, we've been doing these things (reverting, asking
> questions later) for over 5 years now. Why is this suddenly such a
> huge deal and why is everybody chucking a huge storm over it? The
> point of the commit was indeed to start a difficult debate which would
> not have gotten any traction otherwise.

Yes, this incident triggered quite the debate. Some of it overly
dramatic and out of proportion.

There's no need to bring out the big gestures (threatening to leave
the project), the heroics, the strong language. Don't be ridiculous,
we're all grown ups. But the discussion was started, so we might as
well talk about things, albeit in a more civil way.

Seb reverted a feature without much discussion, a bold and debatable
move. I'm not going to say that this is ok. Instead I'm going to voice
what's on my mind: Why are we piling features on features, neglecting
quality over quantity?

Some recent outtakes of the grand Amarok story, as witnessed by yours
truly: 1) "Hey guys, I've committed code at the airport! In a total
hurry!" -  me looking at the code, thinking: "Oh yes, it shows.
Someone was in a hurry." In such cases I expect that the original
author please cleans up his own mess afterwards. 2) In fact I find
myself constantly cleaning up behind other people. I do it silently,
without much complaining. I'm not furious about it, but a little
unhappy about it happening again and again. It's mostly the same group
of people you have to clean up behind. This includes things like
disregarding coding style (not so major, but annoying), introducing
bugs without much thought, and a general lack of love for details. 3)
"The ChangeLog isn't long enough, I think we can do better! Add more
stuff folks! Lots more!". Yes we need features. Minor catch: Ideally
they should work. So I'm asking you to be a little more careful, a
little less trigger happy. Seb's commit was trigger happy, and look
what it did.


PS: The quotes I've used above are not verbatim, but these things have
been said.

-- 
Mark Kretschmann
Amarok Developer
www.kde.org - amarok.kde.org