The stupid toolbox

[Aaron J. Seigo]

On Tuesday 04 March 2008, Will Stephenson wrote:
> On Monday 03 March 2008 20:32:02 Aaron J. Seigo wrote:
> > and again, i humbly submit that this is people saying "i don't like it"
> > for purely aesthetic reasons and then cloaking it all in a bullshit
> > usability argument that ignores real usability issues. so, again, let's
> > concentrate on fixing the aesthetic issues, which will innevitably crop
> > up on devices as well so we may as well address them now.
> >
> > (yes, i'm getting a strong sense of deja vu with regards the recent
> > kickoff selection thing, because it's very much the same sort of issue.)
>
> This is not a personal attack.  It is constructive criticism with the
> intent to improve communications, participation and productivity inside the
> project.
>
> I hope we can take the emotion and swiftness to judge out of the current
> discussions.  Describing the argumentation in the selection thread offhand
> as bullshit is unpleasant and dismissive. 

the description was not off-hand. i was specifically addressing the use 
of "clever" argumentation that is baseless with the aim of getting approval 
for your pet patch.

an example from the kickoff thread was the "people might get confused and not 
get that the icon is associated with the entry" claim. holy not based in 
reality, batman! 

i'm really tired of people trying to manipulate their preferences into the 
code by arguing via excuses that actually aren't reflective of their real 
agenda.

when that happens, i'm left in a no-win:

* i can ignore the point (and get called out for not listening)
* i can address the point (and get caught in useless, though sometimes 
interesting, discussion)
* i can point out that the point is irrelevant (and get called out for being 
dismissive)

i get the feeling that everyone feels very entitled to have their own pet idea 
thrown into svn on a whim and start demonstrating really awkward behaviour 
when they are denied the pleasure of dumping randomly into svn. that's not 
even a luxury i afford myself. it's not a pattern of behaviour that KDE 
endures anywhere else in our repository.

can you imagine the horror if i had just committed the window border button 
ordering to kwin as i proposed? Lubos would've likely been a little pissed 
and with good reason. i don't really like the end result, but i respect that 
there's a lot of subjectivity to the issue and that kwin is Lubos' 
responsibility, not mine, and that he probably understands the issues there 
with a great level of refinement than i could.

that's our (KDE's) level of expectation with projects that aren't plasma. i 
get the fact that the desktop shell is a visible and even central tool. but 
so it dolphin, konqueror, system settings, kwin, etc. i really don't felt 
like plasma gets to play by the same rules as most other software projects in 
KDE.

so far i've spent the morning fixing PanelContainment since it has been rather 
thoroughly broken internally due to "pet idea" commits. i'd much rather have 
been working on panel stacking or Plasma::Service, which is what i thought 
i'd work on until i saw http://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=158765

so this isn't a bunch of theory on my part, it's people wasting time and 
slowing the project down. and you know what happens when plasma doesn't move 
fast enough? yep, i get more crap dumped on me. beauty.

> I want all of the KDE community 
> to be able to contribute to Plasma's look and feel without being put down
> in this way. 

i'd like to not have to deal with no-win situations. so how do we meet those 
two desires? i'm all ears and would really, really like a path to solution.

> The Plasma team has suffered much public skepticism and 
> downright abuse over the past couple of years, and probably feels this
> external pressure as well as internal pressure to implement its plans in
> the face of time-consuming bikeshedding and meddling with details,

the disapointment comes with this time consuming bikeshedding and meddling 
that amounts to nothing but a total disregard for my time and capabilities 
comes from people within the project.

> but grace under duress  is part of being a good project leader, especially
> when so much of our work is conducted in public.   

i have two instinctive reactions to this statement, neither of which are 
productive. so i'll keep them to myself and instead just say that expecting 
me to deal with duress on a pretty much daily basis is unrealistic.

i'm tired of dealing with it from people from within KDE in particular. 
consider this is my "cry for help" that others in this project actually take 
a moment to consider the effects of their behaviour beyond their own personal 
joy. i've reached the limits of my selflessness and could use a little safe 
harbor now and again.

in case i haven't made it clear enough to this point: my reward for working on 
plasma is a fresh kick in the nuts on most mornings. 

maybe i deserve it. and in that case, i don't belong here.

> Design, aesthetic and usability discussions are by nature subjective, and

aesthetic, yes. usability, not so much. design .. depends on what sort of 
design you're speaking of. regardless, subjectivity is not an excuse for the 
behaviour i'm apparently expected to just soak up consistently.

> to dismiss a participant's subjective but reasoned opinions is ungracious
> and liable to alienate and put off future participation.

i'm not dismissing reasoned opinion. hell, i was the one who steered the 
kickoff conversation away from "usability" excuses to aesthetics. *away* from 
bikeshedding and *towards* code. i steered it *towards* subjective topics and 
productivity because that was the underlying issue.

what i am dismissive of is these sorts of behaviours:

* committing things repeatedly that are just plain wrong, well after the 
reason for them being wrong has been pointed out

* trying to sneak pet ideas into other patches in an attempt to slip them past 
me

* not discussing the actual root of the issue for you, but trying to come up 
with a clever rational that you think i might somehow therefore agree with. 
(i *really* don't appreciate being dicked around like that.)

* repeating a conversation with no addition of new content or new proposal 
simply because you didn't like how it turned out last time or you didn't 
understand it.

* taking every inch i give, turning it into a mile, and then saying, "that's 
not enough". i don't need your praise, but i also don't need your " Why it's 
so difficult to explain to you that there's not only the One True Aaron 
Desktop(TM)?"s either.

honestly, at this very moment in time, i have zero desire to deal with 
consensus building because i don't feel that consensus is the goal of many of 
the people here, most of whom are little more than bystanders to the actual 
development.

-- 
Aaron J. Seigo
humru othro a kohnu se
GPG Fingerprint: 8B8B 2209 0C6F 7C47 B1EA  EE75 D6B7 2EB1 A7F1 DB43

KDE core developer sponsored by Trolltech
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