[ic] "High traffic list" - ramblings on Interchange

[Stefan Hornburg]

Andreas Grau wrote:
> On Tue, 14 Mar 2006 10:35:37 +0100
> Stefan Hornburg <racke at linuxia.de> wrote:
> 
> 
>>Andreas Grau wrote:
>>
>>>And many of the PHP carts are, well, good looking. Hardly any IC shop
>>>in the hall of fame is nice and modern. And inviting.
>>
>>Do you have any nice examples for us ?
> 
> 
> I am not sure what you mean. Or are you asking me to name shops I like,
> and then we enter a pissing contest about why you don't like them ?

I just want to look at nice, modern and inviting shops. Maybe we can
borrow some ideas from them.

> 
> 
>>>Next, IC is largely unsupported. If you look in the mailing list
>>>archives, there are tons of serious questions which remain without
>>>answer. The other IRC channel is mostly dead.
>>>
>>
>>I think the majority of questions will be answered, sooner or later.
>>Because of the variety and the wide range of application for Interchange
>>it is hard to answer any question. After all, any of the Interchange developers
>>has to earn his living.
> 
> 
> I have tried hard not to make my remarks critizing any Interchange
> developer personally. This is not my intention. I was mirroring my
> impression that you better have to have good IC knowledge before you ask.
> 

I don't mind fair comments and I hope sames goes for the other developers :-).

> 
>>>Then, IC is not really documented. Since when I follow IC, there has
>>>been zero visible progress on the docs.
>>
>>Did you look at the XML documentation at all ?
> 
> 
> More than once, yes. My guess would be that more than one third have no
> examples, many tags are not documented, the cross-reference is broken
> and the source is often not the right one.
> 
> Interchange Reference Pages: Tags : 227 Tags, of which 157 are without
> description. A meager 70% undocumented !
> 
> 
>>That might be also a coincidence with almost zero input to the documentation
>>from the Interchange community.
> 
> 
> I knew this would come. And we are getting to point. Because I believe
> this is not true. A couple of months back, I tried to understand the
> templating system and how all the components fall together. I described
> my findings and posted them here. Two answers with clarification, so I
> would think it would have been a copy-and-paste to have a new doc
> describing the templating system.

Point taken.

> 
> Tag documentation is probably up to the programmer anyway. Some of
> which are known not to be too talkative ;-)
> 

In an ideal world, that is right.

> And then there once was a wiki. Gone as the inline pods. I would even say
> that documentation is being reduced.
> 
> 
>>>Take an unsupportive mailing list plus zero docs, and you come to think
>>>that IC is actually a closed-shop solution.
>>>
>>>To a newbie, IC is very complex. I can tell you from my own experience.
>>>And if one doesn't find a helping hand, he is likely to turn away again.
>>>
>>>What will be the consequences ?
>>>- Further drain of installations
>>>- Further drain of users
>>>- Increasingly bad reputation (complex, ugly, unsupported, few users)
>>>
>>>In the end, there may be a team of dinosaurs who satisfies himself with
>>>existing clients. Probably rationalizing that IC is technically better
>>>than anything else.
>>
>>Even if that is the case, I don't necessarily need to care about it.
>>There are more than enough existing clients for me, and once in a while,
>>there are new ones coming in. Some have left, but most of them for other
>>reasons than Interchange being an inferior product.
> 
> 
> Of course. But this shouldn't be the target. Or is it.
> 
> 
>>>Anybody remember Univac or Data General ?
>>>
>>>
>>>For IC to have a future, I believe it would be necessary to
>>>a) help people grow from newbie into intermediate state, so reciprocal
>>>help can build momentum
>>>b) do the marketing work: improve the docs, polish the sites, spread the word
>>>c) leave the ivory tower (see a.)
>>>
>>
>>IMHO b) is in fact really important, but in the moment there is a lack of manpower
>>in the ICDEVGROUP. Sorry, but we working on it.
> 
> 
> I believe that a) is the most important. We clearly have people on
> board who are happy with things as they are, and who don't need a
> helping hand.
> 
> 
>>>I would appreciate it. And I hope we'll get somewhere with my
>>>provocation. Unless I am the only one who feels like this.
>>
>>All that was  already discussed multiple times,
>>but people are better doing ramblings than helping out.
> 
> 
> Is this a kind hint to shut up ? 

Nope, a hint for more people to participate.

Bye
	Racke