From: Gabriel D. R. <gd...@in...> - 2013-08-20 09:55:54
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On Tue, Aug 20, 2013 at 4:29 AM, Christophe Rhodes <cs...@ca...> wrote: […] >> Remember that despite the failing testsuites, these users are still >> *using* SBCL and they find it useful -- except the banner. If they >> weren't using it, they wouldn't be reporting the annoyance in the >> first place. > > The annoyance, historically, has served two purposes: one, to provide an > unmistakable warning that things might not be as stable as they might be > on this particular platform; two, as a mechanism to force users who are > annoyed by the message to rebuild the system, which provides a minimum > of quality assurance on the platform they are going to be developing > on. While the first purpose is perhaps less appropriate given David's > feeling that there was now nothing fundamentally wrong about the port > (even if the details aren't quite there yet), the second purpose is > still valid: while people aren't reporting (and, ideally, fixing) test > suite problems, a mechanism to encourage users into the thought process > of maintainers is still justifiable. > > I see my "job" (ha, professionalism) in this context not so much as a > maintenance programmer or release engineer, but as community sustainer: > clearly, people come and go from their SBCL involvement (and I am no > exception in this respect) and so I think it's important to broaden the > pool of SBCL users who can transition into SBCL developers. If not by > an obnoxious message (and I agree that it doesn't seem to be achieving > a fantastic conversion rate), then how? You can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. For OpenAxiom purposes for instance, I've considered several times to switch to using SBCL on Windows but never implemented that choice despite the recent excellent improvements (thanks by the way!) A key part of that decision is that I just don't think it is appropriate for me to subject OpenAxiom users to that kind of message. The message plays into a certain stereotype that I don't believe was intended by SBCL developers. No SBCL port is perfect, free of bugs or annoyances; but it appears to be that the Windows port is unnecessarily stigmatized in a way that does not appear to magically improve it. -- Gaby |