[Unityca-announce] moving forward

[Adam B. <ad...@ad...>]

Chip,

Thanks for your prompt reply -- I think you make some excellent points 
and (if I may) I'd like to suggest how your comments seem to suggest an 
interim course of action...  Something to get us talking, thinking, etc:

Chip Shabazian wrote:

>I fully agree.  As one of the non-technical people, there is a lot I can
>do, but unfortunately coding isn't my strong suit.
>  
>
Ironically enough, it's my experience with projects like this that 
people like yourself are actually Holy Grail of putting out a decent 
product.  Forget this "unfortunately coding isn't my strong suit" crap 
-- yes, we may be in a position now (right at the offset) when we need a 
lot of coding work to get where we'd like to be, BUT, as time goes on, 
it seems like projects like ours seem to lose people such as 
yourself...  (Probably because of all the tech talk that [wrongly] 
not-so-subtly suggests you have nothing to offer!)

Like many of the people here, I have on more than one occasion found 
myself so intent on coding or "fixing" one "feature" or another that it 
took an outsider, a non-coder, to look at whatever the hell I was doing 
and ask "Um, exactly why do we NEED that?" before I realized I'd allowed 
myself to go way off-scope, or that I'd designed an interface that was 
worthless to the end-user. 

A (somewhat) outside perspective like yours is important to help keep 
the rest of our eyes on the ball.  Generally, it seems that we go 
seeking for "non-coders" far too long after initiating a project...  We 
take what we've got, give it to the guinea pig, and say, "Um, so can you 
understand what this does?"  lol 

But what if we incorporated that perspective into the initial stages of 
the project?  Why don't we coder/type-A folks step back a bit and see 
what the end-users really do want...  Or rather, what do "non-coders" 
think the project needs to do in order to succeed (at least in the 
short-term) -- what exactly *is* "good enough to get the job done?" 

Chris suggests a "quick and dirty" solution -- just getting something up 
there that works, then moving from there....reminds me of rapid 
prototyping, but i don't want to put words in his mouth. :)

> 
>If we had small, interim steps that people could see a roadmap, vision
>and progress, that would probably allow others to jump in where they
>could.  there are two ways to go about a project like this, one is to
>have a perfect product, engineered to death, and miss the market.  The
>other is to introduce a basic, limited, maybe even barely functional
>product, but get interest from both users and coders that can help.
> 
>MY opinion, is that the latter is more effective.  If we could create
>something quick and dirty, that may WORK but isn't elegant, and put it
>on a website for others to experiment with, that would create interest
>and excitement both within our group as well as draw more and more
>people in to help the project.
>  
>
I totally agree.  The only quesiton is, of course, what (in general) do 
we all accept is necessary in the "quick and dirty" solution Chris 
speaks of?  What must the code ABSOLUTELY do ... and what can wait for 
the next iteration?

I think a discussion/brainstorming on this would be a great place to 
start---perhaps an alternate to the somewhat rigid (though historically 
quite effective) technique Christian likes (defining programing 
methodologies in advance, etc.) might work better here?  Again, not 
discounting Christian's work -- just suggesting that we go at this a 
different way rather than giving up or terminating the project...?

> 
>I understand much of what Christian originally wrote may be hard coded,
>but wouldn't it be easier to get something JUST WORKING from this code
>base, then say things like, "we need the interface for module xyz
>modified to handle abc", then use our "experimental" site to implement
>and test the improvements?
>  
>
Indeed; much of what we probably believe is a "basic necessity" is 
already coded in Christian's baramala.de code (see the CVS, or the site 
itself).  Christian has already put together code that accepts requests, 
issues certificates, and -- hey, that's the hard part, right? :)

My guess would be that a list of "okay, what's missing" (as in what MUST 
we have RIGHT NOW, not what would we *like* to have eventually) could be 
very useful here... 

> 
>It may take a while, but eventually, the project will creep to where we
>want it to be, then we roll to version 1.0 and make another
>announcement.
>  
>
Creep my ass!  :)

I think we just need to get a feel for how everyone prefers to work, be 
as understanding as we can of each other's outside responsibilities, and 
above all BE PATIENT! 

I regret that I haven't been here to welcome people much at all, and 
this has put far more pressure on Christian than I would have preferred 
-- but four damn hurricanes and some severe water damage to our data 
center had me knocked out for a VERY long time.  I'm told that others 
had family emergencies -- I sincerely hope that everyone's parents, 
significant others, siblings, etc., are all doing much better now...  
Anyway, the point is, we've all had a pretty rough month -- but that's 
no reason to give up!

It's a VERY big world out there; there's a lot of stuff that can get in 
our way (and it will continue to do so as time goes on) but as long as 
we're patient with one another, we can manage this nifty little project 
-- I'm certain of it, or at least I have no plans to tell you all that 
I'm lying NOW!!

AB

> 
>Anyway, that's my $.02
> 
>Chip
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Adam Butler [mailto:ad...@ad...]
>Sent: Sunday, October 10, 2004 6:50 AM
>To: Christian Barmala
>Cc: uni...@li...
>Subject: Re: [Unityca-announce] Termination
>
>
>I think this is an unfortunate response...  Personally, I have looked
>thru the documentation on the site and wondered exactly what "todo list"
>was being discussed...  But then there was no real discussion, just
>requests/demands that I select something on a list (I couldn't find) and
>take complete ownership of said item...
>
>Perhaps, before abandoning the project so quickly, Christian, you could
>recognize that there are a lot of documents, RFCs, "architectures,"
>etc., and it's difficult for those of us who didn't write some or all of
>these documents to know immediately what is being asked of us when you
>refer to one part of one specific document that (apparently) I haven't
>read...and I swear I read them all (and emailed you my comments!) not so
>long ago!
>
>Please don't take this as an insult or complaint.  Instead, recognize it
>for what it is: I am (apparently) quite ignorant as to what you want of
>us, and so I understand why you're frustrated (because, being ignorant,
>I probably have NOT done what you've asked for) but I also think I can
>see room for some understanding on your part.  How are we to "take up
>the reigns" and commit to parts of this project when there is no real
>roadmap for doing so...?
>
>Yes, yes -- I recognize that there is indeed a "roadmap" document, as
>well as an "architecture" document, plus goodness knows what else--and
>apparently there is even some code in the CVS repositiory.  But as
>you've said yourself, the majority of people on this list (and the
>majority who have agreed to help) are either *not* entirely technically
>focused, or have entirely other motivations altogether (such as policy
>making, or technical writing...coming up with web sites and/or
>instructions for end-users, etc.).  
>
>And of the technically-minded folk, you have more than a few who have
>said things like "I just got PHP installed and I bought a book on it --
>give me a bit of time to learn how it works."
>
>These people are not worthless, nor are they lazy--far from it!  WHen
>people are willing to pick up a book and learn an entirely new language
>just so they can jump on-board with our project, that's significant
>(imho) and not something we should just ignore in our frustrations that
>they weren't  100% ready to start coding on Day 1.  
>
>Some of these people just need direction.  Perhaps a little
>"higher-level" *and* "lower-level" direction is required here.  
>
>When I started this project, initiated all the forums and mailing lists,
>etc., I really envisioned (perhaps incorrectly?) that we would use this
>forum to *discuss* what needed to be done on both a high level (e.g.
>"our code can issue certificates, but we want it to also do X, Y, Z")
>and a low level (e.g. "those of you working on module foo.php, are you
>running into parsing errors with function bar()?") -- but the discussion
>list (and the forums, for that matter) has remained fairly silent.
>
>The only discussions that seem to have thrived here are when we *did*
>get into technical or policy-related talks, such as the one related to
>language and UTF-8 not so long ago.  (Not surprisingly, this is the
>*exact* type of discussion that thrived on CAcert's mailing list...
>Discussions of "should we do X or Y?" and "how do we fix this problem?"
>often resulted in multiple emails explaining the benefits of one thing
>or another, or even code samples!)
>
>Instead, we seem to be (perhaps unintentionally) using this forum to
>complain about how people aren't using this forum to our liking.  By
>repeatedly telling people that they haven't jumped on board, that they
>haven't taken ownership for an item on a to-do list (which I don't think
>was published on this list, because I'm looking at the archives now and
>I don't see it) ---well, we're not accomplishing much.
>
>But rather than abandon ship, perhaps we should just abandon this
>current methodology?  Maybe we should suggest specific things that need
>to be done, discuss them in a modular fashion (focusing on a part at a
>time) and having both high level discussions (so the policy-minded folks
>can have a say) and low-level discussions (so the coders can be involved
>and keep us grounded in what is "doable" and what is not, ask questions
>about this and that, etc.).
>
>In essence, I wonder if we couldn't use this forum more effectively if
>we simply started asking a few questions about how X, Y, Z should be
>done---get the ball rolling (in any direction, whether it be high level
>or low level), and get people engaged with the discussion.
>
>It seems unrealistic to just announce a new project and get all kinds of
>interest from all kinds of people immediately -- but we did!!  So our
>project idea must be appealing in some form or fashion to the folks
>involved.  With that in mind, maybe we shouldn't be asking "what's wrong
>with these folks, why won't they just work on this now?" and instead,
>maybe we should wonder how we managed to take all of these interested
>folks and deflate their excitement so completely (and quickly)?
>
>This *is* an exciting project.  None of us would be here if we didn't
>think it was important, groundbreaking, and necessary work.  So we have
>the foundation of a good group of people who want to see this thing
>succeed -- my question is then (not just to Christian, but to everyone)
>what do we need to do to get this ball rolling?  
>
>Do we need an outline of some sort?  (God knows I'd love a step-by-step
>list of what we need to do to "get started" so I could better understand
>where the hell we are and what we need to do...  Anyone else?)  Do we
>need to take some of the documents (which christian spent a LOT of time
>on and are VERY valuable) and distill them down into something a bit
>more short-term...?  Perhaps if we had reasonable goals ahead of us,
>tasks that could be completed in days or weeks instead of months...  I
>don't know.
>
>It's up to you guys.  Let's hear some voices here.  I admit to being
>silent a bit (because I didn't want to show my ignorance in that UTF-8
>discusssion!) but I want this project to succeed as much as the rest of
>us...  So what is holding us back?
>
>Leadership?  A good plan?  A more specific, but shorter-term roadmap?  A
>list of modules, what we want them to do, and what their statuses are?
>
>What would allow YOU (whether you're a tech writer, a web designer, or a
>coder) to start contributing in the way you first imagined?  What's
>holding you back?  
>
>Let us know, and maybe we can remove some of those obstacles -- rather
>than just cursing the darkness, perhaps we can turn on a light or two.
>:)
>
>Thanks for all of you, your thoughts/suggestions up to now, and your
>willingness to move forward.  We can do this, and we want to help make
>it happen, but we need your help to shape the direction we move in.
>
>I look forward to hearing from you--as I'm sure Christian does, too.
>
>Thanks,
>
>Adam
>
>Christian Barmala wrote:
>
>
>Hi,
>
>
>
>When I asked you, who is interested in this project, several project
>members
>
>didn't reply at all. From those who replied, the majority explained,
>that
>
>they currently have no time to support the project. From those who had
>time,
>
>the majority explained that they were not programmers. Those who
>remained,
>
>subscribed to the developers list but until now, nobody volunteered for
>any
>
>of the @todos of the software.
>
>
>
>This sad calculation reminds me to the difference between the topmost
>line
>
>of my salary slip and what remains in my bank account after all payments
>
>have been deduced. I understand that this loss seems to be a rule of
>life,
>
>but then let's be honest and admit that we aren't able to run a project.
>
>
>
>I therefore consider the cooperation for software development as failed.
>
>I'll withdraw from Unityca and do the development on my own based on my
>own
>
>needs. If you should continue with Unityca one day and extend my
>software to
>
>fit your needs, you may do this on your own, based on the GPL license.
>
>
>
>This is sad, but still better than pretending to cooperate and thus
>raise
>
>mutual expectations, which won't be fulfilled.
>
>
>
>Christian
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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