cElementTree clear semantics

[Fredrik Lundh]

Regardless of anyone's alleged connection with Boo or newsgroup
participation level, the advice to contact the package
author/maintainer is sound. It happens every now and again that people
post questions to comp.lang.python about fairly specific issues or
packages that would be best sent to mailing lists or other resources
devoted to such topics. It's far better to get a high quality opinion
from a small group of people than a lower quality opinion from a larger
group or a delayed response from the maintainer because he/she doesn't
happen to be spending time sifting through flame wars amidst large
volumes of relatively uninteresting/irrelevant messages.

well, for the record, I strongly recommend people to post questions in
public forums. google is far more likely to pick up answers from mailing
list archives and newsgroups than from the "I really should do something
about all the mails in my support folder" part of my brain.

it's often a good idea to spend a little time looking for the right forum
(the xml-sig is a good place for elementtree-related questions), but
posting a question about a widely used Python library to c.l.python is
never wrong.

</F>

 

[D H]

Why??

Please tell me I don't have to explain to you why the author of a 3rd
party library might be able to answer a question specific to that library.

For the things I "support", I much prefer answering questions
in a public forum.

Right, which is exactly why we have sourceforge, tigris, google groups,
and numerous other free resources where you can set up a mailing list to
publicly ask and answer questions about your software.
Of course it may not get you as many paypal hits as spamming larger
forums with your support questions will, but it is the decent thing to do.

 

[D H]

Paul Boddie wrote:




well, for the record, I strongly recommend people to post questions in
public forums. google is far more likely to pick up answers from mailing
list archives and newsgroups than from the "I really should do something
about all the mails in my support folder" part of my brain.

You run your own server and get plenty of paypal donations. Why not run
your own mailing list for support? If not, see sourceforge or google
groups: http://groups.google.com/groups/create?lnk=l&hl=en

 

[Grant Edwards]

Please tell me I don't have to explain to you why the author
of a 3rd party library might be able to answer a question
specific to that library.

Of course not. And when that author reads this group, why not
post questions here so that everybody can benefit from the
information?

Right, which is exactly why we have sourceforge, tigris,
google groups,

Exactly how do you think c.l.p on google groups differs from
c.l.p on the rest of Usenet?

and numerous other free resources where you can set up a
mailing list to publicly ask and answer questions about your
software. Of course it may not get you as many paypal hits as
spamming larger forums with your support questions will,

WTF are you on about? What the hell is a "Paypal hit"? How is
posting a single, on-topic, question to c.l.p "spamming"?

but it is the decent thing to do.

You sir, are a loon.

<plonk>

 

[Neil Hodgson]

Paul Boddie:

Regardless of anyone's alleged connection with Boo or newsgroup
participation level, the advice to contact the package
author/maintainer is sound. It happens every now and again that people
post questions to comp.lang.python about fairly specific issues or
packages that would be best sent to mailing lists or other resources
devoted to such topics. It's far better to get a high quality opinion
from a small group of people than a lower quality opinion from a larger
group or a delayed response from the maintainer because he/she doesn't
happen to be spending time sifting through flame wars amidst large
volumes of relatively uninteresting/irrelevant messages.

As the author of a widely used component (Scintilla) I feel public
fora should be preferred over private mail since
* The effort in answering is spread over more people.
* The author will only have experience in a narrow range of usage and
the query is likely to match some other user's experience.
* The author may be out of touch or busy.
* The author will make mistakes which can be picked up by other
participants. I'd estimate that 10% of the answers I give are wrong or
useless, sometimes due to misunderstanding the query and sometimes due
to confusion over how the component works.
* Public fora are archived and searchable.

Neil

 

[D H]

Of course not. And when that author reads this group, why not
post questions here so that everybody can benefit from the
information?

When did I ever argue against that? I was suggesting a resource to use
to support your own software. I think you have assumed that I suggested
posting here about celementree was off-topic. Tell me where I ever said
that. I said to the first guy that he should ask the author for help,
meaning that he could get help that way as well. Furthermore, I believe
that is the more efficient way to get help, by contacting the author
directly, especially if that author is too lazy to set up their own
support forum or list.

Exactly how do you think c.l.p on google groups differs from
c.l.p on the rest of Usenet?

Who the **** said that? Are you pulling this shit out of your ass?

WTF are you on about? What the hell is a "Paypal hit"? How is
posting a single, on-topic, question to c.l.p "spamming"?

Fredrik Lundh gets money via paypal on his site where his software is
located. That's what I meant. Where did I say this particular post is
a spam? Again, your ass? where do you get this shit?

You sir, are a loon.

You're a funny ass.

 

[=?iso-8859-1?Q?Fran=E7ois?= Pinard]

[D H]

I think it means you should **** off, asshole.

Such language looks very inappropriate to me in a public list, and
builds a bad and long-lasting prejudice against those resorting to it.
Flamers should rather, for their own image, email each other privately
on their matters (yet D.H. is not providing his/her email address in
the last messages I've seen). Flamers being in the strong need of an
audience may easily find special forums for people enjoying flames.

As for the Python list, let's keep it the calm and enjoyable place it
usually is. Resist the temptation of feeding flames, rather ignore or
merely learn to "killfile" the (happily few) abusers we got.

Enough said for now! Keep happy, all of you.

 

[Paul Boddie]

well, for the record, I strongly recommend people to post questions in
public forums.

I wasn't saying that such advice was wrong, though. I suppose the
quality or responsiveness of advice is going to vary somewhat depending
on a number of factors...

it's often a good idea to spend a little time looking for the right forum
(the xml-sig is a good place for elementtree-related questions), but
posting a question about a widely used Python library to c.l.python is
never wrong.

I think the popularity of the library is probably the biggest factor,
and given that you've released much more popular stuff than I have, I'd
imagine that a lot more people would be able to offer advice about
ElementTree than anything I've written. My software's niche status
leads me to encourage people to contact me directly, but it'd surely be
a great experience to be one of many in a community fielding questions
about it in public.

That said, choosing the right forum can give better results: how many
Zope-specific posts do you see on comp.lang.python these days?

Paul