post FOSDEM

[Max Kanat-Alexander]

On 02/13/2010 07:41 AM, Gabor Szabo wrote:
>>        It's a programming language, a tool to and end. I don't think it's an
>> emotional issue, it's just a technical fact that Bugzilla is in Perl.
> 
> I read this once in a while but then I see many people - maybe different ones,
> maybe the same - act as if it was emotional.
> 
> Personally I think without emotions most people would not be involved in the
> Perl (or any other) community.

	Mmm, I think there are definitely a lot of people who get emotional
about it for sure. But ultimately it is a technical thing-- it's not
really like a painting or a song, where your emotional response and your
artistic sensibilities are *all* that matter, really. Still, I do
understand that people can have an emotional attachment to a programming
language. I don't, although I have spent some time with some members of
the Perl community and I like them quite a bit. :-) There's certainly an
emotional aspect to a community, so I agree with you there. :-)

> Err, I think there was a miscommunication on my part.
> I was trying the stress that fact that the move to Bazar is a very
> positive step.

	Ahh, thanks! :-)

> Maybe technically it would be easier for many people to use CVS than to
> learn the few basic commands Bazar needs to get started but I think the
> emotions will quickly kick in. (Even with SVN I keep getting comments that
> people are not involved in Padre because they want to use Git)

	Well, I think that we'll offer both for a while, so we'll see how
people respond.

> We could try to build a CPAN distro but explicitly turning off the
> "install" target and telling people the installation is still the same
> as earlier. That one could be uploaded do CPAN as a developer release
> and then we could work out the specific issues with frequent new
> developer releases to CPAN that mostly will try to address the
> packaging and installation issues.

	Yeah, but I'm worried that it would just increase our support burden,
which is something that I try to avoid. That is, there would be a lot of
people on the support list and in IRC going "I tried to install Bugzilla
and it didn't work...." and then we'd ask them what they did and they'd
say "I did 'install Bugzilla'....".

	One of the most important things to know about Bugzilla is that the
vast, vast majority of our users know nothing at all about Perl or CPAN,
so they have to always be provided installation options that are
straightforward, simple, and always work, or they run into a lot of
trouble and either decide not to use Bugzilla or decide to come to us
for support.

	-Max
-- 
http://www.everythingsolved.com/
Competent, Friendly Bugzilla and Perl Services. Everything Else, too.