Date: Thu, 30 Jan 1997 05:04:00 -0800 (PST) From: "Jonathan M. Bresler" <jmb> To: mcgovern@spoon.beta.com (Brian J. McGovern) Cc: msmith@atrad.adelaide.edu.au, hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Cases (was: Constructive Criticism) Message-ID: <199701301304.FAA09813@freefall.freebsd.org> In-Reply-To: <199701300301.WAA09208@spoon.beta.com> from "Brian J. McGovern" at Jan 29, 97 10:01:40 pm
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Brian J. McGovern wrote: > > >> I've been noticing, more an more, that FreeBSD has been/is being > >> divided in to two camps. Basically, the "has", and the "has > >> not". What I mean by this, is that there appears to be the core > >> team, who kick butt making this stuff all work, then the people like > >> me, who'd like to help out where they can, but seem to have an > >> incredible time getting started. > > > >This is called the "learning curve". There are two ways to climb it, for > >climb it you must if you want to do anything. > > > >1) Spend lots of time trying, asking questions, exercising your intelligence > > and patience. > >2) Give lots of money to someone else to have them force you through 1). > > I disagree with your two cases. As with any development decision, if I can't > justify the cost of undertaking the certain project, I won't even begin it. In > the case of #1, its a time/learning curve that is out of reach. By the time > I figure it out for release x.y.z, its usually changed. Even so, digesting > x amount of data in reasonable size time chunks (I usually get 20 minutes > a couple of time a day here or there to work on these types of projects, maybe > totalling an hour or so a day). 20 minutes a day is exactly the situation that i face. sometimes i am able to devote an entire weekend day to the project but that is very rare (wife, 4 kids, house, 2 cars, job all of these demand maintainence ;) this is one reason that i took on the job of postmaster. find something that you need to do, then apply the extra effort to document that part of the system, or develope a program that you need and submit that to the project. everyone can contribute ;) jmb
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