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In lugnet.cad.dev, Larry Pieniazek writes:
> In lugnet.cad.dev, Jeremy H. Sproat writes:
> > The thing is, there's a bottleneck here because one or several people don't
> > have the time to push the update system changes through. This is
> > understandable and perfectly fine, given the volunteer nature of LDraw.
> > Offload that time onto the end-users, then.
> How does that help? That is, suppose it would take 40 man hours of work to
> resolve the bottleneck and get the new process on line and running. If that
> 40 hours avoids 400 or 4000 hours of user effort, isn't it worth it for the
> users to wait?
The bugger here is that we could play what-if with the schedule all year
long. I won't do that.
> Maybe you are saying let the users decide for themselves?
Why not? Aren't the users why the whole LDraw thing happens, anyway?
> Would you be willing to volunteer to help get the new process fixed?
I would, but only to get it done my way -- quick & cheap & dirty. I doubt
that would go over very well with the LDraw Powers...
> Conversely, you said that it was OK that users have to go to extra effort to
> get parts. Right now, the extra effort every user goes through is to search
> the entire newsgroup for the dat file. Would you be willing to go find 10,
> and put them on a community updateable resource, if everyone else that was
> complaining about the bottleneck also went and found 10 different ones and
> posted them to the same resource too? Maybe that would BE your 'interim update'
I could already do that now. Why should anyone have to search the
newsgroups for DAT files if they've already been collected?
Or perhaps that's the problem. Have they been collected? Or have they been
only partially collected? And if that is the case, where did the collection
stop?
> If not, what did you mean about not wanting an officialy
> packaged/installeable update, exactly?
An unofficial update shouldn't be "installable"; that is, it should not be
as easy to snarf as an official update. I gave some (IMO) very good reasons
in my post before. To summarize:
a) it should take more effort to install since the greater effort is
remembered more by the end-user
b) it should take more effort to install in order to reflect the greater
risk of bad parts
c) people who want to take the greater risk with preview pieces should take
a similar responsibility for their preview-philic actions, and therefore be
familiar enough with LDraw to recover from a bad piece, and therefore be
familiar with LDraw enough to install new primitives as well as new parts
d) packaging unofficial pieces with ARJ or LHA or ZIP or whatever, in the
exact same format as official updates, takes more time than just putting the
files out there
e) people looking for parts in the preview set probably won't want the
entire set all at once
f) (and this one is new) recovering from the whole set of preview parts is
much more difficult for the end-user than recovering from a small handful of
preview parts
> I am just brainstorming (and this may generate me some flame mail too, I dunno)
I like my solution -- just put them out there for download with a
disclaimer. It's the simplest in terms of work on the maintainer's end, and
enforces a certain level of competency on the end-user's part.
Any solution that takes the least amount of time & effort with the maximum
amount of exposure for preview parts would be good, however. As long as
something is done to get the parts out.
> I have seen previews of the new system and it will be very very
> nice once it is done.
I'm sure it will be. But it hasn't been available, and won't be until it's
done, and it's blocking the new parts until it is done.
This, BTW, is the one of the top problems in the software industry, and one
which you should be very familiar with. I don't know what to call it, but
it's somewhat related to crepping featuritis, and can turn a very good piece
of software into vaporware.
Cheers,
- jsproat
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> just put them out there for download ...
> It's the simplest in terms of work on the maintainer's end, and
> enforces a certain level of competency on the end-user's part.
Ummmm.... Isn't that what the lugnet.cad.dat.parts newsgroup (or Tore's temp
parts tracker) is for? You go looking for the part you want and install it.
That's what I've been doing. What I wanted when I asked my original
question (which has now gone way beyong the quasi-polite questioning that I
started) was an official update so that I could install it on many different
computers easily without having to manually do it.
-Orion
(This is what I get for coming out of lurk mode)
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In lugnet.cad.dev, Orion Pobursky writes:
>
> Ummmm.... Isn't that what the lugnet.cad.dat.parts newsgroup (or Tore's temp
> parts tracker) is for? You go looking for the part you want and install it.
> That's what I've been doing.
Orion, you bring up a great idea that could solve the problem in the
interum. Take all the parts you can find on Tore's tracker and in the parts
newsgroup, put them in a self extracting archive or .zip file, and post the
file somewhere like brickshelf with a disclaimer that they are pre-release.
I think this would satisfy most people until the new system is ready to go
online. This would also help you solve your problem of multiple installs.
-Chuck
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I think I'll do that, if I can find the time (work in the real world's going
to get pretty hectic over the next month). Thanks Chuck.
-Orion
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In lugnet.cad.dev, Orion Pobursky writes:
> I think I'll do that, if I can find the time (work in the real world's going
> to get pretty hectic over the next month). Thanks Chuck.
>
> -Orion
You might also ask the parts author's permission before including their
parts in the "pre-release". Some people can be touchy about this. I'm not a
parts author, so no need to ask me.
-Chuck
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In lugnet.cad.dev, Chuck Sommerville writes:
> I'm not a
> parts author, so no need to ask me.
>
> -Chuck
OK, so I lied, I guess I am a parts author of sorts:
http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=2288
These are on Tore's tracker. Feel free to include my updated heads.
-Chuck
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Hello Chuck,
> > Ummmm.... Isn't that what the lugnet.cad.dat.parts newsgroup (or Tore's • temp
> > parts tracker) is for? You go looking for the part you want and install • it.
> > That's what I've been doing.
Yes. That is a nice idea but some of the parts dont still have pattern
numbers or copyrights are missing or something like that.
> Orion, you bring up a great idea that could solve the problem in the
> interum. Take all the parts you can find on Tore's tracker and in the • parts
> newsgroup, put them in a self extracting archive or .zip file, and post • the
> file somewhere like brickshelf with a disclaimer that they are • pre-release.
> I think this would satisfy most people until the new system is ready to go
> online. This would also help you solve your problem of multiple installs.
Hmm.. I am a parts authour but I really would appreciate it more if some at
least checks these parts closely for errors and form and get small official
releases on their way instead of a whole big mess of unofficial not right
named and war parts. When I build a model with new parts in LDRaw I want to
be sure that i can open this model a year later and it still looks the same
and no prts are missing or changed their orienation or something like that.
That would be worst case for me.... I would not like the parts I did to be
in this scenario.
I like the idea with little official parts updates much more!
Greetings,
Carsten
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As you can imagine, behind the scenes discussion is running fast and furious
(not in the Mad sense, in the fast sense...oh never mind) The following are
rambles/my opinions, not official statements of position (remember I am the
nonvoting member who plays gadfly...). Take them with a large grain of salt
Doing an official vote on a small chunk is too much work for the benefit and
counter productive to long term goals so not as likely to happen... the real
way, once done, is better. (unless there were a putsch and the entire
current "board" were voted out and entirely new people came in and started
running things. Not very nice and not very likely to happen, either and if
it did you would see large delays while the new gang tried to come to grips
with what the heck it means to do a parts release. Tres work!)
if something unofficial came out from the gang, it probably would NOT be the
way Sproat wants it. Orion's install problem matters a lot. What Sproat
wants is already available now, you just have to dig harder to find the
parts. It probably would be a big zip or exe packaged similarly to more
official installs.
If that bugged Sproat or whoever, nothing is stopping him or whoever from
collecting and making available whatever alternative mechanism they like.
Nothing except the authors wishes and the license, which isn't in place yet
but will be soon for new submissions, we hope.
In lugnet.cad.dev.org.ldraw, Carsten Schmitz writes:
> Hello Chuck,
>
>
> > > Ummmm.... Isn't that what the lugnet.cad.dat.parts newsgroup (or Tore's
> > > temp
> > > parts tracker) is for? You go looking for the part you want and install
> > > it.
> > > That's what I've been doing.
>
> Yes. That is a nice idea but some of the parts dont still have pattern
> numbers or copyrights are missing or something like that.
This is a problem to the scheme. Can Authors who are paying attention fix
this as much as possible??
> > Orion, you bring up a great idea that could solve the problem in the
> > interum. Take all the parts you can find on Tore's tracker and in the
> > parts
> > newsgroup, put them in a self extracting archive or .zip file, and post
> > the
> > file somewhere like brickshelf with a disclaimer that they are
> > pre-release.
> Hmm.. I am a parts authour but I really would appreciate it more if some at
> least checks these parts closely for errors and form and get small official
> releases on their way instead of a whole big mess of unofficial not right
> named and war parts. When I build a model with new parts in LDRaw I want to
> be sure that i can open this model a year later and it still looks the same
> and no prts are missing or changed their orienation or something like that.
Easy fix for that. Don't install this unofficial release, then. If you
install it, you are committing that you want parts now even if not quite
right, rather than more perfect parts later. You can't have it both ways.
Sproat dinged me (rightly so) about scope creep (that's what it is called,
not creeping featurism) pushing out the new tracker end date. Well, the
scope is what it is for this parts release. There is the usual triangle here
of effort, quality level, and calendar. Effort isn't available to be
increased so if calendar is to be moved, quality level has to give.
> That would be worst case for me.... I would not like the parts I did to be
> in this scenario.
Well this adds complexity if someone has to figure out what is in and what
is out. Maybe major authors need to repost or dump to some common place the
parts they are willing to see in this interim release and if not present,
let the users who want them ask the authors nicely if they will relent.
> I like the idea with little official parts updates much more!
Not very likely to happen with the current administration. And before you
take to the streets and advocate revolution, consider the alternative. ;-)
++Lar
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