Overwhelmed by traffic on this list
Hey folks, I am not a big-time Drupal developer. My time is stretched pretty thin, and although there are some small-scale contributions I'd like to make to Drupal, it is not a primary time-sink for me. Therefore, although I need to find out about things like planned release dates and API or architectural changes which will impact my Drupal code, I don't need, and don't have the time, to participate in all the ongoing instructions on this list. While I can only speak definitively for myself, I imagine that I am not alone in this regard. I am wondering if it would be possible for a new list to be created for announcements which are of interest to all developers, including small-scale developers like me. It would be very helpful for me to be able to subscribe to such an announcement list and unsubscribe from the development list, the vast majority of whose traffic is not relevant to me. Is there any chance of that happening? Thanks, jik
On 1/10/06, Karoly Negyesi <karoly@negyesi.net> wrote:
Is there any chance of that happening?
I write quickies in the newsletter. Maybe that helps. Or not.
+1 for announcements@drupal.org mailing list. -- e www.eafarris.com
On 1/10/06, eric Farris <eafarris@gmail.com> wrote:
On 1/10/06, Karoly Negyesi <karoly@negyesi.net> wrote:
Is there any chance of that happening?
I write quickies in the newsletter. Maybe that helps. Or not.
+1 for announcements@drupal.org mailing list.
Actually, the newsletter already goes out to those who subscribed to it (on the website: http://drupal.org/newsletter , press "subscribe"). For the requirements (which are: no discussions, just the devel changes), this is a good substitute for devel@drupal. So, simply put, go to http://drupal.org/newsletter , press "subscribe", problem solved. ~arnab
Karoly Negyesi writes:
Is there any chance of that happening?
I write quickies in the newsletter. Maybe that helps. Or not.
Not really, because I don't read the newsletter and don't really want to have to. I suppose what I'm asking for us for people to be aware that there is a class of drupal developers who are not adequately provided for by the currently available resources. We want to be able to write Drupal code and even to contribute it back to contrib or perhaps even core (if appropriate), but when we're not doing that, we want to be pretty much detached from the Drupal world. In other words, no offense, but when the Drupal site I maintain is working, I don't want to have anything to do with it or Drupal. Those of you who are much more into Drupal are intimately aware of when things change that we "casual" developers need to know about. What I'm asking for is a dedicated channel for communicating such information. Thanks for considering the idea :-). jik
Hello I think the problem lies not on Drupals site. We have forums, RSS feeds a newsletter, front-page posts, planet RSS aggregation. Just any kind of news for any person in any format. What you might consider is either filtering your messages better, or turning off your mailinglists temporarily. I switch them off now and then (when on holidays or deadlines). Bèr Op dinsdag 10 januari 2006 21:42, schreef Jonathan Kamens:
Karoly Negyesi writes:
Is there any chance of that happening?
I write quickies in the newsletter. Maybe that helps. Or not.
Not really, because I don't read the newsletter and don't really want to have to.
I suppose what I'm asking for us for people to be aware that there is a class of drupal developers who are not adequately provided for by the currently available resources. We want to be able to write Drupal code and even to contribute it back to contrib or perhaps even core (if appropriate), but when we're not doing that, we want to be pretty much detached from the Drupal world. In other words, no offense, but when the Drupal site I maintain is working, I don't want to have anything to do with it or Drupal.
Those of you who are much more into Drupal are intimately aware of when things change that we "casual" developers need to know about. What I'm asking for is a dedicated channel for communicating such information.
Thanks for considering the idea :-).
jik
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Bèr Kessels writes:
I think the problem lies not on Drupals site. We have forums, RSS feeds a newsletter, front-page posts, planet RSS aggregation. Just any kind of news for any person in any format.
Please tell me a single source of information I can access to get the information I need to keep my drupal code working with the core, without being forced to filter out many times that more irrelevant information. If such an in information source exists, I'll gladly use it. But if you're going to turn around and tell me that I need to monitor several information feeds and/or filter out tons of irrelevant information just to get the kernels of information that I actually need, then I'm going to tell you that (a) I don't have the time and (b) even if I did, that would pretty much guarantee that I'd miss the crucial information when it was published, for the reasons I outlined in the message I just sent.
What you might consider is either filtering your messages better, or turning off your mailinglists temporarily. I switch them off now and then (when on holidays or deadlines).
I've been active on the Internet for over 18 years. Please don't insult my intelligence by telling me that if only I filtered my messages better, I'd be able to see exactly what I need to see without seeing anything else. That's just rubbish. Maintaining filters takes time; see my previous message about how I don't have any of that. Filters need to be actively maintained or they quickly become obsolete. And filters occasionally block things that people need to see, which in the case I'm discussing is the things that I *really* need to see or my code will suddenly stop working. As for turning off the list, no, that doesn't solve at all the problem I'm trying to solve, because how will I know if, while I've turned off the list, there just happens to be an announcement of some API change that I need to know about. As I said in my last message, y'all are certainly free to decide that there's no need for what I've suggested. I'm not going to waste any more of my time or yours defending the idea, because I think I've made it perfectly clear why I think it's necessary. But I think y'all ought to think about why so many people seem to think that the Drupal community is hostile to people like me who aren't and don't want to be dyed-in-the-wool Drupal geeks. There's an old Yiddish saying, "If three people say you're a donkey, buy a saddle." jik
Please tell me a single source of information I can access to get the information I need to keep my drupal code working with the core, without being forced to filter out many times that more irrelevant information. If such an in information source exists, I'll gladly use it.
There's a module conversion guide in the drupal handbook, and it's been updated semi-regularly. Once 4.7 hits RC and goes gold, it will be finalized. Part of the difficulty in providing this sort of filtered list is that it is very, very personalized and very, very labor intensive. Should there be an announce list for 'CVS core compatability issues' and one for 'Design changes under consideration' and a separate one for 'discussion stemming from design changes under consideration?' I'm not trying to shoot you down, just attempting to point out that what constitutes 'important information' is terribly hard to weigh, and is very subjective once you pass a certain technical threshold. If you have a full time job and kids and negative free time, and don't want to think about Drupal when it's working... Honestly, stop running the CVS HEAD version. Important security fixes are all you really need to keep up on at that point. --Jeff
Jeff Eaton writes:
Part of the difficulty in providing this sort of filtered list is that it is very, very personalized and very, very labor intensive. Should there be an announce list for 'CVS core compatability issues' and one for 'Design changes under consideration' and a separate one for 'discussion stemming from design changes under consideration?' I'm not trying to shoot you down, just attempting to point out that what constitutes 'important information' is terribly hard to weigh, and is very subjective once you pass a certain technical threshold.
Even if every one of the categories of information you described were sent to the announcements list, with subsequent *discussion* of those announcements directed at the development list, the bandwidth on the announcements list would be orders of magnitude less than the bandwiddth on the development list. In other words, erring on the side of using the announcements list if it might possibly be appropriate would by no means negate the utility of the list.
If you have a full time job and kids and negative free time, and don't want to think about Drupal when it's working... Honestly, stop running the CVS HEAD version. Important security fixes are all you really need to keep up on at that point.
I'm not running CVS HEAD. I'm running 4.6.5. I was running 4.6.3, and didn't even realize that 4.6.4 and 4.6.5 had been released, despite the fact that I subscribe to this list, until a friend pointed it out to me. That's the kind of thing I'm talking about. jik
Even if every one of the categories of information you described were sent to the announcements list, with subsequent *discussion* of those announcements directed at the development list, the bandwidth on the
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Jonathan, It sounds like you might be looking for this: http://drupal.org/security
I think that subscribing to frontpage RSS would be enough to see big news about Drupal. Even if there's a lot of Drupal related stuff, it's not a very busy channel and using your RSS reader won't overwhelm your mail box and you won't miss new releases.
On Tue, Jan 10, 2006 at 05:41:17PM -0500, Jonathan Kamens wrote:
I'm not running CVS HEAD. I'm running 4.6.5. I was running 4.6.3, and didn't even realize that 4.6.4 and 4.6.5 had been released, despite the fact that I subscribe to this list, until a friend pointed it out to me. That's the kind of thing I'm talking about.
http://drupal.org/security and you'd know about 4.6.4 (hmm maybe not about 4.6.5) -- Piotrek irc: #debian.pl Mors Drosophilis melanogastribus!
Jonathan Kamens wrote:
As for turning off the list, no, that doesn't solve at all the problem I'm trying to solve, because how will I know if, while I've turned off the list, there just happens to be an announcement of some API change that I need to know about.
The short answer is that all that information will be in the handbook in the "Updating your modules" section. The list isn't going to be a very good source for that information, in fact; neither will an announcement list.
Isn't this list also offered in digest mode through the mailman settings? Jonathan Kamens wrote:
Hey folks,
I am not a big-time Drupal developer. My time is stretched pretty thin, and although there are some small-scale contributions I'd like to make to Drupal, it is not a primary time-sink for me.
Therefore, although I need to find out about things like planned release dates and API or architectural changes which will impact my Drupal code, I don't need, and don't have the time, to participate in all the ongoing instructions on this list. While I can only speak definitively for myself, I imagine that I am not alone in this regard.
I am wondering if it would be possible for a new list to be created for announcements which are of interest to all developers, including small-scale developers like me. It would be very helpful for me to be able to subscribe to such an announcement list and unsubscribe from the development list, the vast majority of whose traffic is not relevant to me.
Is there any chance of that happening?
Thanks,
jik
Bill Fitzgerald writes:
Isn't this list also offered in digest mode through the mailman settings?
This doesn't solve anything. It's not the number of messages that are overwhelming, although there are certainly a lot of them, it's the content. I don't have time to read the content of the messages whether I receive them separately or in a digest. jik
In theory, digest mode would work for this, since you can just scan the headers. Robin -- Robin Monks, CSL Web Administrator robin@civicspacelabs.org ( http://gmking.org, a gamers dream )
Robin Monks writes:
In theory, digest mode would work for this, since you can just scan the headers.
I'm sorry, but I disagree. Look, I have four kids under the age of 7. I have a full-time job which has -zero- to do with Drupal. I am on at least four or five different volunteer committees. I maintain several OSS packages that have -zero- to do with Drupal. I'm up after 11pm pretty much every night, up after midnight many nights, up all night on a somewhat regular basis, and regardless of how late I have to stay up just to get done what I need to get done, I still have to get up at 6am to get the kids to school and get to work on time. I have less than no free time. I have negative free time. Scanning headers takes time. Scanning headers is also header-prone, because the ratio of relevant to irrelevant (to me) messages is is going to be so ridiculously low that when one that's relevant finally pops onto the digest, I'll surely miss it. If the more active Drupal developers and core maintainers want to write off people like me, and I suppose that's entirely possible given the way I've seen some other casual Drupalers treated on this list, that's certainly a legitimate choice for you to make. But what I'm saying is that with just a little bit of effort to make the information that we need accessible to us, you will enable us to be active contributors to the community. Mind you, people are already writing and sending out the messages that people like me need to see. They're just being sent out to a list that people like me simply don't want to read. It would be pretty much no extra time at all for these messages to be sent to a developer announcements list instead of or in addition to this list. jik
It's hard to know exactly what to say. You're pretty busy and no mailing list will fix that. I find the CVS commits very helpful. When I read them, the comments are short, to the point, and I know what is being worked on. You can also get an RSS feed for them. Perhaps this is what you're looking for. http://drupal.org/cvs cheers, Robert Jonathan Kamens wrote:
Robin Monks writes:
In theory, digest mode would work for this, since you can just scan the headers.
I'm sorry, but I disagree.
Look, I have four kids under the age of 7. I have a full-time job which has -zero- to do with Drupal. I am on at least four or five different volunteer committees. I maintain several OSS packages that have -zero- to do with Drupal. I'm up after 11pm pretty much every night, up after midnight many nights, up all night on a somewhat regular basis, and regardless of how late I have to stay up just to get done what I need to get done, I still have to get up at 6am to get the kids to school and get to work on time.
I have less than no free time. I have negative free time. Scanning headers takes time. Scanning headers is also header-prone, because the ratio of relevant to irrelevant (to me) messages is is going to be so ridiculously low that when one that's relevant finally pops onto the digest, I'll surely miss it.
If the more active Drupal developers and core maintainers want to write off people like me, and I suppose that's entirely possible given the way I've seen some other casual Drupalers treated on this list, that's certainly a legitimate choice for you to make. But what I'm saying is that with just a little bit of effort to make the information that we need accessible to us, you will enable us to be active contributors to the community.
Mind you, people are already writing and sending out the messages that people like me need to see. They're just being sent out to a list that people like me simply don't want to read. It would be pretty much no extra time at all for these messages to be sent to a developer announcements list instead of or in addition to this list.
jik
participants (13)
-
Arnab Nandi -
Bill Fitzgerald -
Bèr Kessels -
Earl Miles -
eric Farris -
Jeff Eaton -
Jonathan Kamens -
Karoly Negyesi -
Morbus Iff -
Nicolas Tostin -
piotr＠mallorn.ii.uj.edu.pl -
Robert Douglass -
Robin Monks