OT: Re: Gnucash-forking off from 401.

[Andrew Sackville-West]

brydone at btinternet.com wrote:
> Thanks for the message. If I come into a lot of money I'll do an
> Ubuntu/Shuttleworth  and make life easier for the project if they want.
> 
> Ofcourse I appreciate that Gnucash will never go onto another
> proprietory system why should it! And I certainly didn't mean to offend
> anyone! And furthermore, to put the thing together that does exist, is
> obviously not some fairy tail exercise! and that it is as I said, the
> results of some hard sluggers.

well, I was wrong there, but see other thread.
> 
> With regards my specific issues, as I say I'm emerging from a period of
> deep sleep and it's taking a while to get the rust out of my cogs, and
> your pointers might help me in that regard, but in any event I'm still
> keeping a record and if I think it's of any use I'll post it in three
> months. But as you are running your own 16 person/600K buiness on it it
> obviously works, and my problems are obviously more to do with learning
> curve stuff than anything else.
> 
> It would be of interest to me to see how the team is organised, is there
> a group sort of merging of ideas, or is there a management structure,
> and roughly how many developers and acounting advisers you have, and
> whatever else, and how you end up with the volunteers, are they word of
> mouth type people, or do they come from looking around for something to
> do in their spare time and volunteer to get stuck in for a period of
> time or a project, is there anyone you could steer me to in that, if you
> yourself haven't an insight into it.
> 
>>From the general tennor of your message as I have been toying with the
> idea of learning coding, it might be useful, to myself at least, and I
> think actually, all in all, I'll try and get in gear there, even if it
> is going to be a two or three year job. I'll try and do Scheme as a
> starter, and if I have to learn something else in addition I'll follow
> the trail.
> 
> Thanks again, you might see me on the mailing list in three months time,
> you might not. Trouble is I don't have much stuff to work with at a real
> level, as one of the reasons I had to stop work, was burn-out, (clinical
> depression) and at the moment I'm unable to use the right hand side of
> my brain or the left hand side, in detailed work, as opposed to broad
> paintbrush stuff, and so can't really actually work in the work place,
> if you get my drift, but hopefully I'll be able to nevertheless come to
> some kind of idea as to how easy or otherwise it is to use for the
> computer illiterate and make some useful contribution.

I'm sure a perspective from a computer-illiterate is much appreciated. 
The key there though is to structure questions and comments with as much 
relevant information as possible. useful things include what 
distribution you're using, what versions, detailed information about 
what exactly you are trying to accomplish, how the results differed from 
your expectations etc. The more, better, information, the more useful 
the replies will be.
> 
> With regards apt-get I have got a load of stuff on apt-get and other
> such like things of the web, but for one reason or other haven't had
> much success with them. For instance at the moment I don't know how to
> respond to points on e-mails, the way you do, by inserting comments in
> the original e-mail. I have a lot to learn.

don't we all? this little trick of inserting responses is fairly easy. 
Depending on your email client, you simply select the option that quotes 
  the original message when replying. Then you move your way down and 
start typing. If you need more assistance in understanding what you are 
doing with apt-get and other utilities, or linux stuff in general, 
please respond off-list and I'll help in whatever way I can. Also, 
google is your friend. There is more linux-oriented information on the 
web than you can possibly imagine.

A
> 
> However as King Robert de Bruit of Scotland apparently learnt according
> to legend whilst gazing up at the ceilng in a cave on the Island of
> Arran,where I'm living at the moment, looking for something to pass the
> time of day over, (much like me) and watching a spider trying to get
> from point (a) to point (b), try and try again, especially if other
> folks can do it, and you have an interest in doing it yourself.
> 
> Regards
> 
> Douglas Brydone 
> 
>