The role of users

Stuart McGraw smcg4191 at frii.com
Fri Apr 20 17:33:36 EDT 2012


On 04/20/2012 11:15 AM, David T. wrote:
> Michael--
> 
> Is it your intention to turn THIS thread into another flame war about
> how members of the community are supposed to contribute? Because
> that's what it sounds like.

Didn't sound like that to me.

> Your comments also seem to imply that my observations in particular
> are not to be taken seriously, and I resent that.

No.  He said (paraphrased) *he* would take them *less* seriously.  
And he said that about anyone complaining without trying to 
otherwise contribute, not you in particular.  The use of "you" 
in the other sentences I read as the plural "you".  I wonder who 
exactly has the intent to turn this into flame war?

> Unfortunately, your comments perpetuate the very negative atmosphere
> that others have noted about the Gnucash community.

Michael provided some useful ways to contribute, which
although taking more time than to pop off a critical email, 
are also more productive.

Try to add something productive myself, another way for non-
coders to contribute that I've seen in other projects is bugs
triage.  It can be very useful to have someone simple go through
newly submitted bug reports and try to confirm them, either 
by reproducing the given problem from the bug report, or by 
contacting the submitter to get enough info to reproduce.
Non-reproducible ones can be closed.  

With a little more knowledge of gnucash, a number of other 
bugs could be taken care of without coding skills.  With a
quick look it appeared to me that that the first three bugs
in the SQL category could be closed as "wontfix".

This would require some participation/guidance by the core
developers but has proven to be time-saving in other projects.


> ________________________________ From: Mike or Penny Novack
> <stepbystepfarm at mtdata.com> To: David T. <sunfish62 at yahoo.com> Cc:
> Ross Boylan <RossBoylan at stanfordalumni.org>; Gnucash user list
> <gnucash-user at gnucash.org> Sent: Friday, April 20, 2012 4:15 AM 
> Subject: Re: The role of users
> 
> 
>> If I could offer more than this, I would. I really think Gnucash is
>> great software, and I wish I could figure out how to scratch my own
>> Gnucash itches (like better reports).
>> 
>> 
> In the "real world" the development of software involves the time and
> effort of more people than just the "developers". You do NOT have to
> be a coder to be useful. There is a role for users in the process,
> more than just a wish "I would like to have THIS" or "I would like to
> have THAT fixed" with only a vague description of what This or that
> might be.
> 
> I would take more seriously the complaints IF the complaining users
> were to say I/we will agree to commit our time and effort to that
> part of the process which is the users role. In a real world software
> process usually at least 20% of time/effort is users coming up with a
> formal definition of what is wanted (from the users' point of view).
> What the software is supposed to do under normal circumstances and
> what it is supposed to do under all exceptional circumstances. And
> then coming up with the (user) test plan for acceptance and supplying
> users for that testing (comes after the coding developers have tested
> and eliminated gross errors). In fact, this can sometimes be much
> more than 20% of the process.
> 
> If there is no formal definition of what some piece of software is
> supposed to do then whatever it does is correct (as long as it
> doesn't hang or loop).
> 
> Users don't have to do this alone. Or shouldn't have to. If and when
> a "user team" comes into being they should be able to ask for the
> assistance of an analyst experienced with working the users side as
> well as the coder side.
> 
> Michael D Novack, FLMI 
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