Lewis Cowles (He/Him, They,Them,Theirs)

Authored Comments

It's a great idea to push this off to manufacturers who should all be working much harder to ensure their users can use the devices they buy. I'd imagine the largest problem will be that manufacturers pull firmware as a planned obsolescence drive (kinda like how iPhones get slower just before a release of new iPhones).

As someone probably assumed to be a bit of a Mr Grumpy. I'd rather deal with 1000 Grumpy's if they have a point and it's not some abstract ideological tangent than 1000 lovely people who just agree and nod. Not to put too crude a point on it, engaging in the circle-jerk is worse IMO than consistent grumping.

Consensus really is dull as dishwater. Whilst we all need a degree of it for the basis we build upon, it's not a very innovative state to be stuck in perpetually, just as much as disagreement is equally an undesirable permanent state.

Often times "working", and/or "being adopted" are seen as the goals, "but what then?" is a question I'd like to see asked more. This isn't nearly as great a sign or a motivator as "being criticised", "receiving feedback" and seeing how that is dealt with.

I'd like to hastily add feedback doesn't have to be a criticism, but an issue as a compliment is something I've never seen (please point one out if you know of one). Issues as documentation is something I think is a more powerful idea. but then I like PR's that ignore community guidelines (if the license mandates giving back, that doesn't mean it has to follow community guidelines, or that it has to be merged to mainline).

What really grinds my gears is when intent is assumed, or enforced. "Here is a PR", is not "Here's the next shippable version". "Here is an issue", is not "You must have this, I now control your product", or "this is a bug". The overwhelming number of issues I see are questions (probably why github has a question label by default).

The way many projects react is just as-if a client has submitted a change-request with no budget. The community becomes some three-headed beast all contributors are committed to fighting. We have labels like "wontfix", "need help" built into popular solutions like Github. We can create more like "needs tests" for naughty PR's.

The general consensus still seems to be "act like you work for Microsoft in the 90's". The contributors all mount virtual howitzers to defend from incoming communication, closing issues that are not merged rather than attaching labels that actually contribute a lot more, and stand a huge amount more chance to be located on a system defaulting to search only open issues.

"We don't want to go the direction in issue {x}, closed", is to intelligence what lunar soil is to life. Issues are not requests for work from programmers for the most part. PR's are more "here's a thing I did" than "look at my new car". If you wading through issues is your backlog, you've got bigger problems than does it tick a lot of boxes from a CLA, or contributor guide, or did it follow the template!

I must admit, I generally just shrug and move on now, but I'd love to wake up in a world with a lot fewer insta-feels and a little more deliberation.