[ic] "High traffic list" - ramblings on Interchange

[Davor Ocelic]

On Tue, 14 Mar 2006 09:03:30 +0100
Andreas Grau <agrau at esquat.com> wrote:

> 
> Remark: The introduction is copied over from another posting. I didn't
> want to mix subjects, which is why I am starting a new thread.

> And many of the PHP carts are, well, good looking. Hardly any IC shop
> in the hall of fame is nice and modern. And inviting.

Quite the opposite. I think a number of Hall of Fame sites are 
nice and modern and inviting. Maybe you didn't check the Hall
of Fame after the recent cleanup.

> Next, IC is largely unsupported. If you look in the mailing list
> archives, there are tons of serious questions which remain without
> answer. The other IRC channel is mostly dead.
> 
> Then, IC is not really documented. Since when I follow IC, there has
> been zero visible progress on the docs.

Must be that you are either following IC since only last month, or didn't
actually put any effort into seeing if anything has changed.

For everyone interested in the documentation, you can subscribe
to our 'docs' mailing list where you can see documentation CVS commits
and discuss documentation issues:

  http://www.icdevgroup.org/mailman/listinfo/docs

The list has not been publicly advertised before, but now it is ;-)

Also, as Stefan said, we are underpowered. The new documentation effort
is basically a one-man effort (the poor guy behind it being myself ;-).

I invite everyone who wants to help with the documentation, or wants to
sponsor its development, to contact me.

> Take an unsupportive mailing list plus zero docs, and you come to think
> that IC is actually a closed-shop solution.

"Zero docs"? Are you out of your mind?

"Unsupportive mailing list"? Are you *completely* out of your mind?

"Closed-shop solution"? Due to the technologies it relies on and the power
it has, it has a significant entry barrier. I don't see it as something
we should apologize for.

> To a newbie, IC is very complex. I can tell you from my own experience.
> And if one doesn't find a helping hand, he is likely to turn away again.
>
> What will be the consequences ?
> - Further drain of installations
> - Further drain of users
> - Increasingly bad reputation (complex, ugly, unsupported, few users)
> 
> In the end, there may be a team of dinosaurs who satisfies himself with
> existing clients. Probably rationalizing that IC is technically better
> than anything else.

Other developers may have other views, of course, but I don't see why should
we be trying hard to sell Interchange, when it is not a commodity item. We're
not into toilet paper or shower gel business.

> Anybody remember Univac or Data General ?

I understand you might have used this as an example, but the situation
is nowhere near being comparable to Interchange.

> I would appreciate it. And I hope we'll get somewhere with my
> provocation. Unless I am the only one who feels like this.

It's ok. A chance to sort out the mindset...

Have a nice day everyone,

-docelic at icdevgroup.org