From: Eric Hodel <drbrain@...7.net>
Date: 2005-05-29T02:48:32+09:00
Subject: Re: RI Conceptional Showstopper Bug.

On 28 May 2005, at 04:56, Lothar Scholz wrote:

> Hello Eric,
> EH> On 27 May 2005, at 22:15, Lothar Scholz wrote:
>
> EH> As it is, ri cannot tell you where a method came from, so  
> throwing in
> EH> methods from extensions will lead to much frustration as you  
> try to
> EH> track down which files you need to require to get which methods.
>
> EH> ri was designed to be clear and simple.  I worry that extra
> EH> information may end up being too much or completely missed.
>
> So it is a just an unprofessional toy. Low quality. You get what you
> pay for: nothing.
>
> Sorry but the world out there is not as simple. And i
> think many people who look at ruby simply leave it because with an
> attitude like this it really looks like a toy.

It is not an attitude, it is reality.  Please do not knock volunteer  
efforts, it is unprofessional and highly offensive.  This attitude of  
"your work sucks" will not get people to fix anything.

> It's not clear, not
> simple and it does not work for me and for thousands of other people
> who are think that lack of documentation is still a big missing
> of ruby. So whats now ?

Complaining about the problem will not fix it.  If things are missing/ 
broken/don't work like you want then file a bug and offer a solution  
(http://rubyforge.org/projects/rdoc/).  Simply complaining how things  
suck is not going to get them fixed.

>>> Thinks like this are going to make me tired.
>>> Easy of implementation seems to have always a higher priority then
>>> correctness
>>> or fullfilling requirements.
>>>
>
> EH> ri's original requirements seem to have been something like  
> "Create a
> EH> command-line tool to give handy access to documentation for core
> EH> Ruby".  It performs exceedingly well at this.
>
> No. This was not the requirement.

Please, enlighten us.  What was the requirement?

> EH> I also don't believe you have a reason to complain about
> EH> 'correctness' or 'fullfilling requirements' when you did not  
> pay for
> EH> the product.  People typically release for free what *they* need,
> EH> and understand it may need to be adapted by others to fit other  
> needs.
>
> I see this (and almost any things we both talked before on this  
> list) very
> different from you.
>
> I think it is a huge failure of the ruby core team to accept a tool
> of this low quality and put it as one of the core technologies into  
> the
> ruby core. But i'm too tired to talk about this issues again and  
> again.
> Maybe we should look at better working communities, for example Guido
> still does not bundle pychecker (a good tool) with the language
> runtime as it is not of high enough quality. I think the ruby people
> should have the same high quality commitment as python.
>
> The main problem is that if someone else jumps in it is 100'th of  
> hours
> of work, while a little bit better and more general implementation  
> would
> took just a few 10'th of hours. Thats whats so disappointing about all
> this.

What would you do if you had no ri or rdoc?

Please describe how ri and rdoc could be better here, or file a bug  
(http://rubyforge.org/projects/rdoc/).  I find it highly unlikely  
that it will get fixed without at least a concrete description of the  
problems.

-- 
Eric Hodel - drbrain@segment7.net - http://segment7.net
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