[Zope] Giving up in frustration

[Patrick Phalen]

On Mon, 16 Aug 1999, Hadar Pedhazur wrote:
> Bradford wrote:
> > This is unusual, I realize, but I'm going to tell you why
> > I'm giving up on Zope now.
> 
> [I'm snipping most of your post, because you say the cogent
> part above, and follow it up with a plea for better
> documentation].
> 
> I am very sorry to see you go. We all understand and feel
> for your frustration. We hate to lose even a single person
> because of a stupid reason like this, but alas, it is a
> chicken and egg problem. We are building a large and complex 
> system, all at our own risk. We give it away, and support
> the hell out of it, and yes, documentation lags (sometimes
> too much).

Hadar,

I'm afraid I simply can't *afford* to sympathize with your last sentence
and frankly I'm becoming very weary of seeing that sentiment put forth.

As much as I may disagree with some of the ideas espoused  by Richard
Stallman, I wholeheartedly agree with his notion that application
software lacking properly prepared documentation shouldn't be released
until that defect has been fixed. Period.

I doubt that the documentation writer DC has hired will ever catch up
in the current climate. I doubt that DC will ever achieve its goals
until that problem is addressed. If I were running DC, I'd declare the
following policy, effective immediately:

"""The current feature freeze on 2.0 will now be supplemented by a
development freeze. All developers, salespeople, in fact anyone with a
brain and a pair of eyes and hands, will reassign themselves to
supporting the documentation effort until that effort has come abreast
of the current and near-term development. Henceforth, we will *not*
release until documentation is in hand."""