State of MicroPython universe (was: of micropython-lib?)

[Damien]

On the other hand, is you want to tell us something interesting, feel free to tell whether you job title is something like "community manager", or you're from marketing department on part-time assignment. Knowing that would be indeed insightful. Thanks.

This comment is completely uncalled for and is unacceptable behaviour on this forum. It shows no respect for the author of the post you refer to. @pfalcon If you make further comments like this you will be banned from this forum.

[pfalcon]

On the other hand, is you want to tell us something interesting, feel free to tell whether you job title is something like "community manager", or you're from marketing department on part-time assignment. Knowing that would be indeed insightful. Thanks.

This comment is completely uncalled for and is unacceptable behaviour on this forum. It shows no respect for the author of the post you refer to. @pfalcon If you make further comments like this you will be banned from this forum.

??? Just imagine I met that person at a conference. They would either present themselves right away, or following dialog could easily ensue:

• Hi, I'm that guy/gal posting as "adafruit" on the forum
• Oh, nice to meet you! So, what's your role in Adafruit?

So, why can't I ask that on the forum? Especially given that that account seems to be very talkative recently - while the account was registered in 2016, 6 of 9 total posts were made in last 2 weeks. And those posts hold striking difference to posts of other Adafruit folks, like danhalbert, where common mode of dialog is like:

• User: there's a problem with CircuitPython...
• danhalbert: Ssshhhhhhh! Come over to our walled garden, we'll discuss it there.

adafruit's behavior is very outgoing and clearly promoting CircuitPython, while embracing MicroPython community in general, instead of dividing it up. I'm genuinely interested what's going on in Adafruit in that regard, if there's a person specifically for community management, how much CircuitPython specifically in their responsibilities, or if it all is just a coincidence.


So, Damien, please stop being uptight, get out of your weird world where silence and ignoring is considered normal behavior, where you drool over "disagreements", and look with jaundiced eye at others' communication. Better learn with everyone else how others are doing it. If everything was right, your hire would write cheerful posts here instead.

[stijn]

Look Paul, there's many way to say things, but you should realize that often when you say things (no matter if they're right or wrong - and usually they are right) it just sounds rather hostile/impolite/unfriendly. So whether you mean it like that or not: you quickly come over in a non-optimal way, so to speak.

A good example is exactly what you just got called out for: I follow your logic that you'd ask someone on a conference what their job is. But then you should just ask that exactly, and refrain from using something like "if you want to tell us something interesting" because it quickly sounds like what that person said before is uninteresting. Again, you might not have meant to sound like that, but it ends up looking like it.

Now I don't really care too much myself, except that it causes unnecessary friction between you and others, I just read past it and try to extract the gist, but not everyone is like that and consequently eyebrows get raised. If I remember correctly I'm also not exactly the first one to explain this (thinking of it, maybe I already did myself once), so maybe you should consider all this and try to use a different kind of communication to convey what you actually want to say. I know I have to take care of that exact same thing myself and I hope I did a good job in this post; if not: this is truly meant as polite advice

[pfalcon]

Look Paul, there's many way to say things, but you should realize that often when you say things (no matter if they're right or wrong - and usually they are right) it just sounds rather hostile/impolite/unfriendly. So whether you mean it like that or not: you quickly come over in a non-optimal way, so to speak.

Oh, I kinda got used to it. There's definitely some issues which itch everyone with the situation around MicroPython, then there's this pfalcon guy, which is always around to give impolite suggestion to read the docs, will unfriendly call b/s a b/s, etc., so all that itch - let's blame him! Thanks for joining, be my guest.

A good example is exactly what you just got called out for: I follow your logic that you'd ask someone on a conference what their job is. But then you should just ask that exactly

You see, talks on the forums and conferences are different. For example, at a conference, when a serious talk about project maintenance is to commence, nobody jumps out of nowhere holding a picture bigger than their height, of snake reading a book, jump out and cheerfully chirp "circuitpython! circuitpython! solution to all your problems is circuitpython". And that's literally what I picture as happening in the comment viewtopic.php?f=2&t=4358&start=30#p32325 .

and refrain from using something like "if you want to tell us something interesting" because it quickly sounds like what that person said before is uninteresting.

I totally mean it. It's a grown-up talk, and it's absolutely uninteresting to have rows of comic distractions posted among such talks. First time it happened in viewtopic.php?f=2&t=5556, and nobody talks about thread hijacking. But again, there should be feeling of appropriateness with posts like that. On many forums, overuse of text formatting is prohibited by rules. And on some forums, pictures are turned off because of spam, pr0n, etc. And where they're in, they are moderated in the same way as posts in cap letters with big red font. Trust me, it was a big picture, the size bigger than the textual content there . Beyond purely graphical distractions, posts a-la "forget about it, here's what we have in circuitpython" nailed on a thread without good cause are also uninteresting.

If they want to talk, let's have a grown-up talk about their marketing and community management plans, with who's who, etc. No reply? Oh, then keep up spammy jump-out advertisement tactics. Just not in this thread.

All in all, this is my last note on Adafruit posts here, their distraction tactics worked, and they've got enough advertisement already .

I know I have to take care of that exact same thing myself

That's indeed the best advice anyone can give to themselves.

[kevinkk525]

Look Paul, there's many way to say things, but you should realize that often when you say things (no matter if they're right or wrong - and usually they are right) it just sounds rather hostile/impolite/unfriendly. So whether you mean it like that or not: you quickly come over in a non-optimal way, so to speak.

Oh, I kinda got used to it. There's definitely some issues which itch everyone with the situation around MicroPython, then there's this pfalcon guy, which is always around to give impolite suggestion to read the docs, will unfriendly call b/s a b/s, etc., so all that itch - let's blame him! Thanks for joining, be my guest.

You know, if everyone around you thinks that your language and responses are inappropriate you either have the choice to say that they are all seeing it wrong or accept that you might be wrong. You certainly won't make any friends by just attacking everyone that tells you about your inappropriate way of communication.
This has nothing to do with blaming you for anything else than your bad communication skills. Neither I nor stijn would have any personal reasons to blame you for anything. I even agree with many of your points about micropython.

All in all, this is my last note on Adafruit posts here, their distraction tactics worked, and they've got enough advertisement already .

The distraction only worked because you write about it excessively. I saw that picture, it was huge, you removed it, problem solved. Nobody cares about it from that point but you bring up Adafruit and what you don't like about them over and over again and make your own thread off-topic.

I will not further respond to this thread as I think this problems have obviously been discussed often enough.

[pfalcon]

I of course understand that you'd like to try again, just as I understand that the mainline developers (damien?) does not want to try it again.

Yep, that's pretty much it. EGCS forked from GCC condemning its slowness and then reunited, IO.js went back into Node.js, even though it was initially about money, LEDE spin up a bit of drama with OpenWRT and merged back even before some folks managed to notice, countless other project went thru it, I got over it, and only Damien the Only Cook In The Kitchen (using his own idioms) can't.

I otherwise pragmatic guy - if there's a common codebase, if there's clearly lack of maintenance, if there's goofs/bugs/missing features (first of all in my code), I'd rather forget all the pissing-off experience trying to set up some objective project governance, and total ignoring of those efforts, and do just what's possible to do in the current situation to get common project going. But I don't pledge - no, then no.

I already told that several times, that the worst thing which can happen with an OpenSource project is a maintainer losing interest in it. And just yesterday after posting in this topic, I got at this: https://gist.github.com/dominictarr/9fd ... 36b8d83b3a . Quick summary: a guy wrote a module, it went popular, the guy got tired with it, handed over to stranger. A stranger added a coin miner to burn cycles on boxes of thousands of users. You guessed where it happened - JavaScript community. But cases like that is why I'm strictly against changing anything in micropython-lib process: from day one, the packages were managed and maintained by me. Any attempt to do something to them without my consent (and I'm not giving it) is unfriendly overtake, and unfriendly overtakes are usually done for malicious reasons.

One time, I was working as a dishwasher in a resturant, and I made the mistake of being too competent, and I got promoted to cook. This was only a 50 cents an hour pay rise, but massively more responsibility. It didn't really feel worth it. Writing a popular module like this is like that times a million, and the pay rise is zero.

(Quote from JavaScript module compromise report talking about a cook, and Damien's "too many cooks in the kitchen" is a pure coincidence of course.)

[stijn]

There's definitely some issues which itch everyone with the situation around MicroPython .. so all that itch - let's blame him!

Erm, no. Blaming they way one talks about issues is completely seperate and different from blaming one for those things.

[Damien]

Yep, that's pretty much it. EGCS forked from GCC condemning its slowness and then reunited, IO.js went back into Node.js, even though it was initially about money, LEDE spin up a bit of drama with OpenWRT and merged back even before some folks managed to notice, countless other project went thru it, I got over it, and only Damien the Only Cook In The Kitchen (using his own idioms) can't.

We still have the same situation we had last year when I removed your push rights -- your attitude to people online is not acceptable, and we disagree deeply on direction -- so that's why you are not welcome back as a maintainer.

[kevinkk525]

Yep, that's pretty much it. EGCS forked from GCC condemning its slowness and then reunited, IO.js went back into Node.js, even though it was initially about money, LEDE spin up a bit of drama with OpenWRT and merged back even before some folks managed to notice, countless other project went thru it, I got over it, and only Damien the Only Cook In The Kitchen (using his own idioms) can't.

We still have the same situation we had last year when I removed your push rights -- your attitude to people online is not acceptable, and we disagree deeply on direction -- so that's why you are not welcome back as a maintainer.

That being said, many of the problems he pointed out, are real problems. For example the last micropython release is a long time ago, there are hundreds of open issues dating back to 2014 and over 100 pull requets. I'd like to encourage you @damien to keep up the work you are doing but also to solve these problems as they contribute to the scattered landscape of micropython.
I personally just benefit from micropython without the knowledge to contribute back (to the source code, but I do write libraries in micropython) and certainly don't want to blame anyone for the current state. Also blame won't get us anywhere, it's important to look at solutions.

[pfalcon]

we disagree deeply on direction

Do you not agree that bugs needs fixing, project maintained, planned features implemented, means to get forward with unplanned features need to be found? Then what "deep" disagreement are you talking about?

We still have the same situation we had last year when I removed your push rights -- your attitude to people online is not acceptable,

Your attitude is also not acceptable. You set up a scapegoating scheme where reactions of a project member who contributed 40% of changes presented not coming from your inability to set up comfortable and respectable contribution landscape, but as happening "because that's a bad person". In a herd behavior, that scheme is amplified by some people on this forum based on petty reasons "You didn't deliver me response on a silver plate but told me do some homework instead? Master Damien told you're a bad person, that must be true!". Then you use that in a positive feedback cycle, salt up with pretty strange claims a-la "You dared to ask a person if they have a marketing position! How awful!", as if holding a marketing position is itself awful, and then pack that all in schoolboy-level write-offs "Remember how you unweave my hat in 3rd grade? That's why it happens!".

Beyond that, you just ignore a lot of communication directed to you as a project leader. And I don't mean just myself, a contributor of yours for 4 years, I hear that from quite surprising sources (beyond this forum).

But you're right that the situation of the last year repeats. Such things happen with humans. In OpenSource field particularly this thread offers many examples already, and let me give a close example again. Many folks who started with ESP8266 are familiar with "Kolban's ESP8266 book". When he was asked why he wouldn't setup a project, put up the book "sources" there, and allow people to collaborate and contribute to it, he told that he had a sour story about such collaboration, when there was a guy with whom he wrote such a book, but then they got into an argument, blah-blah. Since then, he does that stuff on his own only. That's of course why "ESP8266 book" isn't finished, has funky content in it, etc. Sorry, I don't have direct reference to that story, but folks who follow ESP8266 forum from beginning must have heard it. He seems to have a hobby of writing such "books" and here's a random reply of his position: https://developer.ibm.com/answers/comme ... /view.html .

With stuff like that in mind, I wasn't afraid to try again. And I know why I do that - that's because I don't rely on things like "nice person", which are highly subjective and manipulable (stomp on nice person's toe at (un)right time, and they may swear back at you in surprise; stomp on aching toe, and they subconsciously may push you away). I instead try to concentrate on more objective things like purpose of the communication/interaction. In Czaplicki's video linked above it's called "Communication Intent".

So all in all, fine. Do your maintainer's work right then, you quite deteriorated on that over the last year.