Improving the host <parents> logic

Andreas Ericsson ae at op5.se
Thu Dec 15 14:12:02 CET 2005


Thibault Genessay wrote:
> 
> Andreas, please consider what "digital pollution" is.


In order of timewasting/usefulness ratio;
1. Asking questions which are answered in documentation or mailing list 
archives.
2. Asking questions about a programs behaviour that can be tested in a 
few minutes with little effort.
3. Spam.
4. Suggesting poorly thought out features that are already implemented, 
but in a different way without thoroughly understanding why the feature 
was implemented like that in the first place.
5. Suggesting features without hinting willingness to write a patch but 
expressing eagerness in seeing them implemented.
6. Suggesting poorly thought out features without supplying a patch.


Shane's email falls in the 4'th category which in my world makes it 
worth responding to with:
1. My reasons why it's a bad idea.
2. A clarified explanation of the feature.
3. A pointer to where the poster could have picked up info about this first.
4. Depending on the weather and other strictly local variables over 
which the original poster has absolutely no control, a request to the 
poster to clarify why the program would benefit from a different 
implementation or, as was the case yesterday, scorn.


> The list is an 
> open space for people to write their thoughts about how to improve 
> existing features and what new ones to add. Nothing is definitive in an 
> idea given to the list for discussion. If you don't like it, say so (and 
> why), but the very special kind of remarks you constantly add and the 
> tone which you greet newcomers with certainly contributes to the 
> morosity of the list.
> 
> Btw, quoting nagios.org:
> / This is a list for people with an interest in working on Nagios 
> addons, event handlers, etc. It is also a place where you can report 
> problems with the "core" code and suggest ideas for future enhancements.
> /
> Something is wrong here. Either the web site or the way all open 
> discussions get vaporized. Again, if Shane's idea was bad, just tell us 
> why.


I did. If it needs clarifying you should quote the parts you don't 
understand, write a short note with

"I understand this to mean 'frotz nitfol gnargelraf', but that doesn't 
make sense with how I understand the above to mean 'foo bar fnurg'. What 
is it I don't get?"

to which I can't possibly answer in that pleasant toxic-reeking tone I 
sometimes get, since you would indicate that I haven't been clear what I 
mean. Thus, the fault lies with me and I need to rectify, justify and 
clarify. If I'm unable to do so (perhaps because you lack the necessary 
prerequisite knowledge to understand whatever explanation I can possibly 
give short of essay-length on the subject at hand, such as why 
C-functions that are passed as arguments to qsort(3) can be 'static' but 
not 'inline') I will, politely, inform you about it.


> Some of us (me, at least) here do not compile kernels each and 
> every night and are a bit slower to understand, please bear with our 
> (my) incompetence.
> 

I'm not sure this has anything to do with anything. Any idiot can 
compile a kernel, but only a real idiot does it every night unless 
they're developing it (in which case they use the osdl build-hosts and 
get the results mailed to them in the morning).

-- 
Andreas Ericsson                   andreas.ericsson at op5.se
OP5 AB                             www.op5.se
Tel: +46 8-230225                  Fax: +46 8-230231


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