Tracker issues continued

It actually aready works that way didn't you noticed? There's a Feedback
project in JIRA which I do process solely myself deciding what should/should
not be implemented/fixed and when. At least when I'm able to decide and can
understand the situation behind request enough. This doesn't mean developers
do not collaborate with EAP directly any more. I'm just trying to serve a
kind of filter for them.
Dmitry, Robert? Is that what you mean?

-

Maxim Shafirov
http://www.jetbrains.com
"Develop with pleasure!"

>> I think having one person, Product Manager, or EAP
>> Liaison, whatever you
>> want to call it, in charge of communicating with EAP
>> members and keeping
>> on top of things, is a good idea. It would be great.
>> I think we need it.

During the day I'm a professional java programmer. During the night
I'm a die-hard MMORPG[/url] player
(don't ask me how do I find time to do both things, it's a mistery),
and the MMORPG companies and players face a situation very similar to
what JetBrains and EAP users are facing right now.

Massive Multiplayer games are driven by continuous changes and
community feedback. The makers need to listen to the players, realize
what they want and develop it. Managing this process (gathering
feedback, filtering and deciding what gets implemented, and how) isn't
easy, and we all know that.

The most used solution in the game world is exactly the same Dmitry is
proposing, just with a different a different name: Community Manager.
The community manager is in charge of listening to feedback from the
players (usually entered in
forums[/url] run by the game
company), and translate that into concrete actions inside the company.
The CM is also responsible for the other way around: telling the
community what the developers are doing and what kind of info or
feedback they're currently looking for. This seems to work,

Does it rings a bell? Yes, it's very similar to what we do here,
except we don't have a community manager; the users communicate
directly to the developers. This doesn't scale, and that's exacly why
we start this thread in the first place.

Long story short, we could really use someone from JetBrains who's in
charge of managing the community. Someone whose job is to read the
forums and answer our posts, go to the issue tracker and manage our
requests, to discuss with the developers what we're looking for, and
tell us what they think about it.

</rant>

20 more minutes until I take off and go home to play WoW...

Marcus Brito wrote:

>The CM is also responsible for the other way around: telling the community what the developers are doing and what kind of info or feedback they're currently looking for. This seems to work,
>

>

We've been begging JetBrains for years, to give us a raw weekly/monthly
development reports. They've been very consistent in ignoring us.



>Does it rings a bell? Yes, it's very similar to what we do here, except we don't have a community manager; the users communicate directly to the developers.
>

We communicate to whomever JetBrains put in charge of reading the EAP
members mail.
It's their choice to assign active developpers to this very important task.


>Long story short, we could really use someone from JetBrains who's in charge of managing the community. Someone whose job is to read the forums and answer our posts, go to the issue tracker and manage our requests, to discuss with the developers what we're looking for, and tell us what they think about it.
>

>

If members keep asking feature X, and JetBrains keep ignoring the
request, the CM should also look into it, ask both parties, and write
about his findings.


Alain

Maxim Shafirov wrote:

It actually aready works that way didn't you noticed? There's a
Feedback project in JIRA which I do process solely myself deciding what
should/should not be implemented/fixed and when. At least when I'm able
to decide and can understand the situation behind request enough. This
doesn't mean developers do not collaborate with EAP directly any more.
I'm just trying to serve a kind of filter for them.
Dmitry, Robert? Is that what you mean?

BTW: I prefer Rob, Robert is too formal for me. :)

Regarding your role vs. EAP liaison role: The only difference is that if
it comes to crunch time, such as nearing a release or during a big
refactoring or something, and you are busy working on code, you would
have less time to keep up with newsgroups/issues, correct? What I think
of as 'EAP liaison' is that during crunch time, he or she would be busy
managing issues and have less time to work on code.

When I see messages from people saying things like, "Hello? Any response
from JetBrains?", that's when I think we need a liaison. It hasn't been
happening so much recently, but it has happened in the past.

--
Rob Harwood
Software Developer
JetBrains Inc.
http://www.jetbrains.com
"Develop with pleasure!"

Poor me sitting on 3 chairs... Donuts anyone? ;)

-

Maxim Shafirov
http://www.jetbrains.com
"Develop with pleasure!"

the JB developer saying the EAP is not valuable should be fired ;)
only joking - but really, this is arrogant. Pride will have a fall.

I think often it's a very big communication problem - not only because of some writers are not native english speakers (including me + czech + russian JB team). Btw., I wonder how big is really the east - west culture clash here. Don't get me wrong, I say it because I learnt to know some russian people and the mentality is different.


M.

Marcus Brito wrote:

>The CM is also responsible for the other way around:
telling the community what the developers are doing
and what kind of info or feedback they're currently
looking for. This seems to work,
>

>

We've been begging JetBrains for years, to give us a
raw weekly/monthly
development reports. They've been very consistent in
ignoring us.

But is that really useful to them? I mean, it might be neat for us to know, but I don't see how it would really affect the work that IDEA developers would do day-to-day.

Much more useful, would be the early discussion and feedback before they have gone off the deep end with the implementation.

Mike

In article <c8a8a1bf507a8c6e687637e6d3b@news.jetbrains.com>,
Maxim Shafirov <max@jetbrains.com> wrote:

Poor me sitting on 3 chairs... Donuts anyone? ;)

Why are you sitting on them, or are they on the chairs and you need room?

hahaha... these emails just have entirely too much text... I'm amazed
anyone is reading them anymore.

R

Hello Maxim,

It actually aready works that way didn't you noticed? There's a Feedback
project in JIRA which I do process solely myself deciding what should/should
not be implemented/fixed and when. At least when I'm able to decide and can
understand the situation behind request enough. This doesn't mean developers
do not collaborate with EAP directly any more. I'm just trying to serve a
kind of filter for them.
Dmitry, Robert? Is that what you mean?

Yup, Maxim, that is exactly what I meant.

But I also think that you, being a Project Manager for IDEA, are a wrong
person to act as EAP Product Manager.

I think IDEA will greatly benefit if the team has a Project Manager and a
Product Manager and they will in a way compete over the functionality to
implement.

Cheers,
Dmitry
--
Dmitry Lomov
Software Developer
JetBrains Inc.
http://www.jetbrains.com
"Develop With Pleasure!"

Hello Rob,

I guess I'll have to disagree with you there. It's a metaphor anyway.
My point is that there is no single steering wheel. The metaphor of
steering wheel is inherently flawed; it forces us to think about a
single point of control.

IDEA has a single point of control. It should. Every complicated software
project should have a single point of control. IDEA does not employ bazaar
development model - and it is a good thing.

If ideas would just evolve into working code by themselves, I am all for
a googlion of steering wheels. But there are poor developers who have to
implement all that, and someone to do all the planning. EAP members cannot
do that. So the team has an ultimate steering wheel and a single point of
control. Guidance for that come from many places, and largely from EAP.

>> My idea was that EAP Product Manager will be playing EAP card inside
>> IDEA team, making IDEA developers more aware of what EAP actually
>> need.
>> Read up on the role of Product Manager in XP development process - I
>> meant 'Product Manager' in that sense: someone who represents the
>> customer (EAP in our case) inside the team.
>> My point was that this person should be an insider, should be
>> someone
>> from JetBrains, not someone community elects, not even someone we
>> choose from community.

Certainly such a person would be very useful to the team, and also to
the EAP members. I think it's a great idea. I also think giving the
EAP members more power to self-organize is a great idea. Of the two
ideas, I think the self-organizing EAP is more important, because it
directly addresses the issue of polish.

I fail to see how self-organizing EAP addresses issues of polish. Could you
elaborate?

In fact, if the original proposal is adopted, I see 2 possible futures for
EAP: either EAP members get to hold the steering wheel and decide what goes
into next release and what not (unlikely) or EAP community becomes a "self-organized"
amorph mass wihout any influence on development process (very likely).

That is why EAP Product Manager is a way to go, IMHO. The more I read this
thread, the more I get the feeling that such person is vital for the future
of IDEA.

Friendly,
Dmitry
--
Dmitry Lomov
Software Developer
JetBrains Inc.
http://www.jetbrains.com
"Develop With Pleasure!"

Dmitry Lomov (JetBrains) wrote:

IDEA has a single point of control. It should. Every complicated
software project should have a single point of control. IDEA does not
employ bazaar development model - and it is a good thing.
If ideas would just evolve into working code by themselves, I am all for
a googlion of steering wheels. But there are poor developers who have to
implement all that, and someone to do all the planning. EAP members
cannot do that. So the team has an ultimate steering wheel and a single
point of control. Guidance for that come from many places, and largely
from EAP.

Are you purposely trying to misinterpret what I say? ;) I'm not talking
about bazaar-style development, that's silly. My point is that there is
no single person who alone decides what will go into IDEA and what will
not. Even if there was a single person who decides, that person does not
do so alone, without any input from other people. There is no
(successful) project in existence that works that way (unless it's a
lone developer developing a tool only for himself). The metaphor of
'steering wheel' is forcing you to think that way, but that is not how
IDEA works. There are +-10 members of the team, each with some say in
what goes in and how work is done. There are the three founders who add
in their ideas. There are dozens of dedicated EAPers, who do influence
the direction of IDEA. There's a whole market of existing and potential
customers who in their own distant way influence the direction of IDEA.
The idea of a steering wheel is just inaccurate, let's face it. You can
try to impose a single point of control, but that would be the end of
IDEA, IMO.

By the way: Single point of control implies single point of failure.

Anyway, if you want to continue this line of argument (I don't), let's
do it over email.

I fail to see how self-organizing EAP addresses issues of polish. Could
you elaborate?

Usenet: Too much noise in the threads.
Self-organizing wiki: Noise is filtered, signal is amplified.

Current situation: Too much noise in the feedback.
Self-organizing EAP: Noise is filtered, signal is amplified.

In fact, if the original proposal is adopted, I see 2 possible futures
for EAP: either EAP members get to hold the steering wheel and decide
what goes into next release and what not (unlikely) or EAP community
becomes a "self-organized" amorph mass wihout any influence on
development process (very likely).

Boy: Do not try and bend the spoon. That's impossible. Instead only try
to realize the truth.

Neo: What truth?

Boy: There is no spoon.

Rob: There is no steering wheel.


--
Rob Harwood
Software Developer
JetBrains Inc.
http://www.jetbrains.com
"Develop with pleasure!"

This is BY FAR the craziest idea I have ever read in this newsgroup.

We already realized that and used a different approach with JIRA. By the
way, "craziest" for me is a compliment.

Best regards,

Eugene Belyaev
President, CTO
JetBrains, Inc
http://www.jetbrains.com

"Develop with pleasure!"

Hi All,
Haven't been following jetbrains.intellij.eap for a while...
This is BY FAR the craziest idea I have ever read in this newsgroup.
Friendly,
Dmitry
--
Dmitry Lomov
Software Developer
JetBrains Inc.
http://www.jetbrains.com
"Develop With Pleasure!"

Hello Eugene,

By the way, "craziest" for me is a compliment.

Intended :)

Cheers,
Dmitry
--
Dmitry Lomov
Software Developer
JetBrains Inc.
http://www.jetbrains.com
"Develop With Pleasure!"

Yup, Maxim, that is exactly what I meant.

But I also think that you, being a Project Manager for IDEA, are a wrong
person to act as EAP Product Manager.

I think IDEA will greatly benefit if the team has a Project Manager and a
Product Manager and they will in a way compete over the functionality to
implement.

OH NO! I was in a company that did that, and the product manager had
absolutely NO concept of what engineering has time to do, and what it
doesn't. Product manager might agree to some direction because s/he
knows what direction it should go in, but should NEVER... EVER... have
control over user requests. NEVER... at least not in my company.

Product managers are not technical, they're more like Marketing monkeys,
and driving a product on pure marketing is everything the EAP is not
about.

R

Hello Robert,

Product managers are not technical, they're more like Marketing
monkeys, and driving a product on pure marketing is everything the EAP
is not about.

Right. So we do not need this kind of Product Manager. We need a technical
person who will be able to balance requiests coming from EAP and technical
problems that the team faces.

Friendly,
Dmitry
--
Dmitry Lomov
Software Developer
JetBrains Inc.
http://www.jetbrains.com
"Develop With Pleasure!"

In article <127180632446888826221480@news.intellij.net>,
Dmitry Lomov (JetBrains) <dmitry.lomov@jetbrains.com> wrote:

Hello Robert,

Product managers are not technical, they're more like Marketing
monkeys, and driving a product on pure marketing is everything the EAP
is not about.

Right. So we do not need this kind of Product Manager. We need a technical
person who will be able to balance requiests coming from EAP and technical
problems that the team faces.

Yup and that's Max. Max should be talking with whom ever to decide the
direction of the product. Once he knows, he should be trusted 100% by
everyone to drive the product in that direction. He is the best placed
person to be aware of what kind of load his engineers have, and what
each is best at, and decide if what ever is being streamed in from the
EAP community can or can't be done within a particular iteration or
release. Adding another person adds more complexity to the mix, and
serves no purpose other to log-jam and likely cause more disagreements
within the team on why something did make it in or not, and cause finger
pointing on why the product is delayed. If Max is responsible as he is
now, the blame falls in one place (don't mean to put the pressure on you
like this Max, but something tells me you can take it).

R

RS> Adding another person adds more
RS> complexity to the mix, and serves no purpose other to log-jam

The only (possible) problem is if the jam is already there :)

One person only is good, less cruft in the machine, less paperwork and all
that.

But, as Rob pointed out, the problem is when the single point of strength
becomes a single point of failure. In this case, when Max has so much work
project managing and eap managing that he doesn't have time to do either
job as it should be done.

When work grows, complexity has to be added. The pains of a growing corp
and the main reason why the good old times won't come back :)

Carlos

PS: I think/hope that Max hasn't got to this point, in spite of him occupying
three chairs - probably because of not doing any exercise exercise and weighing
about 300 pounds already ;)

But, as Rob pointed out, the problem is when the single point of strength
becomes a single point of failure. In this case, when Max has so much work
project managing and eap managing that he doesn't have time to do either
job as it should be done.

Yes but don't double the pipe before finding out it's inadequate, and it
goes hand in hand with trusting Max 100%. If Max needs help then he
will ask for help. That's how it should work. Not trusting your team
leaders is the biggest insult to a leader one can make. If there is too
much I'm sure Max can decide on how to deal with it. His goal and his
intention is to have a successful project that is well managed, so he
can get a raise and a promotion and feel good about the work he did. If
he fails we all suffer yes, but don't question a person's ability and
judgement before s/he makes a mistake.

R

On Tue, 22 Feb 2005 at 11:52 GMT, Rob Harwood (JetBrains) wrote:

Neo: What truth?
Boy: There is no spoon.
Rob: There is no steering wheel.

N: Then what did I just stir my coffee with?
B: There is no coffee

D: Then what release did I just spend my $$$$ purchasing?
J: There is no product, only EAP.

Perception is futile, you will be....


ReleaseProcessException....

EOL

D: Then what release did I just spend my $$$$ purchasing?
J: There is no product, only EAP.

Perception is futile, you will be....


ReleaseProcessException....

J: Add a donut and clear off the sugar
D: I did that but it still doesn't work

J: Did you chew carefully?
D: Oh sorry forgot to do that.

R

Robert S. Sfeir wrote:

>J: Add a donut and clear off the sugar

>
D: There is no donut, there is just a hole.

J: What is it that I'm chewing, then?
D: You have no teeth.

J: What's that ^$*ing pain I feel when I chew?
D: That's a bug. Please post it in the JIRA tracker/

J: But there is no JIRA tracker.
D: Yes there is.
J: No there isn't !
D: Yes there is.
J: No there isn't
..

Alain

On Tue, 22 Feb 2005 at 23:08 GMT, Alain Ravet wrote:

J: But there is no JIRA tracker.
D: Yes there is.
J: No there isn't !
D: Yes there is.
J: No there isn't

Ahh screw it - lets go with 3M postit notes and the US postal system....

J: No there isn't !
D: Yes there is.
J: No there isn't

D: prove it
J: proves the existence of instant human combustion

What's intensely annoying about these messages is that not there are six of them, nor that they're completely irrelevant, but that they somehow also manage to be completely not funny.

Still, I am comforted (for now) with the thought that the worst thing eap'ers can do is litter the forums with useless crap!

Hey Hani, what were you doing up at 5am reading EAP newsgroups? ;)

--
Rob Harwood
Software Developer
JetBrains Inc.
http://www.jetbrains.com
"Develop with pleasure!"

Hello Robert,

>> But, as Rob pointed out, the problem is when the single point of
>> strength becomes a single point of failure. In this case, when Max
>> has so much work project managing and eap managing that he doesn't
>> have time to do either job as it should be done.
>>

Yes but don't double the pipe before finding out it's inadequate, and
it goes hand in hand with trusting Max 100%. If Max needs help then
he will ask for help. That's how it should work. Not trusting your
team leaders is the biggest insult to a leader one can make. If there
is too much I'm sure Max can decide on how to deal with it. His goal
and his intention is to have a successful project that is well
managed, so he can get a raise and a promotion and feel good about the
work he did. If he fails we all suffer yes, but don't question a
person's ability and judgement before s/he makes a mistake.

Well said Robert. However I feel this turns to be just a little bit too
personal for a public forum.
I feel rather uncomfortable already :)

Friendly,
Dmitry
--
Dmitry Lomov
Software Developer
JetBrains Inc.
http://www.jetbrains.com
"Develop With Pleasure!"

In article <127489632448503256568020@news.intellij.net>,
Dmitry Lomov (JetBrains) <dmitry.lomov@jetbrains.com> wrote:

Hello Robert,

>> But, as Rob pointed out, the problem is when the single point of
>> strength becomes a single point of failure. In this case, when Max
>> has so much work project managing and eap managing that he doesn't
>> have time to do either job as it should be done.
>>

Yes but don't double the pipe before finding out it's inadequate, and
it goes hand in hand with trusting Max 100%. If Max needs help then
he will ask for help. That's how it should work. Not trusting your
team leaders is the biggest insult to a leader one can make. If there
is too much I'm sure Max can decide on how to deal with it. His goal
and his intention is to have a successful project that is well
managed, so he can get a raise and a promotion and feel good about the
work he did. If he fails we all suffer yes, but don't question a
person's ability and judgement before s/he makes a mistake.

Well said Robert. However I feel this turns to be just a little bit too
personal for a public forum.
I feel rather uncomfortable already :)

No problem, ping me off line by email you know what it is :)

R