Re: Poll: Most helpful feature after 1.3?

[Chris Travers <..hidden..>]

On Fri, Jul 22, 2011 at 7:50 PM, David <..hidden..> wrote:

> For the record, I had Chris do some database repair for me (fixing my
> own data entry mistakes). His service was very good and his charges were
> completely reasonable. I would never get service like  that from a more
> mainstream software supplier.

Thank you :-)
>
> We worked by remote login, using Skype. Being on the other side of the
> world was no problem. I'm not surprised that he's busy.
>
> I'm very sympathetic with Darald - I've been in  a similar situation
> with various software. Sometimes you read a manual and it's not at all
> intuitive - for instance: which password? for which login? In LSMB there
> are at least three.

This is getting simplified a bit in 1.3, btw.

> And usually there is a lot of "assumed knowledge".
> After which, being ignored or told to RTFM is insulting, although this
> list is far better than most in that respect.

Also keep in mind that we have started the project with a large,
complex codebase and no documentation.  Heck the only code comments
were translation strings for the locale functions.  The manual is
known to be inadequate and can use contributions, but it is always
getting better.

Now over a third of what we have is documentation, developer and
end-user.  We are making tremendous progress here.  But it will take a
long time to get where we want to be.

This is a complex piece of software, and long-run I expect that the
documentation will be several times the size of the code.

>
> I keep meaning to write up my own experiences, but don't get around to
> it. I guess we should ALL do that, for the common good. Perhaps a
> section on the LSMB website for personal experiences, both good and bad?

I think a sourceforge tracker would be better for the bad experiences
because we want to do something about them.  People can then review
them as well as what we say we did about the bad experience and review
the software there.  We could link to that on the web site.  I have no
problem with that.  We HOPE that negative experiences get taken care
of and don't happen again.

Testimonials and positive experiences are different though.  Not sure
what we should do about those.  While we hope bad experiences are
dealt with and don't continue to happen, we hope that good experiences
continue to be relevant.

What does everyone else think?

Best Wishes,
Chris Travers