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Why kernel development still uses email

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Re: Why kernel development still uses email

#111

Post by cel1ne »

douche wrote: post #72
cel1ne wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is this weird myth that Email magically kills productivity while Slack and GitHub don't. Yes. I really can't abide chat for work. If I have time and need synchronous communication, I make a phone call. Email forces me to think my communication through, and I can explicitly CC/BCC other people if I feel that they need to read my letter. PS: I find it telling that the product is actually called "Slack". ;)

I can't abide ad-hoc phone calls, unless somebody is bleeding out or the server rack is bursting into flames. If I'm trying to work on something, hitting me in the back of the head with a claw-hammer would be scarcely more disruptive than an unsolicited phone call.

You don't have to answer the phone…

Re: Why kernel development still uses email

#112

Post by cel1ne »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #94
douche wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't abide ad-hoc phone calls, unless somebody is bleeding out or the server rack is bursting into flames. If I'm trying to work on something, hitting me in the back of the head with a claw-hammer would be scarcely more disruptive than an unsolicited phone call.

I can't abide ad-hoc synchronous communication , not just phone calls. It's the reason I'm almost constantly wearing headphones, whether I'm listening to something or not. I sometimes hear that a cow-orker is talking to me, but I ignore it on purpose, pretending not to notice. Then they usually figure out they need to attract my attention somehow, so they come over / wave their hands / throw an object at me. I respon…

Best workplace for creative work like programming is a room for yourself.

The shared office concept was a mistake inspired by assembly lines. Sharing space with coworkers is good in factories because work is often dull and workers can talk to each other. For creative work, it's nothing but a hindrance.

Re: Why kernel development still uses email

#113

Post by TeMPOraL »

woah wrote: post #101
TeMPOraL wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't abide ad-hoc synchronous communication , not just phone calls. It's the reason I'm almost constantly wearing headphones, whether I'm listening to something or not. I sometimes hear that a cow-orker is talking to me, but I ignore it on purpose, pretending not to notice. Then they usually figure out they need to attract my attention somehow, so they come over / wave their hands / throw an object at me. I respon…

Sounds like you're a real easy guy to work with.

I am. I just have one simple rule - respect when somebody is trying to focus to do their job. I give it to all, but I also expect it too.

Re: Why kernel development still uses email

#114

Post by rakoo »

kijin wrote: post #91
dredmorbius wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My inclusion of directory as a downside of email was a poor choice on my part -- I occasionally get swept up in writing something, and the thought's been kicking around my head for a few days that email is NOT based on a global directory, but a directory of directories, possibly hierarchical. This means that if you want to get something somewhere, as with routing and DNS, you kick it off first in the right general di…

Your poll-and-fetch suggestion sounds really interesting. Even if is not combined with a widely used reputation system, it would greatly increase the cost for spammers by requiring them to stay online indefinitely. It's basically graylisting on steroids, but without the annoying delay that graylisting imposes on every sender.

It's interesting to note that this idea isn't completely new, and raises some questions as noted by djb: https://cr.yp.to/im2000.html

Re: Why kernel development still uses email

#115

Post by wslh »

deckard1 wrote: post #26
nxc18 wrote: post #17

Email is an amazing tool. I don't understand the rush to get rid of it. It is a free standard with many implementations on both the client and server. It is exceptionally easy to manage email. Many servers have great systems for categorizing emails and storing them long-term. Email is fast. Everyone has one. There is this weird myth that Email magically kills productivity while Slack and GitHub don't. I never underst…

> I'll need to find and install one of the x tens of IM clients. Only one? :) It got so bad at my company, that at one time we were having conversations on 3 platforms. And, of course, no one emails anything! Because it's all done on Slack or whatever now. So everyone is 100% out of the loop at all times. I'm up to about 20 Slack channels. I'm constant switching between things to see if I need the information. We hav…

I really like Slack, I think it is the team/company responsability to maintain a controlled focus. The same issue can apply with email.

When a customer adds one member of my team to Slack and the flow of information is insane I charge the customer for a manager to follow the loop and leave developers focused.

Re: Why kernel development still uses email

#116

Post by collinvandyck76 »

deckard1 wrote: post #26
nxc18 wrote: post #17

Email is an amazing tool. I don't understand the rush to get rid of it. It is a free standard with many implementations on both the client and server. It is exceptionally easy to manage email. Many servers have great systems for categorizing emails and storing them long-term. Email is fast. Everyone has one. There is this weird myth that Email magically kills productivity while Slack and GitHub don't. I never underst…

> I'll need to find and install one of the x tens of IM clients. Only one? :) It got so bad at my company, that at one time we were having conversations on 3 platforms. And, of course, no one emails anything! Because it's all done on Slack or whatever now. So everyone is 100% out of the loop at all times. I'm up to about 20 Slack channels. I'm constant switching between things to see if I need the information. We hav…

Yeah Slack makes it really easy for things to get out of hand. One of my informal roles at our company is being the Grim Reaper of Slack. I periodically go through and delete slackbot responses and emojis that have proven to be very annoying. People get salty at first, but if you don't stay on top of it, your shop will eventually be overrun by parrots.

Re: Why kernel development still uses email

#117

Post by ms4720 »

nxc18 wrote: post #17

Email is an amazing tool. I don't understand the rush to get rid of it. It is a free standard with many implementations on both the client and server. It is exceptionally easy to manage email. Many servers have great systems for categorizing emails and storing them long-term. Email is fast. Everyone has one. There is this weird myth that Email magically kills productivity while Slack and GitHub don't. I never underst…

So was NNTP

Re: Why kernel development still uses email

#118

Post by crististm »

I don't have anything against e-mail but I don't get what's wrong with Gerrit either [1]. We used it on several projects and it was pretty transparent to the work flow.

[1]except for some Java gc issues that required the process to be restarted every now and then - pretty annoying though

Re: Why kernel development still uses email

#119

Post by ars »

michaelt wrote: post #92
dfinninger wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Man, your Github notifications are mixed into Chat? We have a #{{projcet}}-dev channel for talk and #{{project}}-admin for JIRA/Github/etc. Also, in Slack you can have it auto-close all expansions. You choose the Gifs you wanna see.

Unfortunately, slack doesn't allow you to block users - not even bots or webhooks. And even if you have expansions turned off, they're still there in collapsed form. So if you're not an administrator, and some genius has set up a bot that posts a cute puppy every time a message includes /pup, and it triggers practically every line in a discussion about puppet, slack doesn't give you the option to do anything. Well, a…

This is what greasemonkey and similar is for. It shouldn't be necessary, but sometimes it is.

You might even be able to do it with some custom user-side CSS.

Re: Why kernel development still uses email

#120

Post by wwalexander »

nxc18 wrote: post #17

Email is an amazing tool. I don't understand the rush to get rid of it. It is a free standard with many implementations on both the client and server. It is exceptionally easy to manage email. Many servers have great systems for categorizing emails and storing them long-term. Email is fast. Everyone has one. There is this weird myth that Email magically kills productivity while Slack and GitHub don't. I never underst…

Email is tremendously complex, uses multiple protocols to accomplish different tasks (or even the same task), and is fundamentally vulnerable to spam and can only be patched with further complex hacks like SPF. Almost everyone now uses HTML email, an ill-defined and insecure idea, adding to the complexity of implementations.

If you think that email is a good system, trying setting up postfix, dovecot, sendmail, and whatever other hacks are required to make email usable.

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