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"Getting started with Ember.Js is easy." - No it isn't

discuss.emberjs.com

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Re: "Getting started with Ember.Js is easy." - No it isn't

#111

Post by GhotiFish »

PuerkitoBio wrote: post #86
trek wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have admitted that, publicly, very often, in other topics on discuss.emberjs.com, on websites, on twitter, on videos, and elsewhere. It's no secret I'd like to improve the documentation for Ember.js and I'm already well aware of the places that people are facing difficulty right now. There's work, if people spent a moment reading the top topics in the forum, on a getting started guide with a direct call for feedbac…

That's actually a very decent answer. You should've expanded your reasoning a bit on the ember thread. Although to be honest, I thought the tone was more funny than sarcastic, but I'm emotionnally detached from the subject. With your explanations, your reaction makes sense. Sarcasm is a slippery slope.

I am envious that you are able to remain emotionally detached from this subject.

I have experienced this kind of thing many times over the course of my life. There's no way I could remain emotionally detached.

Re: "Getting started with Ember.Js is easy." - No it isn't

#112

Post by melc »

From personal experience in order to get started just checking out the documentation(i had started with the old documentation now called guides) should be fine. Some googling around might be needed but should not take much time. Generally i agree that it is a bit hard to get used to the framework, but if one has the ability to look in the console and figure out errors, should not really have any problems getting started with emberjs. Also just grabbing code from the first page, i don't think is a really good idea. Does this technique work with other popular frameworks like http://nodejs.org/ http://jquery.com/ .... ?

Re: "Getting started with Ember.Js is easy." - No it isn't

#113

Post by bphogan »

trek wrote: post #78
joshstrange wrote: post #27

Trek is making a huge mistake IMHO. As a developer I can think of nothing more helpful than to get a "steam-of-consciousness" excerpt from our users. This is something no analytics package can tell you, if you want to make your "product" easy to use then this is the exact feedback you need. Delverworld was outlining the various pitfalls of getting started with ember.js and a core contributor shrugs it off because he…

I have admitted that, publicly, very often, in other topics on discuss.emberjs.com, on websites, on twitter, on videos, and elsewhere. It's no secret I'd like to improve the documentation for Ember.js and I'm already well aware of the places that people are facing difficulty right now. There's work, if people spent a moment reading the top topics in the forum, on a getting started guide with a direct call for feedbac…

You got feedback from a frustrated user, and I'm sure you didn't just dismiss it internally, so why did you dismiss it externally?

Listen, I'd love to be able to write what I want, teach what I want, and do what I want without getting sarcastic reviews. But unfortunately people get frustrated and that's how they respond. "Oh, a tmux book? Who needs that?"

"You suck" is very, very different from "the thing you built sucks."

Customer service 101: Go punch a punching bag, have a cry, have a scream, have a drink, whatever. then reply with

"Thank you for your detailed feedback. It's most welcome. We've already started taking appropriate steps to build better guides and tutorials. We'll roll your feedback into those. We're always working on improving Ember's documentation and every bit of feedback helps."

And then go do those things you want to do for a while.

No disrespect, but this guy gave some pretty valuable feedback that I love to get when I'm working on a book. He told you exactly where the holes are, and those are so easy to miss when you're too close to the subject matter.

Re: "Getting started with Ember.Js is easy." - No it isn't

#114

Post by JangoSteve »

trek wrote: post #78
joshstrange wrote: post #27

Trek is making a huge mistake IMHO. As a developer I can think of nothing more helpful than to get a "steam-of-consciousness" excerpt from our users. This is something no analytics package can tell you, if you want to make your "product" easy to use then this is the exact feedback you need. Delverworld was outlining the various pitfalls of getting started with ember.js and a core contributor shrugs it off because he…

I have admitted that, publicly, very often, in other topics on discuss.emberjs.com, on websites, on twitter, on videos, and elsewhere. It's no secret I'd like to improve the documentation for Ember.js and I'm already well aware of the places that people are facing difficulty right now. There's work, if people spent a moment reading the top topics in the forum, on a getting started guide with a direct call for feedbac…

Being in the same boat (re: OSS contributor, not my day job), I can totally empathize with your initial reaction to his post, but honestly nothing you quoted is incivility. It's genuine frustration from a new user caused by your documentation with complete steps on how to reproduce the problem. If you printed the average open source user's feedback out on gold foil using platinum ink, this guy's feedback would still be more valuable.

Re: "Getting started with Ember.Js is easy." - No it isn't

#116

Post by ajross »

phillmv wrote: post #93
trek wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have admitted that, publicly, very often, in other topics on discuss.emberjs.com, on websites, on twitter, on videos, and elsewhere. It's no secret I'd like to improve the documentation for Ember.js and I'm already well aware of the places that people are facing difficulty right now. There's work, if people spent a moment reading the top topics in the forum, on a getting started guide with a direct call for feedbac…

"discouraging culture of dickitude", nailed it. We have to moderate the kinds of communities we want to see and participate in. You don't have to put up with people's shit.

We might choose to, but we don't "have to". It's about tradeoffs. A polite question might have been politely answered in the thread. A sarcastic rant like this results in a 110-response story at the top of HN with multiple apologetic posts from the developers.

I think I know which strategy is more likely to result in better documentation.

Re: "Getting started with Ember.Js is easy." - No it isn't

#117

Post by tibbon »

About nine months ago, I tried Ember. I'm not a huge javascript guy, but I'm pretty good in Rails and have written a handful of javascript things. But anyway, I just couldn't get the stuff to work. All the tutorials, walkthroughs, getting started guides, git repos.... just tons of cryptic errors, strange behavior and terrible documentation. It seemed cool. I really wanted to like it.

But- I essentially got "the documentation is in the code" as an answer.

I don't know why Javascript programmers can't be bothered to return meaningful errors that actually hint at fixing the problem, especially when they are super common errors that everyone hits (such as the Handlebars version thing that was mentioned here).

Re: "Getting started with Ember.Js is easy." - No it isn't

#118

Post by saintx »

It's a revealing commentary on the nature of the project and its developer community that this entire conversation seems to be about one dude. Suddenly, the "ember.js" brand collapses and becomes subsumed by the "trek" brand.

All other factors aside, it doesn't sound like the sort of healthy, active project that I like to use.

Re: "Getting started with Ember.Js is easy." - No it isn't

#119

Post by fnordfnordfnord »

trek wrote: post #78
joshstrange wrote: post #27

Trek is making a huge mistake IMHO. As a developer I can think of nothing more helpful than to get a "steam-of-consciousness" excerpt from our users. This is something no analytics package can tell you, if you want to make your "product" easy to use then this is the exact feedback you need. Delverworld was outlining the various pitfalls of getting started with ember.js and a core contributor shrugs it off because he…

I have admitted that, publicly, very often, in other topics on discuss.emberjs.com, on websites, on twitter, on videos, and elsewhere. It's no secret I'd like to improve the documentation for Ember.js and I'm already well aware of the places that people are facing difficulty right now. There's work, if people spent a moment reading the top topics in the forum, on a getting started guide with a direct call for feedbac…

That's your opinion and you're entitled to it. My opinion is that your deference to such a strict definition of civility is really a hindrance to civil discourse. There is nothing really insulting in his comments. It is obvious that the guy was frustrated when he wrote it. It is also obvious that there are many helpful comments or advice that could be given to help alleviate the source of the user's frustration. Your isn't helpful, and it wouldn't do anything to defuse a real civility crisis any more than it has this imagined one. It reminds me of the prototypical aggravating DMV person sending a client to the back of a long line ostensibly because of some triviality such as an easily corrected typo on a form but really because they enjoy using their ability to annoy people.

Re: "Getting started with Ember.Js is easy." - No it isn't

#120

Post by Jgrubb »

bphogan wrote: post #113
trek wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have admitted that, publicly, very often, in other topics on discuss.emberjs.com, on websites, on twitter, on videos, and elsewhere. It's no secret I'd like to improve the documentation for Ember.js and I'm already well aware of the places that people are facing difficulty right now. There's work, if people spent a moment reading the top topics in the forum, on a getting started guide with a direct call for feedbac…

You got feedback from a frustrated user, and I'm sure you didn't just dismiss it internally, so why did you dismiss it externally? Listen, I'd love to be able to write what I want, teach what I want, and do what I want without getting sarcastic reviews. But unfortunately people get frustrated and that's how they respond. "Oh, a tmux book? Who needs that?" "You suck" is very, very different from "the thing you built s…

Thank you for that Tmux book. I found it very helpful.
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