Re: Err..To Desktop Or Not To Desktop?

[Frederick I Gleef <gleef capital net>]

Um, I dropped out of reading this list for a couple of weeks, for personal
reasons.  I come back to it, and I see threads like this.  I am confused.

The primary thing I am confused about is, when I stopped reading the list,
we were discussing (heatedly, true) how to address important style-guide
issues that were not addressed in the style guide.  Now, when I start up
again, Mr. Poag is claiming to be writing "The GNOME Style Guide", and
everyone is clammoring to look at a draft.  There is no mention of the
fact that there is already a GNOME style guide (www.gnome.org/devel/sg),
being maintained, as far as I know, by Christopher Blizzard.

I have not seen Mr. Blizzard post recently.  Has he given up the job of
maintainting the style guide?  If not, why do we care what Mr. Poag is not
telling us, the opinions he voices are the only ones that matter.  If Mr.
Blizzard is no longer maintaining the guide, then we need someone else to,
and it seems clear to me that Mr. Poag is not up for the job.  If he
cannot discuss the style guide within the list without resorting to
vulgarities, I certainly would not want to see him using such language
outside the list as the "Official Maintainer of the GNOME Style Guide".

The next question is why are we writing a new style guide.  Granted, the
existing style guide is incomplete, and there are some points in it that
people might not like, but it has many useful points in it.  I would argue
that incremental updates are the way to go, rather than a complete
rewrite.  If enough people want a rewrite, than that could work, but the
text of the rewrite needs to be on the table (i.e. this mailing list) to
discuss.


On Wed, 29 Jul 1998, Tom Vogt wrote:
>
> as I said: maybe you are right and going the right way. but maybe you 
> are not. that's why I'll go and start a second style guide. one of them
> will go to /dev/null in the end and at that point we'll know for sure
> who was right about how this should be done. ok with you?

Assuming Mr. Blizzard is no longer maintaining the Style Guide, that
sounds good to me.  I would love to see what Mr. Vogt has to offer.  Tom,
are you interested in maintaining the style guide?  Have you been in touch
with the current maintainer (as per the web page)?

Personally, I think whoever is maintaining the Style Guide needs to be
active on this list, as painful as that may be.  I don't think Mr.
Blizzard has done this.  Looking at his home page, he has GNOME links, but
no mention of the Style Guide.  It seems to me like he would likely be
interested in passing the job along to someone else.

Just my two cents,
-Gleef