I am starting this thread with by addressing an issue.
So people who take offense to this or who think it is counter productive - you are fore warned.
I have noticed a few threads in here that were recently locked due to "unwanted" activity.
It is interesting how it seems there is an almost imperceptible attempt to suppress peoples honest opinion if it doesn't GLORIFY how great drupal is and how great the people are who have worked on it are because they are doing it for free.
When I was growing up we called it sweeping the dust under the rug.
And since there is no "hand holders support group" (Maybe I will have to start one) you are just left to your on inclinations on a good bit of problems in here.
With that being said.
From time to time there seems to be a need for "patches" for what every reason.
But there is no clear cut direction on what do with the patch - other than the obviousness of the name.
I saw someone make mention of the UnxUtils to install patches but that forum was locked.
(thinking to myself - oh great some other software program with little or no instruction on how to use it.)
Anyone care to elaborate on the installation of patches?
I also saw the suggestion of combining patches with modules (or whatever) but it was not clear on the outcome of this suggestion.
Comments
Before I get a search the
Before I get a search the forum answer.
Let me narrow down what I am addressing.
These directions do not include those found here by SupaDucta.
Do they need to be combined?
If so - I will combine them in detail for the next newbie.
Please advise
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Those are in the wrong spot
Those are in the wrong spot and will be removed as duplilcate. Thanks for pointing them out.
-Steven Peck
---------
Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide -|- Black Mountain
-Steven Peck
---------
Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide
I will say again what has
I will say again what has been said many times before. Patching is a development skill. Patching is something people need to learn and there are lots of development sites out there with articles and instructions on how to do this.
That said, the handbook has a section devoted to patching and Drupal standards for accepting patches that includes instructions on the switches necessary to use these utilities for common use cases.
You can find this here: http://drupal.org/node/22568
A subpage here: http://drupal.org/diffandpatch has instructions.
A sub page with misc links to Windows ported utilities including the ones you have just linked and mentioned can be found here: http://drupal.org/node/23409
-Steven Peck
---------
Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide -|- Black Mountain
-Steven Peck
---------
Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide
Since I'm being tracked.
Your Welcome.
Thanks for responding.
Your response helped a little however some of the links under the third link you provided are broken and they do not pertain to UnxUtils.
If these two statements that I found need to be combined.
Then I am driving towards a statement like this for UnxUtils.
---------
UnxUtils is a collection of GNU programs that have been ported to Windows. Simply download the latest unxutils.zip and unpack the archive somewhere (I use C:\UnxUtils). Finally, to make use of these programs you will also need to do the following:
(For XP) Go to:
Control Panel > System> Advanced > Environment Variables
Under the: "System Variables" block > New
Input UnxUtils in the "Variable name" block.
InputC:\UnxUtils\usr\local\wbin”in the "Variable value" block
Note: The batch files provided for the various build environments have already had this directory added to the path.
Added to the directions given here.
From the zip file I extracted the patch.exe to the directory where my module and the patch file for that module are located. From the windows command prompt you execute patch.exe with the according parameters A an example of what is meant by parameters is needed here - and voilá, the patch is applied and you can upload it using FTP.
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Geez.... look at my tracker
Geez.... look at my tracker history. I am one of the highest posters on this site. You are not being tracked, I have far better things to do with my time. I hit /tracker and keep an eye on newer posts to answer as I can.
http://drupal.org/node/23409 -- this has a link to UnxUtils. Honest it does.
If you wish to add additional detailed instructions, go here: http://drupal.org/node/23409, click 'Add a child page' and add them. The page will go into moderation for review. Moderation can be a few hours to a week or two depending on when people get time to go through the queue.
-Steven Peck
---------
Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide -|- Black Mountain
-Steven Peck
---------
Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide
Geez is right
I believe this comment came from you.
Besides that comment I made about being tracked was a joke.
That is why I made the statement in that same thread about your inability to judge or determine motive from a text based medium.
You drupal veterans need to lighten up and stop acting like someone P@#**ed in your cheerios everyday.
So there you have it Mr. Peck.
My 2nd Contribution.
Your response of "many times before" seems to imply that you have somewhat forgot what it feels like to be a newbie and to be intimidated by the fact that you(the newbie) don't know what you are doing.
From many of the other responses that I have read from drupal veterans I sense the thought - of why should I take the time to type all that out - If someone wants to know that they can just find it by searching. – besides that’s what I had to do when I started.
Which may be true but it is a waste of EVERYBODIES (newbie and veteran) time to read through 5 pages of topics each with several posts to find 3 different set of directions in 3 different posts. Not to mention this line of thinking assumes that the newbie doesn't want to try.
And this is not a correct assumption.
It is not that the newbie does not want to try.
Some newbies don't want to mess anything up.
Contrary to popular belief (in here) Trail and error or experience is not always the best teacher.
Wisdom is the best teacher.
A lot of people are not necessarily afraid of trying but they just want ALL the directions in one place so that when they do try they can do everything necessary and try very hard not to mess anything up.
The don't know what they are doing in the first place much less know how to fix it if the should mess something up.
It almost seems as if the intimidation to new users drupal has is worn like a badge of honor.
This has to and will change as long as I remain a drupal user.
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It seems that humor doesn't
It seems that humor doesn't translate well over text does it? Geez was a joke. Thanks for the reading it wrong.
I understand that people want 'all' the directions in one place. Patching is a complex concept. Drupal is about the CMS and how to contribute development to this specific CMS, not how to develop from the ground up. Feel free to write such documentation to expand what is already present if you so desire.
I have spent the last three years providing links, resources, documentation and directions to new people. So no, I have not forgotten what it is like to be a new comer. Again, I find your antagonistic stance and tone at odds with building towards a community. You haven't even gone through the handbook to see that we already did in fact have such information available.
You develop wisdom through learning, you learn through trying. You continue to learn by not stopping at your first failure.
Your antagonistic phrasing and approach does not help.
In your example, where you have bolded, perhaps add an example with the switches here: http://drupal.org/diffandpatch this will let people from a windows perspective understand. Maybe the new comer would see/input at the cmd line perhaps? I don't patch files with that utility and would have to learn it.
-Steven Peck
---------
Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide -|- Black Mountain
-Steven Peck
---------
Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide
Wisdom
Wisdom does come from learning.
The whole point of wisdom though is so that TRAIL doesn't have to be the teacher.
If I run into a pot hole I put a detour sign up for the next person so the can learn by what I told them- not by hitting the same pothole.
You speak as though the concept of patching is unrelated to drupal. If you need to use patching in order to use drupal - then I must be missing something.
And I didn't ask for a manual on patching as a whole per se. But just as it relates to Drupal.
The sooner it is realized that everything is a two way street then we all will be happy.
I found your comment about it being - said "many times before" antagonistic and at odds with building community.
Being said doesn't mean it was said in a way that people can benefit from - that is why the same questions keep getting asked over and over.
Not because one didn't read the handbook.
Make no mistake
The statement - "Faithful are the wounds of a friend" doesn't say anything about hugs and kisses nor enemies.
I am more of a friend than you realize.
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Please compare and contrast
Please compare and contrast approaches
http://drupal.org/node/51837
Answering the patching question for new people requires that new people who want to use a tool understand it. This is important so atht when something doesn't work people can troubleshoot it.
I supplied you with the page as patching relates to Drupal.
So, will you be adding examples to your page as related to the existing pathch page and using the UnxUtil tool?
-Steven Peck
---------
Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide -|- Black Mountain
-Steven Peck
---------
Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide
Compared and Contrast What?
Are you saying that this approach is right?
If you are this what my signature is addressing.
SUBJECTIVENESS.
The diffenition for troll specifcally states this point..
You can read about it here
Zero in on the Usage heading.
All you are really saying is that this is the way you prefer.
But hey - I don't have 18 months to lurkhunt and peck. To me that is a waste of time.
I have 18 days at best - If the fluffing your ego and complimenting you on your great work approach takes 18 months to get something done - then I will have to explore something a little more productive and then fluff your ego.
And as far as waiting until I get it going in order to approve it - this is exactly what I am talking about.
Why not work with me to get it going. You obviously understand patching to know how to do this much quicker than I can. I have taken the time to search out the directions and type them from a newbie standpoint
Why not you should take the baton and test them from a veteran standpoint.
That is building community.
Oh I forgot - Let me guess - you have time to reprimand me but not work with me.
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ah well. I tried.
You seemed to have made some false assumptions about my time and how Open Source works. I also don't know php.
I have on occasion patched a file. I have done this three times in 2 years and not in the last 3 months. Each time I had to figure it out and was doing. I did this to test on IIS because I have a seriously vested interest in Drupal working on IIS and am one of the few people running Drupal this way.
Why don't I help you? I have. I have provided you links to the relavant documents for you to research. Encouragement, feedback. You volunteered to fill a perceived gap. I tried to help you achieve this goal.
So, I work an average of 45 hours a week mon-fri. It is 35 minutes avg one way to work. So I leave home around 7am, drive to work. I leave around 5-5:30pm. This means I get home around 6-6:30ish. I spend time with my wife and son who quite frankly is more important than anyone. My wife works evenings and weekends, so on days she works, my time to dedicate to Drupal issues/research (the sit down uninterupted few hours type that is required for this writing) that this kind of writing takes is very limited as my 2-1/2 year old son is again more important than the entire Drupal community and requires attention, interaction, walks to the park, food preperation, reading to, etc... (not to mention time with friends and other family members) And the things I am really interested in now, theming.
For the past year I have been involved in an Enterprise project at work that requires significant additional off hours and on call work. More at times then others. Currently we are in the final phases of this work (next 6-8 weeks) and that means I am working part of virtually every weekend and odd evening hours. I am working this Sunday morning from 6am until noon. I have guests coming over this weekend so we are cleaning the house and yard.
Answering forum posts and giving guidence to others is an occasional quick 5 minute scan of /tracker for new posts and writing an answer while waiting for a background job/process to complete. Links to pages and guides to help can point an interested party in the direction they want to go. Open Source is about contributing work towards your goal. I am trying to guide you to your goal.
I was not reprimanding you, I was giving guidance and suggestions. If you are really bored, you can follow my tracker into the distant past and find a few posts where the difference is stark.
No where in this thread have I compared you to a troll. You had a chip on your shoulder coming into this community with your first post, you seem proud of your chip. You seem to enjoy feeding and nuturing it. Helping you to find a path forward to achieve your goals is something I have spent time on. Time I have not spent on helping others.
I find your sarcasm an unwelcome reward for my trying to help you. Good luck.
-Steven Peck
---------
Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide -|- Black Mountain
-Steven Peck
---------
Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide
I guess we are all guilty
I guess that would make all us all guilty of the same thing.
I could take the time to respond to all that but really there is no point especially since I have a wife and 3(THREE) children so all that rhetoric about time is really irrelevant to me. My time is just as important.
I think all the time and effort you put into what ever you do is great- I really do. It's what you choose to do. And that’s great.
For you.
I wasn't asking you to help me to solve a problem specifically for me.
I was trying to help solve a problem for anyone who might have the problem in the future.
What I was suggesting is that you work WITH me as in lets do it together.
Not - I search hunt and peck and you cheer me on. You may see that as encouragement but everyone one is different. To me it is just dangling a carrot in front of me. Especially if you already know the answer to the question.
Like I said before the real test is how willing you or anyone else for that matter are to WORK with me or anyone else you don't like.
Do you have to? NO
Do you want to? Probably not.
Do you need to? NO
Should you? Debatable.
Do you have time? Not according to you.
But what’s the point of doing all the work you do on the project.
Is it so you can accomplish your goals – (That would be just downright selfish)
Is so that your friends and people you like can accomplish their goals (That would make this an elitist club)
Or is it because you believe drupal is a great product and you want to share that greatness with anybody who comes along even if you don’t particularly like them. (That is building community.)
It doesn’t seem to occur to you that some people who come across this software may be all thumbs when it comes to this stuff.
Are you going to let petty differences get in the way and tell them to read the handbook so you can get back to doing what you do for you.
You don’t seem to be that shallow. But I could be wrong.
The example I gave was not about you calling me a troll - It was about how people think differently about the same thing namely a post or an approach.
You spent time yes - but look how quickly you gave up.
I appreciate the time and effort - Really I do.
But if we can be honest you spent just about as much time (really whole lot less) as a newbie would spend trying to get on this software up and going on their own get frustrated and then move one to something easier.
But we still haven't accomplished the goal. Which is making it easier for the next person.
I see alot of people saying Drupal is a great software - you shouldn't give up so easy - hang in there because once you get over the hump its great.
But I am here to move the hump.
You may not like me or my method but if the hump gets moved whether by kissing up or fighting - I could really care less what you like.
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Why not work with me to get
You are asking me to solve your 'problem'. I don't have time to solve your 'problem'. I have time to guide you to existing resources that do in fact solve your problem. Helping you solve this and you documenting this will in fact help the next person down the line.
I shall be clear then. I do not understand patching. I have made it work 3 times. Mainly through luck, trial and error.
You started with invalid assumptions. You have ended with invalid assumptions.
My obvious mistake was trying to guide you to resources for you to understand patching. Provide you the links so you can write the article you think is needed. I am working with you. I do not have the time to actually download UnxUtils on my system. I do not have the time to run through a patch and validate that it works. I will not have the time in the forseeable future do to an excessive workload at work. You seem to. Good, there are the links to the resources that do in fact work.
The rest of the assumptions in your post are wrong and invalid as well. The time you spent on being mad could have been spent on running the UnxUtils and google'ing error messages. You assume I have given up. I am still trying and help you, you just don't seem to understand that.
I have a long history here and am very comfortable with the number of new comers I have helped over the years. I know what my reputation in the community is.
Now if you'll excuse me, I am working until 10pm tonight.
-Steven Peck
---------
Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide -|- Black Mountain
-Steven Peck
---------
Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide
Now we are getting somewhere
Now this is one of the most honest statements that I have experienced in here.
Again I was not asking you to just solve my problem alone - I was more so saying lets solve a problem.
I appreciate your honesty.
I can respect a person that can admit and say hey - I don't exactly know the whole answer to your question and if I did I don't exactly have the time to answer it right now.
Instead of acting like you know and trying to make it seem like I'm just not trying hard enough.
As far as my post being an wrong and invalid assumptions -
I will just say this - you and a lot of other people in here have the uncanny ability to take general statements which include such words as (it seems - in other words - I don't know if this is true but IT SEEMS like xyz) and turn them into absolutes.
As far as you giving up - you last post was titled - ah well I tried (as in past tense) and your last statement in that post was "good luck" The words in your post did not leave a whole lot to be assumed.
There does seem to be a big common assumption being made by a lot of newbies. And that is
what drupal is and
what it is actually designed to be.
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Nothing I have said in any
Nothing I have said in any of this thread has been inconsistent with anything else I have said. I try to provide the tools and directions to people to solve their issues in the hopes that they will contribute what they have learned back to the community. I have done this for a very long time now. I have done this for such a long time and so consistently that I have had several jokes about it sent to me.
You are new to this community. There seem to be a lot of assumptions and pride at stamping on peoples feet and taking everything said in the worst light posible. This does not make for a productive introduction to the community nor does it actually accomplish work.
Work in many cases that is already ongoing. One handbook was over 60 hours of work on my part alone and it's still ongoing.
There are reasons people who are not familier with development tools should not use them unless they take the time to learn how to use them. Stability of their site, integrity of their data, understanding of the errors a patch can generate. This is not an answer that will make you happy. That said, I still provided links and direction to you. You will find many such posts to many people who posted very similer intros. I haven't seen docs from them, I am hopeful you will work through yours. If not, I am hopeful you will contribute in different ways.
Drupal is a web application framework. It's designed for you to build sites with. If you want more then a standard blue install, then you will need to learn some development techniques.
-Steven Peck
---------
Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide -|- Black Mountain
-Steven Peck
---------
Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide
agreed
lets say this in the handbook
http://drupal.org/node/22568#comment-101322
wellsy
orchidsonline.com.au
Draft
A draft for the reorganized section of the Diff & Patch part of the handbook can be found below (http://drupal.org/node/53388#comment-101005)
--
Tips for posting to the forums.
When your problem is solved, please post a follow-up to the thread you started.
Once and for all
Lets get the facts straight
I made some GENERAL STATMENTS in my observations about this community as it pertains to the open source community at large. Using words like - it seems and unless or maybe its just me - and others that leave the door open for explanation says that I was not making assumptions but observations.
The people who made the assumptions where the ones who ASSSUMED I was coming in here demanding something or trying to be a troll.
The people who seem to have a problem with pride is the ones who felt like their toes were being stepped on because I said something about the way problems are handled in here as it pertains to their precious project.
My first thread was not even about a problem I had. I was following the thread of several other people and didn't like the was it was being handled so I said something about it.
There is nothing new under the sun.
While drupal may be a unique product - The drupal community is not really unique because it is part of a larger open source community whereby in a lot of instances -
Problems are handled the same EXACT way.
1. Great product.
2. Poor attitudes towards newbies by SOME of the people who work on that great product.
Any way I think I have made my point here - I'm moving on.
If you need futher reference you might want to add this post in a more visible place for newbies to really know who has an issue with pride and assumptions.
If this you many others in this community would stop trying to supress and discount peoples honest opinion (whether you personally believe that is valid or invalid) and just let them be heard THE WHOLE COMMUNITY WOULD BENEFIT TREMENDOUSLY.
SO MANY NEWBIES CANNOT BE JUST TOTALLY AND COMPLETLY WRONG.
Sure life would be alot easier if a newbie aquired the skill of PHP/MySql before trying drupal.
But on the other side of that coin - Life would be alot easier for you veterans if you aquired the skill to Just eat the fish and spit out the bones.
If you people would stop giving your resume' about how much free work you have done - take your feelings off your sleeves and stop assuming that everyone who has something negative to say is against drupal.
This all could be alot more fun for EVERYBODY - not just those who know what they are doing.
Thank your kindly for your help.
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Your first posts and his
Your first posts and his first posts have two things in common. It's a pity you are unable to see them.
No one has suppressed either of you. Both of your approaches could have used some reading of the various links you were supplied.
You have successfully conveyed your honest opinion of the volunteers and your opinion of the people involved and active in this project successfully in any number of posts.
You tell people to do things you want and seem to think that those things are easy. You then get mad and rip people up when they try and help you. If the things you wanted were 'easy' to accomplish with the resources availlable, they would have already been done.
-Steven Peck
---------
Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide -|- Black Mountain
-Steven Peck
---------
Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide
That's is not easy?
Look Mr. Peck
The real pity is
that they really have more than two things in common.
but not only that they have more than two things in common with a number of other posts in here. (see my last post for "futher reference" for futher reference.)
There are threads that have recently been locked because they were not glorifying drupal and its developers - I guess you would think of it as coincidence that I was the last one to post in it. And even in this thread there was a threat of me being kicked out.
If this is not an attempt for suppression then it is really not me who cannot see.
For the record - If I was mad or angry believe me I would have long been kicked out of here the first day.
Controversial - yes
Unconventional - yes
Politically correct - no
But Mad - believe me far from it.
Me taking the time to express different thoughts or reason with people like you is not a sign of anger - Most of the time it is not even directly dealing with the problem that I may have. But to many times we as a society deal only with the symptoms and not the cause.
Aspirin may deal with the symptom but it never touches the cause.
ITS NOT EASY -
I can accept that as an answer but all to often
THIS IS RARELY THE ANSWER GIVEN.
Most of time the answer in so many words is -
Hey look shut up and be happy that you can use this great software because we are working on this project for free and we have other things that are more important right now. If you want to do it - learn it yourself.
This may not be what you were thinking but this is how it comes across.
While thisline of thinking may be true and even be a great way (to you) for people to role their sleeves up and learn drupal and leave you to developing.
It doesn't have to be that way.
I have not demanded anyone to do anything for me.
The only thing that I have said that you could classify as a demand is my statement about writing detailed instructions.
But I did not orginate this demand- I only echoed it.
There are many examples of unhelpful answers (not talking of you personally or yours in this thread) but in many other threads the answers given were literally a ripping of the person.
I can accept the bad guy label for not letting it slide like others have.
But hey the problem that I am begining to have with drupal doesn't involve getting this or that module up and going.
To me getting the modules up and going is only dealing with the symptom and really it is not dealing with the symptom for everyone it only dealing with the symptom for me.
I have said alot of things in here that really don't deal with solving a drupal problem as it pertains to the software itself but if you really sat down to think about them - it makes common sense. and if nothing more a seed has been planted to make you (meaning in general) at least think twice before answering someone in such a rude and discouraging manner.
But I guess you will just have to have someone get in here and literally curse you out in order for you to see what I am saying.
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My example
LOL at your suggestion.
My example was from a collection of other peoples directions that I pieced together to try to make some sense out of patching drupal modules. :)
I don't exactly know how it would look to give examples because I have yet to get it working because all the directions are not in one place.
Hence I started the thread.
P.S. - You and at it seems like alot of other veterans in here MAY not realize this - but alot of your responses are intimidating and they give the overtone that your are wasting your time answering dumb questions that have already been answered.
THIS is more discouraging than attempting to get drupal up and going on your own.
Which is also more counterproductive than I could ever be.
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Then I will wait until you
Then I will wait until you get it working to approve it. Please let me know either through post or my contact form.
-Steven Peck
---------
Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide -|- Black Mountain
-Steven Peck
---------
Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide
Diff & patch
Hi Sepeck,
A good look at the diff & patch handbook pages has been at the higher end of my TODO list; while the info is very complete, I think the pages could benefit from some restructuring (see draft below).
Just an example: splitting generating patches & applying patches.
Then we have myriad ways/programs to actually apply or make a patch (Eclipse, Context menu, UnxUtils, Cygwin etc etc). I think we should initially focus on command line versions of patching, because those are more robust.
Patches (http://drupal.org/node/22568) is now:
----- Draft ----
* Focus on diff / patch (no cvs etc, just plain simple)
Perhaps even make a Patches for Drupal replacing the last three options from the previous draft:
I'm willing** to (re)write the necessary pages. I can't change easily change hierarchy though; I should probably start with a new scratch page 'Patches' and build the structure from there, if it's not to difficult to swap the new version in for the old one.
Please let me know what you think of it.
** It won't be ready by Monday though, I do have to work on my thesis occasionally ;-)
(edit: correct 'generate & apply patches' titles in draft)
--
Tips for posting to the forums.
When your problem is solved, please post a follow-up to the thread you started.
This goes along with our
This goes along with our overall strategy that we've been going towards breaking things out into better maintainable sections. No one has had time to dig through it yet.
-Steven Peck
---------
Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide -|- Black Mountain
-Steven Peck
---------
Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide
Great
Great I would help more if I knew what to do. :)
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If you continue to get on
If you continue to get on people's nerves here on drupal.org, I will not only lock your threads, but also your account.
--
Drupal services
My Drupal services
--
Drupal services
My Drupal services
With no mention off
What about the people who get on my nerve's in here on drupal?
(I knew I was being tracked.)
I know - I know the playing field is never level for us newbies.
-------------
(I knew I was being
All your base are belong to us!
:)
Alexandre Racine
www.gardienvirtuel.com Sécurité informatique, conformité, consultation, etc
www.salsamontreal.com La référence salsa à Montréal
EVERYBODY has a tracker page. You're not special.
In fact, it is built into Drupal core. So if you want to see all the posts I've done, you can go to my tracker page. Now I'm being tracked!
- Robert Douglass
-----
My Drupal book: Building Online Communities with Drupal, phpBB and WordPress
THIS IS PRIME EXAMPLE
Notice the flow of this conversation.
The proof is in the pudding
No SO CALLED antagonism in FrancisQ's approach
But he obviously doesn't know the first thing about what they are asking about.
and THE GRAND RESULT
How does this help solve the next newbie’s problem that really needs to get use this module or patch or drupal itself?
If they could figure it out they wouldn't be asking.
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Some kind words
Let me take a moment and chime in as someone who hasn't been a part of the relatively 'controversial' threads you mentioned.
REEP, I appreciate your desire to see Drupal -- and Drupal.org -- become easier for newbies. I remember when I started hacking with PHP and working with Drupal -- I had no idea how to apply a patch, and I'd only heard of CVS from one of my geekier friends. *grin*
That said, the requests and complaints you've posted to the Drupal community are unhelpful. Very unhelpful. This is not to say that complaints and criticism are unwelcome -- rather, it is to say that Drupal, as an open source volunteer-driven project, has no 'customer service' department to complain to. When you post here saying that the quality of 'service' is unacceptable, all you are doing is insulting the few people who have the knowledge and the willingness to actually DO the helping. There are not enough of them to go around.
The issue of patching is one example. Simply put, if you are not a PHP developer, and you are not interested in beta-testing and helping in the development process of Drupal's code, use the current stable release of Drupal's core, and all Drupal modules. Do not apply patches. Period.
In this particular post, you are effectively complaining that Drupal developers are not providing tutorials and training for non-programmers on how to use programming tools. Providing Drupal-specific versions of that kind of training is certainly a nice goal, but in project management terminology, that's called "boiling the ocean." Given how few Drupal developers there are, it's a pretty low priority.
In your two weeks here, you've done some posting, and it appears that you're not very familiar with PHP or web apps in general, but have some very strong ideas about how members of this community should contribute their time to support less experienced users.
It's very easy to demand more of people who are already contributing their time. It's hard to do the contributing. I see that you've started a book page on using UnxUtils on Windows XP. Congratulations! As you work on these things, you'll become part of the solution.
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Jeff Eaton | I heart Drupal.
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Eaton — Partner at Autogram
Either it is or it aint
Eaton I appreciate you trying to be somewhat of a peace maker but think not that I came to bring peace.
Saying that comments are unhelpful but not unwelcome doesn't make sense. Either they are helpful or they are not - either they are welcome or they are not.
Judging by the most of the responses when ANYONE makes ANY negative comment whatsoever I am tending to believe the later.
If someone makes a comment complaint or anything else and for IF for whatever reason you feel compelled to answer guess what – in essence you become the customer service department.
I am not complaining about support for non-programmers I am strongly suggesting that there be more detailed documentation in the first place so that there will be less of a need for support.
This dire need along with this need being low on the totem pole of priorities would be one (of many) very logical reasons why there are not enough people who know what they are doing to go around to help others.
Short of starting a drupal university detailed documentation is the straightest line between the two.
If you are one of those few who feel insulted and you try to correct the person who is complaining you are not helping them solve their problem.
In essence all you are doing is complaining about they way they are complaining.
But that is not why most people make a comment/complaint. Most people make a comment/complaint because they have a problem not because they want to fight. All be it they may be fighting mad when they make the comment.
What it truly and honestly sounds like is that people are taking comments made about drupal that someone runs into as personal digs.
Which I guess is just human nature. People usually identify very closely with their work and any negative comment made about that work is considered fighting words.
Everyone has strong ideas about the way things should be done. Some are just more palatable.
What I hear you and a lot of other people saying is
Ssshhhhh don’t rock our drupal boat.
But there is a maddness to my method and believe it or not however slow it comes about or whatever it takes to bring it about.
Change is not always bad.
The creative is always chaotic at the beginning.
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I think....
I will speak out pretty openly and directly here, this is my way.
I think you are pretty young and have a lot to learn from life. Drupal is not working for you and you are frustrated. Or, you are working a lot on this new websites, but don't understand how Drupal is working and not getting help from the community is frustrating you just like this guy because you are loosing money or a hidden agenda.
Yes it does. Let my clear this out : Your non-constructive comments are not helpful. Frustration leads to unconstructive comments, just like love makes you blind. Either make some constructive comments or pay someone to make you a website that you would like. I could say it another way : Drupal is not for everyone, and depending on what you want can range from easy to very hard to install.
Now, let's say it is very hard in your case. You can pay someone, or post and wait. Or you could ask some friends to do a drupal install party to your house. That could be interesting, no? Now, that is a pretty constructive comment. You have a problem, and a suggestion that can be done.
Here you said...
And that works for 99.9% of the time. They will just try this module and they will have fun with it! Why write entire books in the forums since books are already here?
What?!?!? You want a clic-through? Mabe a video? Clic by clic? This is not a 24h/24h hot support line.
You can read this too, it is a good read. In conclusion, you can't change other people, but you can change yourself. Think about that.
Alexandre Racine
www.gardienvirtuel.com Sécurité informatique, conformité, consultation, etc
www.salsamontreal.com La référence salsa à Montréal
Why did I feel the need to comment?
Nevermind