journal is hard + sugar and the digital age

[Carol Hussein Lerche]

Michael said:
Consequently, I would find your
remarks more helpful if you simply asked those 'true believers' to
better and more publicly justify their feasibility claims. (For example,
maybe Scott could be induced to make a screencast of his Journal2 demo?)

That's why I suggested a roadmap with small(ish) steps and dates, perhaps
decorated with links to the experiments and discussion threads that relate
to them.  It would give a more concrete and believable sense of progress,
instead of "trust me, I know best".  A screencast would be great, but it
would be great just to have a comprehensive place to see what is planned and
why.

In response to Scott's mail, if you look at the roadmaps linked to there is
nothing approaching a feature oriented roadmap there, though a lot of good
input is gathered in the mails captured at the end of his w.l.o/9.1 link,
and of course there is no clue in this page as to which if any of these
suggestions will be implemented and when.  That is the problem.  Here's what
I mean by a feature roadmap.  Pick a set of key improvements.  Say when you
are going to do them in words that can be understood by an outsider.  (Not,
for example, "glucose  6.7.8.9 <with a git pointer>" ).   Asking for this
roadmap is not about criticizing that the development is going too slow.

<analogy alert>When small children wait for something to come when you know
it will be a while and you realize they don't have a good grasp of time
abstractions, it helps to give them concrete observable events to see
progress toward the goal.  Like crossing a day off a calendar each morning
or opening the doors on an Advent calendar to show the approach of
Christmas.</a>

With a feature roadmap, even if the actual changes themselves aren't done,
you see the previous promised features appear.  You see the feature you're
waiting for rise on the list.  Some volunteer might come along and implement
a feature for you.  The current "roadmap" is not a roadmap it is a schedule
of when artifacts need to be delivered without any description of what they
might represent.










-- 
"The water won't clear up 'til we get the hogs out of the creek." -- Jim
Hightower
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