User:Benjamin Linden/Office Hours/2008-08-07

Transcript of Benjamin Linden's office hours:

[15:07]	Jacek Antonelli:	Heyo Grant and Ben
[15:07]	Beyers Sellers:	hi Benjamin!
[15:07]	Benjamin Linden:	hi folks
[15:07]	Grant Linden:	hello hello
[15:08]	Aimee Trescothick:	soldering accident Jacek?
[15:08]	Pier Jaecies:	helo
[15:08]	Bjorlyn Loon:	hello
[15:08]	Geneko Nemeth:	Apparantly the topic of this office hour is about saying hi.
[15:08]	Ricken Flow:	Hello Benjamin and Grant
[15:08]	Malbers Linden:	then we have succeeded!
[15:08]	Aimee Trescothick:	that's not where the headphones wires were supposed to go
[15:08]	Jacek Antonelli giggles at Aimee
[15:08]	Harleen Gretzky:	Hi Benjamin and Grant
[15:08]	McCabe Maxsted:	viewer's done, next!
[15:08]	Aimee Trescothick:	;)
[15:08]	Jacek Antonelli:	Yeah, fixed up my headphones by wiring them directly into my brain
[15:09]	Dusan Writer:	yay Emotiv!
[15:09]	McCabe Maxsted:	I actually wanted to talk about something, unless a linden has a topic
[15:09]	Grant Linden:	go right ahead!
[15:09]	Benjamin Linden:	we've all been heads-down on projects and didn't get our act together to propose a discussion topic, so by all means, fire away
[15:09]	Ricken Flow:	Would you like to sit down Bjorlyn?
[15:10]	Roof Doors:	Geneko Nemeth is at the door.
[15:10]	Benjamin Linden:	did you have a topic McCabe?
[15:11]	McCabe Maxsted:	okay. The way issues get imported that deal with UI seems really random, for example http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-8056
[15:11]	McCabe Maxsted:	a really great set of patches that was looked and discarded and wil prolly be duplicated later by another one of you
[15:12]	McCabe Maxsted:	and then there is http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-2948
[15:12]	McCabe Maxsted:	which is an absolutely FANTASTIC patch in eveyr possible way, and it's been sitting for ages
[15:12]	McCabe Maxsted:	having to even be redone for 1.20
[15:13]	Jacek Antonelli:	:S
[15:13]	Benjamin Linden:	great point McCabe
[15:13]	Benjamin Linden:	have you raised these concerns at Rob Linden's office hours?
[15:13]	Geneko Nemeth:	... what just bumped into me?
[15:13]	McCabe Maxsted:	so should we keep on submitting UI stuff, even? Yeah, I was just there and he said basically "post on sldev before you do it"
[15:14]	McCabe Maxsted:	but I know both of these were posted on lists
[15:15]	Benjamin Linden:	hmm how is posting on sldev supposed to help?
[15:16]	McCabe Maxsted:	supposedly, if you post that you have a patch and another linden will be duplicating it in the future, they'll tell you not to bother since it might conflict
[15:16]	Benjamin Linden:	I see
[15:16]	McCabe Maxsted:	but that means the right person has to see it at the right time anyway and know things they prolly don't know, and the UI section on the wiki isn't exactly the most specific....
[15:16]	Benjamin Linden:	which presumes the right lindens are listening on sldev
[15:16]	McCabe Maxsted:	yeah
[15:17]	Charlette Proto:	Hi everyone, extending the office hours may be in order soon
[15:17]	Benjamin Linden:	yes this is a challenging problem
[15:18]	Benjamin Linden:	I do know we have limited resources to integrate patches
[15:18]	:FORM: Animation Override v.1: New sitting on ground animation: FORM Ground Sit
[15:18]	Benjamin Linden:	that includes developers to import the code and QA folks to test it
[15:18]	McCabe Maxsted:	we want to help and contribute and make the viewer better, but it frankly feels pretty crappy to do some work, post about it, then have it be discarded because someone else would be doing it anyway. A great example is the offline/online notifications in IM. There was a patch on the jira for as far abacx as 1.18.5.3, but looks like someone duplicated that work
[15:18]	Benjamin Linden:	and if there are changes to interaction models then our team has to review it, which is often another bottleneck
[15:19]	Dusan Writer:	seems frustrating
[15:19]	Benjamin Linden:	I agree that we need to get better and faster at pulling in patches
[15:19]	McCabe Maxsted:	yeah, 'tis
[15:19]	Benjamin Linden:	because we want to encourage the great work you guys are doing
[15:20]	McCabe Maxsted:	especially considering how awesome jacek's menu patch is, especially for those of us who're experimenting with the UI
[15:20]	Dusan Writer:	i wonder as well whether there's ways of letting a broader community know about the patches and stuff
[15:21]	Benjamin Linden:	developers who create UI-specific patches could post them on sl-ux
[15:21]	Roof Doors:	Charlette Proto is at the door.
[15:21]	McCabe Maxsted:	what I'd like to see is putting some hooks out there; I was looking through the skinning phases, and they're broad goals, etc, but how about a section on stuff that you'd like to fast track in but isn't on your radar, that an OS developer could do? We have been, ben :)
[15:21]	Benjamin Linden:	McCabe, what happens when you bring up these specific issues at the open source meeting?
[15:22]	McCabe Maxsted:	or aren't you reading ;)
[15:22]	Benjamin Linden:	sorry, that was mostly for Dusan's benefit
[15:22]	McCabe Maxsted:	aw, rob says "we're working on getting better at it" (and you guys are, to be fair) and to post on sldev
[15:23]	Benjamin Linden:	I do want to think about ways to advocate more vocally for users (including advanced users) internally
[15:23]	Benjamin Linden:	is there a filter we can use to see important patches waiting to be integrated?
[15:23]	Benjamin Linden:	like "Top Five Patches by vote" or something
[15:24]	McCabe Maxsted:	it'd be appreciated. To be frank, you've already alienated your best contributer (nichoaz) and a lot of others who've submitted patches (and some very niceUI patches btw) have just stopped contributing
[15:24]	McCabe Maxsted:	yeah, you can search for patch attached on the jira
[15:24]	Benjamin Linden:	I know how to search in jira :-)
[15:24]	Benjamin Linden:	I was hoping maybe you had a filter set up already
[15:24]	McCabe Maxsted:	I meant, it's on the main page of filters
[15:24]	McCabe Maxsted:	"issues with patches attached"
[15:25]	Harleen Gretzky:	The one Bug Triage uses is: http://www.sljirastats.com/jira_search.php?search=34&output=wiki
[15:25]	McCabe Maxsted:	after you login and click home
[15:25]	Benjamin Linden:	and how should we identify the really important ones?
[15:25]	Benjamin Linden:	is votes a good metric?
[15:25]	McCabe Maxsted:	probably not; many issues are too technical to be understood
[15:26]	Roof Doors:	Gibson Seetan is at the door.
[15:26]	Gibson Seetan:	Permission to enter
[15:26]	Malbers Linden:	Hi Gibson. come one in
[15:26]	Gibson Seetan:	Thank you sir
[15:26]	McCabe Maxsted:	I'm sure harleen could give a better explanation on how things are imported, but as I understand it, lindens look at how many people/what it affects more
[15:27]	Benjamin Linden:	from a user experience standpoint yes
[15:27]	Benjamin Linden:	but some of these patches, like the menu xml clean-up
[15:27]	Benjamin Linden:	will have no bearing on most users
[15:28]	Harleen Gretzky:	As far as patches goes, Gigs wrote that query I just posted and that is what is used for the patches section on Bug Triage, most are imported but what happens after that I do not know
[15:28]	Benjamin Linden:	so it's hard to evaluate it against something that will have immediate impact on the end-user
[15:30]	McCabe Maxsted:	why should you even have to? The menu clean up is a subtle enhancement: menus get easier to work with, more people play with them, learn about xml, get interested in skinning, prolly produce better skins. Menus get easier to work with on your end. Menu patches are then easier to make and submit
[15:30]	Benjamin Linden:	I'm not saying it's not worth doing.
[15:30]	Dusan Writer:	I'd love to see a tutorial on how to make your own skin seeing as I'm useless at anything other than sharing opinions
[15:31]	Benjamin Linden:	But as I said, we have a limited set of resources for importing and testing patches
[15:31]	Jacek Antonelli:	I'm not sure the main problem is getting attention -- it seems more that it's the lack of resources for QA and so forth.
[15:31]	Benjamin Linden:	so it's probably not possible to do them all
[15:31]	Benjamin Linden:	so we need to prioritize which ones to take
[15:31]	Jacek Antonelli:	The number of patches goes up, but the QA process doesn't seem to scale (enough)
[15:31]	Jacek Antonelli:	And there's no method set up to "crowdsource" the QA
[15:31]	Benjamin Linden:	I do think there's the additional challenge of aligning patches with changes that may be happening to the codebase
[15:32]	Jacek Antonelli:	That too, Ben
[15:32]	McCabe Maxsted nods. Definitely
[15:32]	Benjamin Linden:	crowdsourcing QA is an interesting idea Jacek
[15:32]	Dusan Writer:	Yay crowdsourcing!
[15:32]	Malbers Linden:	a "trusted" set of super-advacned beta testers
[15:32]	McCabe Maxsted:	the latter I think can be worked on through the wiki
[15:32]	McCabe Maxsted:	hehe
[15:32]	McCabe Maxsted:	yes
[15:32]	Charlette Proto:	there are a lot of groups that could take tah on for free
[15:33]	McCabe Maxsted:	I know a lot of people who'd be interested
[15:33]	Charlette Proto:	many of us want to get involved
[15:33]	Jacek Antonelli:	The one thought I had on that was from a talk I heard Linux Torvalds give. He says he basically ignores everything except a few trusted users. They find the interesting patches and try them out
[15:33]	Jacek Antonelli:	s/Linux/Linus
[15:33]	Postit Morpork:	nice one
[15:33]	Charlette Proto:	but we don't have a Linus in SL
[15:34]	McCabe Maxsted:	benjamin could be our linus
[15:34]	Charlette Proto:	do you need a dictator to do Open Source well?
[15:34]	Dusan Writer:	We have Philip, on which point his interview with Fast Company seems to imply he's now involved in UI design, care to comment?
[15:34]	Aimee Trescothick:	does that mean the next client will be known as Benjamix?
[15:34]	McCabe Maxsted:	we're residents; this is resident experience; why couldn't we
[15:34]	Postit Morpork:	a BENEVOLENT dictator
[15:34]	Charlette Proto:	that is a point, but not sure if he would agree with a role like that
[15:35]	Jacek Antonelli:	It doesn't have to be dictatorial -- but if there were some way that users could say "I've tried this out, it works, it's a good patch. You don't have to spend so long to QA it, because we've done that for you"
[15:35]	Mudflap Mighty:	It's still in Linden's best interest to QA every patch.
[15:36]	Aimee Trescothick:	people who are acknowledged as being technically competent to comment on quality
[15:36]	Harleen Gretzky:	Battery Street Irregulars was already set up to advance test viewers also
[15:36]	Mudflap Mighty:	Some testers only look at a few things and may not understand how a patch will affect other things.
[15:36]	Charlette Proto:	being a bit more formal in terms of the issues that are and should be fixed would help
[15:36]	Benjamin Linden:	I wonder how other open source projects deal with these issues
[15:36]	Benjamin Linden:	the problem with the "listen to the trusted users" approach
[15:37]	Charlette Proto:	even if this was not done by a specific person, but based on votes etc
[15:37]	Benjamin Linden:	is that trusted users are often advanced users
[15:37]	Benjamin Linden:	and have a hard time empathizing with new users
[15:38]	Pier Jaecies:	good point
[15:38]	Bjorlyn Loon:	such an important point
[15:38]	Jacek Antonelli:	Well, in terms of QA -- the advanced users are what you want. For catching bugs and such.
[15:38]	Aimee Trescothick:	true, this is more about code quality though, an accelerant to QA, not a relplacement
[15:38]	Aimee Trescothick:	-l
[15:38]	Charlette Proto:	new users often have the same problems, but are not worth paying too much attention to since there would be too many things to consider
[15:39]	Jacek Antonelli:	I certainly wouldn't say that interface design is a good thing to crowd-source. Too many cooks, and all that.
[15:39]	Charlette Proto:	seasoned people however will bring up things that continue to bug the and can't be worked around so their votes need to count more
[15:39]	Geneko Nemeth:	http://mpt.net.nz/archive/2008/08/01/free-software-usability ...?
[15:40]	Dusan Writer:	mm nice Geneko
[15:40]	Charlette Proto:	but user groups regardless of experience could be given an opportunity to test various versions of the UI
[15:40]	Jacek Antonelli:	But some of the QA burden could be lifted by the developer community. Then importing patches wouldn't be such an ordeal.
[15:41]	Benjamin Linden:	are there examples of other OS projects that do crowdsourced QA?
[15:41]	Benjamin Linden:	in some sense we already do with Jira right?
[15:42]	Charlette Proto:	but what a mess of wish list that is
[15:42]	McCabe Maxsted:	3 and 4 seem to have good relevance here
[15:42]	Benjamin Linden:	3 and 4 on what McCabe?
[15:42]	Geneko Nemeth:	In the blog post I posted?
[15:42]	Dusan Writer agrees with McCabe and wonders if there is any usability data at the Lab
[15:42]	McCabe Maxsted:	oh sorry was reading the list
[15:42]	McCabe Maxsted:	on the blog posted
[15:42]	Charlette Proto:	try to read without knowing what is actually on the cards for realistic opportunity to improve
[15:44]	Roof Doors:	Gibson Seetan is at the door.
[15:44]	Charlette Proto:	sounds like we need a more formal approach to WHAT should and could be acheived in the long run
[15:44]	Benjamin Linden:	yes Dusan, we do frequent lab studies
[15:44]	Benjamin Linden:	I agree some degree of coordination would help
[15:44]	Benjamin Linden:	but we have enough challenges coordinating our own efforts... :-)
[15:44]	Dusan Writer:	i wonder if sharing top line data would be useful in knowing where to focus first, i know its a separate topic
[15:45]	McCabe Maxsted nods. Coordination is tough
[15:45]	Charlette Proto:	or a least publishing the issues that are of high priority so that everyone knows where it is all going
[15:45]	Roof Doors:	Malbers Linden is at the door.
[15:45]	McCabe Maxsted:	we don't want any!
[15:45]	Dusan Writer:	Ben then maybe i'm confused a little, i mean the viewer is open source, do you see any sort of spot where the Lab's role gives way to the community?
[15:46]	Charlette Proto:	not as hard as this if you set some objectives up front
[15:46]	Roof Doors:	Aimee Trescothick is at the door.
[15:47]	Benjamin Linden:	Dusan, I absolutely do see a role for the community
[15:47]	McCabe Maxsted:	I can see coordination helping a lot though. The developer list is very coordinated seemingly in improving hte architecture of hte viewer, but for usability, looking at the issues myself and others have created, it feels like a crapshoot soetimes. We address our pain points and hope for the best
[15:47]	Benjamin Linden:	the trick is coordinating everyone's efforts
[15:47]	Dusan Writer nods
[15:48]	Charlette Proto:	long term and immediate objectives would help sort utopian wish lists from from real issues wich are being worked on and to idenfify the soultions to those
[15:48]	Dusan Writer:	as well as a road map to how the viewer will be affected by um server code or whatever
[15:48]	Jacek Antonelli:	Aye. It would also help us avoid getting run over by the internal work
[15:49]	Charlette Proto:	some voting system needs to be implemented, that is for sure
[15:49]	Charlette Proto:	and scope definition for what is in the hands of user community and what is the internal responsibility of th eLab
[15:50]	Dusan Writer:	thats what i mean Charlette
[15:50]	Pier Jaecies:	yes, not sure about voting, it may not reflect the internal projects. perhaps a simple coding system to what the patch affects and proper research as to what projects LL is working on internally, with all due respect, before users create patches
[15:51]	Dusan Writer:	create a community unFuddle something like that
[15:51]	Charlette Proto:	couldn't we vote in meetings like that
[15:51]	Geneko Nemeth:	Roadmap is a great idea.
[15:51]	Geneko Nemeth:	Not everyone can or will be able to come to meetings...
[15:51]	Pier Jaecies:	isnt there already a user experience roadmap ben?
[15:51]	McCabe Maxsted:	there's an outline
[15:51]	Mudflap Mighty:	Voting on pure code changes sounds problematic. Voting on user-visible features as a whole probably has more worth in the long run.
[15:51]	Geneko Nemeth:	*will be willing
[15:52]	Dusan Writer nods @ Geneko
[15:52]	Dusan Writer:	My impression is that the lab is working on a new road map for the UI based on all the talk about it
[15:52]	Charlette Proto:	Eg, we all hate the way search string is separate for groups, places, people etc, we could vote here and now to see if that should be considered a good problem to fix immediately
[15:53]	Ricken Flow:	isnt that one of the functions of JIRA?
[15:53]	Benjamin Linden:	the current UI roadmap is badly out of date
[15:53]	McCabe Maxsted:	heh. Ii'm sure if we took a vote on everyone who hates the new group search it'd be a landslide
[15:53]	Benjamin Linden:	and it largely reflects important milestones related to the UI architecture
[15:53]	Benjamin Linden:	not necessarily user-facing changes
[15:53]	Pier Jaecies:	i see
[15:53]	Benjamin Linden:	we are working on an overarching design vision
[15:53]	Jacek Antonelli:	I'm not sure about the voting. A better way to provide feedback would be good, and then let LL lay down The Plan.
[15:53]	Benjamin Linden:	which will help drive some of these coordination issues
[15:53]	Bjorlyn Loon:	yes, I tried to wade through the roadmap recently and was a bit lost
[15:54]	Dusan Writer:	if there's a design vision coming then the short term issue is how to triage patches no?
[15:54]	McCabe Maxsted:	I agree with jacek
[15:54]	Charlette Proto:	I meant serch string being differen for each tab, as an example of a common complaint to vote on
[15:54]	McCabe Maxsted:	our votes would be highly biased anyway
[15:55]	Pier Jaecies:	y
[15:55]	Charlette Proto:	but there is no plan, you need to vote to elect the issues to that roadmap
[15:55]	Charlette Proto:	how are votes biased and what is the alternative, Linus?
[15:56]	Dusan Writer:	the overall roadmap needs to be driven by this focus on reworking the viewer that M talked about or the design vision that Ben just mentioned
[15:56]	Benjamin Linden:	they are the same thing, Dusan
[15:56]	Dusan Writer:	ok
[15:56]	Benjamin Linden:	and yes, the vision will drive the roadmap
[15:56]	Benjamin Linden:	and then we need to have a conversation about the open source community's role in advancing the roadmap
[15:57]	Jacek Antonelli:	\o/
[15:57]	Dusan Writer:	yay!
[15:57]	McCabe Maxsted:	yes plz :)
[15:57]	Charlette Proto:	if nobody here would think that the search string should be common for all search tabs, we could put my gripe to rest and that would tell me it is not an important thing to fix ASAP
[15:57]	Benjamin Linden:	ok folks I need to wrap up a little early today, thanks so much for your thoughts on this
[15:57]	Dusan Writer:	we look forward to that at the next meeting then
[15:57]	Malbers Linden:	all kinda early right now
[15:57]	Benjamin Linden:	it's a very important discussion
[15:57]	Dusan Writer:	hehe
[15:57]	Benjamin Linden:	haha Dusan, unfortunately the vision won't appear in a week
[15:57]	McCabe Maxsted:	okay ben. Thanks for listening, take care
[15:57]	Benjamin Linden:	:-)
[15:57]	Dusan Writer:	thanks Ben, Malbers, Grant
[15:57]	Benjamin Linden:	I only wish
[15:57]	Dusan Writer nods hehe
[15:57]	Grant Linden:	Thanks for attending, everyone
[15:58]	Pier Jaecies:	thanks you
[15:58]	Malbers Linden:	thanks all