[Zope3-dev] Brain Overload Problems

[Ken Manheimer]

On Mon, 10 Dec 2001, Chris Withers wrote:

> I guess the problem is that most of us don't have enough of the
> picture (or time to get enough of the picture) to really comment,
> and by the time it gets to a point where we can understand it in the
> time we can afford to devote to it, it will have moved beyond the
> point where valid criticisms can be acted on.
> [...]
> Can anyone think of a solution to this?

I would suggest that this is just the nature of the game.  As i understand
it, the goal of exposing the development process as it occurs *isn't* to
make sure everyone everywhere is able to resolve all the questions in
their mind at every step (to hyperbolize a bit).  Rather, i see it to try
to narrow the information gap, so:

 - The process benefits from everyone's insight, *as opportunity
   allows*, and

 - there is (much) less of a hurdle for those "catching up" when the
   finished architecture lands.

Consider it a balancing act between sequestered and committee design.

In sequestered design, the designers sacrifice the benefits of the
attention of other concerned parties.

In committee design, the foibles of communication dynamics, self-interest,
etc, often leads to fatal compromises, and generally leads to way
suboptimal design.

Various open-source efforts chip away at that balance in various ways.
Many of them feature a benevolent dictator and lots of community
involvement - what we're seeing here is a high degree of community
involvement, to try to reap both the benefits mentioned above without
devolving to pure committee effect.

(To add a bit to this perspective, we have to strike a similar balance
within the company.  By no means has everyone has been able to dedicate
their time to thinking about the zope3 designs.  It's just not practical -
there are other things that have to get done - and, ultimately, it's not
an effective way to work.  However, the people concentrating on it want to
harvest wisdom from others, and also not get so far ahead that there's a
lapse while the rest of the company is getting up to speed on the new
version.  Hence some artificial rotation on coding duties, and jam and
mailling list discussions like these on zope3-dev.)

I'm sure every large-scale development effort faces this challenge in
one way or another - and i'm pretty confident that we're going the
expose-early-and-often (sounds vaguely obscene:-) more than most, even
more than other open source efforts.

In fact, i think the "brain overload" you're experiencing is a bonus
(;-) of the opportunity to get in on the designs before the designs
are finished - an artifact of the challenges of doing this process in
this exposed way.  While i'm not suggesting you should be thankful for
your pain, this may be a situation where "no pain no gain" really does
hold.

--
not-apologizing-just-trying-to-sell-some-aspirin'ly y'rs,

Ken
klm@zope.com