Development newbies forum?

johann_p · Post by **johann_p** » November 8th, 2002, 3:50 am

Now that we even have an "MozillaZine After Dark" forum, I dare to reiterate a suggestion I already made for the old forums: how about a Developer Newbie forum? I think that within the huge number of Mozillazine readers there are several who would be interested to contribute or try to work on themes, extensions, XUL patches etc. There are also others who might have some experience to give starting pointers to newbies. For somebody jumping into the cold water of Mozilla development, finding out what is where, what exists etc is often the hardest part. I have personally immensely profited of pointers people have been given me in bug comments, but that is really not the right place to inform newbies. For many issues, the documentation on mozilla.org is either outdated, or incomplete, some things are simply not documented and to find out how stuff works you would need to find the right piece of code, and understand it. On the other hand, the various development newgroups are highly specialized and I suspect that newbies often wont know which newsgroup to use and often do not dare to ask silly questions there - and if they do, they rarely get answered.
So what do you think? Would it be worth a try? (Dont force me to make a poll for this :wink:

)

Ted Mielczarek · Post by **Ted Mielczarek** » November 8th, 2002, 1:27 pm

Agreed, I think this is a good idea. Any sort of development forum would be nice. I've been poking around the Phoenix XUL for a few days now, and it can be scary at times. Someplace to share experience would be helpful.

Shark Daddy · Post by **Shark Daddy** » November 8th, 2002, 3:17 pm

What's XUL? How do I bookmark? Where is the image toolbar?

The only problem is that it'd introduce a system in which seasoned Mozillans stay out and Newbies stay in, talking to each other. A class system ( :lol:

) if you will. I, for example, would likely steer clear from answering questions after a few days.

But hey, we could try!

mikelee · Post by **mikelee** » November 8th, 2002, 5:00 pm

Well I'll be happy to contribute some of what I know. At the same time I expect the people who ask question to at least do some searching at whats already asked, or google.

Shark Daddy · Post by **Shark Daddy** » November 8th, 2002, 5:12 pm

See that's the problem. In my experience, they usually don't.

johann_p · Post by **johann_p** » November 8th, 2002, 6:51 pm

Shark Daddy wrote:See that's the problem. In my experience, they usually don't.

Dont you think that this is a bit too harsh? I am not talking about Mozilla newbies here ("how do I bookmark") but about developer newbies ("where is the code for X" etc). Sure, some of them will ask silly questions, some will ask questions that have been asked before, but if there is a community reading this, we do not need the big gurus like you to answer the simple questions over and over again - other newbies will do it for you. I think there will be quite a few good programmers in the group of mozillazine readers who just shied away from creating some patch because the initial effort is quite high. Helping here could get one or two bugs more fixed, and wouldnt that be also in the interest of the big gurus?
I dont think that an attitude that from the beginning qualifies all newbies as senseless trolls is apropiate. If you are tired of answering questions, just dont do it - others will do it in your place. Then maybe I am wrong and there are not that many people interested in this ... how about a poll?

asa · Post by **asa** » November 8th, 2002, 9:54 pm

We have forums for Mozilla and Phoenix Themes and Extensions. Maybe if those prove insufficient to house development discussion then the mozillazine staff could add an additional forum.

--Asa

Post by **kerz** » November 8th, 2002, 10:30 pm

Yeah, we're done making new forums for now, let's see how it goes before adding more.

jason

johann_p · Post by **johann_p** » November 9th, 2002, 5:00 am

asa wrote:We have forums for Mozilla and Phoenix Themes and Extensions. Maybe if those prove insufficient to house development discussion then the mozillazine staff could add an additional forum.

So would it maybe be possible to add a blurb to the name/description of the extension forum that this is the right place for development discussions too and see what happens? The thing is that I would have been reluctant to post development stuff anywhere because I did not feel that there is a "right" place for it.

From the small number of views/posts this topic has received I must admit that my believe that there are many people interested in starting/discussing development here is probably really wishful thinking ...

Stefan · Post by **Stefan** » November 9th, 2002, 5:33 am

I didn't post here for the simple reason I had nothing to add to discussion that had not already been said

A more general development discussion might be beneficial to both attract and keep coders around

Or at least renaming "extensions" to "extensions and development".

johann_p · Post by **johann_p** » November 13th, 2002, 5:20 am

Stefan wrote:I didn't post here for the simple reason I had nothing to add to discussion that had not already been said

A more general development discussion might be beneficial to both attract and keep coders around
Or at least renaming "extensions" to "extensions and development".

Any chance then to get the extensions forum renamed and maybe the description changed accordingly? I'd really want to give it a try again and see what happens

johann_p · Post by **johann_p** » November 16th, 2002, 12:48 pm

Seems it is asking too much to actually tell the people that the extensions forum should be used for any development discussions by slightly changing the name and description of that forum. Or is it that the forum administrators simply do not want any development related discussion to get going in here?

Post by **RAF** » November 16th, 2002, 1:13 pm

Stefan wrote:I didn't post here for the simple reason I had nothing to add to discussion that had not already been said

A more general development discussion might be beneficial to both attract and keep coders around
Or at least renaming "extensions" to "extensions and development".

I agree with Stefan. I'd like to know more about making skins (especially for Phoenix) but I'm having trouble starting...

RAF

Post by **Alex Bishop** » November 16th, 2002, 3:34 pm

Johann_P wrote:Seems it is asking too much to actually tell the people that the extensions forum should be used for any development discussions by slightly changing the name and description of that forum. Or is it that the forum administrators simply do not want any development related discussion to get going in here?

Calm down. The descriptions of the themes and extensions forums have been updated to refelct the fact that relevant development questions are welcome there.

johann_p · Post by **johann_p** » November 17th, 2002, 3:46 am

Thank you for changing this!
However, what I suggested was a *Mozilla* development newbie forum, the descriptions just indicate theme or extension development. So any development question which is *not* about themes or extension would still be off-topic there and I guess not many would be motivated to post something related to general Mozilla development in there. I am not sure myself how many people would really *want* to discuss Mozilla development here at Mozillazine, but IMO anything that would motivate people to get into contributing (instead of just whining) would be good.
So, if somebody is looking for the right place to do that, I still doubt if "Mozilla extension development" sounds as the right topic and inviting enough.

I was therefore thinking of something more in the direction of "Mozilla Extensions and Development" (or vice versa) as the title and "...extension and general Mozilla development" in the description. Having these two combinded could also provide a forum to help people decide whether they want to go for a patch or implement it in an extension first, whether something can be take from an extension into the Mozilla tree and so on.

I am sorry if my tone was harsh or impolite - i am very impressed about what the owners of Mozillazine and the forums did and still do - this site is not just great, it *is* still getting better all the time.

Development newbies forum?

Development newbies forum?

Newbie developers

I disagree

Themes and Extensions

Re: Themes and Extensions

Ok, obviously not

Re: Ok, obviously not

I am perfectly calm :)