Now that Callisto is “out the door”, the “party
is over” so to speak… I get the sense there are still a few
clean-up/follow-up issues to deal with. Can I raise a few to people’s
consciousness level?
First, with a new release, especially one so widely
publicized, we’re going to have a *lot*
of new downloaders. That’s going to lead to a lot of questions. I’ve
noticed a significant up-tick occurring on eclipse.tptp (despite the 4th
holiday weekend). I’ve noticed a LOT of new users over in CDT and WTP
land as well (e.g.). So… could I encourage everyone, despite their
tiredness/euphoria/sick-of-Callisto/whatever-you’re-feeling-now situation
to please check out *your*
newsgroup and consider responding to those out there floundering? … and
consider passing this suggestion along to the rest of your project team? I know
a lot of us “conversationalists” are still plugging away in our
respective newsgroups, but there are “expert opinions” needed all
the more now!
Second, along those same lines, can I make my inevitable
plea for you experienced guys to consider perusing eclipse.newcomer and helping
some poor schmuck with his/her problem? The one that has surprised me the most
(which just shows how stupid I can be… this should not have been a
surprise!) is how many people are trying to “upgrade” to Eclipse 3.2
or some other Callisto component. I guess I just assumed everyone would gladly
throw off their tired, their old, their worn-out (and working!) Eclipse
environment and just whole-heartedly embrace a complete Callisto download. (See,
I told you I was stupid! J)
Third, and eclipse.newcomer has highlighted this for me, can
I make a plea for a “refresh” on Ed Burnette’s call for
discussion in eclipse.foundation under the “User experience”
project heading? When he first posted, there was a lot of silence, then a
flurry, then more silence… I think we were all too intent on getting
Callisto out to consider “what next”. Now that we’re at “next”,
I’d like a serious consideration of his proposal, and (surprise) I’d
like to raise the possibility that we dismiss the idea and just go ahead and
concede the “out of the package download experience” to NetBeans
and whatever VENDORS want to productize Eclipse. Seeing the level of
inexperience DROP post-Callisto on eclipse.newcomer (IMHO), I’m just not
sure we’re up to the task Ed is proposing. Why spread ourselves too thin?
Why not focus on our true “core values”, which are to provide the
best platform for others to productize? (Alternatively, I want to so incense
people with my “concede to NetBeans” counter-proposal so as to
incite a real effort to go beyond our core values to adding a new one…
best out-of-the-box experience. I’m just not sure we’re up to it!)
That’s it for now. Back to sweeping up the confetti…
(i.e., back to doing all those little things for the next point release that
fell off the sides in the rush to release for Callisto).
--
RDS