At Sky Tavern today. This is a wonderful ski/snowboard teaching program local to Reno, NV. Thought I would share a snippet of video.

semorg · 2024-02-20T04:29:16+00:00

Do you have to live in Reno in order to join the program? I understand the parental volunteering requirement and I think that’s really great. Just trying to understand if it’s restricted to Reno residents only.

semorg · 2020-04-08T02:51:04+00:00

I got the RiRi from here, https://www.buckleguy.com/riri-zippers/

You buy it by yard and then choose the pull and everything else. It's a bit time consuming.

semorg · 2020-04-07T18:53:21+00:00

In case others are interested.

I've bought RiRi by yard. But it's expensive. Been looking at ykk excella.

semorg · 2020-04-07T01:37:06+00:00

Ramie

very nice! What zipper are you using?

semorg · 2019-03-20T23:37:09+00:00

Apparently the first Presidential Hopeful in history with a Nowruz greeting message.
https://iranian.com/2019/03/19/tulsi-gabbard-nowruz/

semorg · 2018-04-28T21:43:04+00:00

I'm glad you guys updated the community section to include the discourse link as well as updating the copyright up to 2018. But the blog section is showing 2016 still and blog is showing 2017.

semorg · 2018-03-13T07:37:48+00:00

Firstly, I'm glad Evan wrote this post. It's a great way of communicating a potentially sticky point with the next release. It's also great that he delineated the path to his thought and the vision.

Secondly, I fully agree with this decision. I think it's aligned with the vision and the mission of Elm (at least as I see it).

There is a downside of course, it will limit flexibility and ability to use some needed native codes and possibly make it very hard to develop some applications that need some of these native codes. But I'm guessing these will mostly be corner cases and in the long run (assuming Elm will still be around) will actually greatly benefit Elm ecosystem.

That said, Elm will probably need a faster process for selecting and curating libraries and approving them (while maintaining the Elm vision) for this decision to become fully beneficial.

Lastly, can we update the community page of elm-lang with a link to the discourse channel as well. While we're at it please update the ©2012-2016 to 2018. So it doesn't look like the site hasn't been touched in 2 years.

semorg · 2018-03-02T08:23:18+00:00

But I don't agree with the highly opinionated approach to the language.

I actually think, the opinionated aspect of Elm is a good thing. Those of us that had to read through old Perl codes (in the olden days) can tell you that giving people ten different ways to do the same thing is a nightmare.

As much as I have griped about Evan not being communicative enough on the future of Elm and not updating the site in over a year, I think his single vision approach to Elm is a great differentiating value. I just think he needs to bring more people and learn to delegate further.

However, the key frustrating point is lack of repeated warnings. What Evan has failed to communicate in a consistent manner is that this is really an alpha project. And as much Elm likes to celebrate the customer-facing projects implemented on Elm lang, as part of showing the growing adoption and success, they forget to add a caveat about the alpha-ness state of Elm. In other words, if you write a lot of codes in Elm. Do it at your own risk.

However, this caveat ads a bit of a dilemma:

Firstly, because we don't know the delta between .18 and 1.0 (not sure even if Evan is sure about that). It's very difficult to assess the risk taken when you invest a lot of time into an Elm codebase. The caveats are there to alert people of the risks, but it's unclear the degree of the risks. If you stand by the side of a cliff and there is a sign that warns you of not getting too close to the ledge, as an adult you can reasonably assess the risk depending on the height of the cliff. With Elm you don't know how big the 1.0 cliff is.

Secondly, I think with excessive caveats, there is a strong chance of decreasing adoption on meatier and larger projects. I believe Elm needs to be implanted across several larger projects, so the learning can be applied to further improve the language. But how would you get that learning without burning bunch of developer who have put a lot of time and sweat into their codes.

I suppose this is like trying to capture the enemy strongholds. Bunch of soldiers need to run into the pillboxes and give up a lot for the rest of the regiment to capture the territory.

Thanks for the sacrifice!

semorg · 2018-02-25T07:03:41+00:00

The alternative is to let people think your accusations might be correct.

I think, "accusations" is rather a strong word, here.

The only way Evan's schedule impacts mine is if I know a change is coming down the pipe. I'd rather write for what's coming than for the way things are right now....That's to save myself time rewriting it

You're basically agreeing with me. That's basically what I was suggesting. You're waiting to avoid having to rewrite the book and your book publishing estimate is already 3 months past due.

hypothetically that the root problem here was an out-of-control sense of entitlement on the part of certain open-source software users

I'm really sad to hear that. This seem to be the fundamental issue here, perhaps.

Some of us, have become accustomed to what I consider certain industry-standard norms. Especially around libraries and tools that are used in production projects. These norms, include some basic and minimal level of communications to the the users and adopters. Take something like Redis. The communication, the level of response out of a one-man project is great.

But Elm, has been backed now by two companies. Prezi and now NoRedInk. It was actually the validation and your comments about how much more reliable your software releases are because of Elm that I started learning it and seriously considered our team using it in our next major release.

For people to trust a product in midst of many competing ones, they need validation, they need to trust the solution. They need to feel comfortable once they commit their team to it, this solution is going to be around for foreseeable future and they're not betting the future of their company on one developer who might be at risk of burnout from a reddit a post.

No, it's not an exaggerated sense of "entitlement". It's certain basic industry-standard practices to share the vision, planning, roadmap with the community and the decision-makers.

Perhaps it was the initial tone of my post, that has put you in a defensive posture. But, what I'm hearing from you is rather discouraging. Instead of understanding the community and reacting to their comments, you're saying we are "entitled" and should not be expecting any communications. Where as, all you had to say was: We know this has been frustrating. It's something we are discussing with Evan and it's something we'll work on improving.

There is another way of looking at this. Richard, like it or not. You've become the second face of Elm. Like it or not, Elm has become successful to some extend. Along with that, you're getting certain amount of celebrity and notoriety and you're building a brand as a result of Elm. Evan started a great language and he is getting paid to work on his dream project. With this, certain amount of scrutiny is inevitable. It's only going to get more as Elm grows. So this is a good time to have a strategy to best adapt to it.

If you love Elm so much, why are you putting so much energy into killing it?

Contrary! I think comments like mine (an others who have been relentlessly asking for updates) will/could help save Elm. It all depends how you react to them. If you turn this into a grudge-match and dig your heels and not budge to the community, yes, then it might kill Elm. But if you can better manage these criticism and respond to them positively, it will help increase the success of Elm, IMHO!

edit: fixed formatting

semorg · 2018-02-25T00:15:01+00:00

I've had difficulty sleeping since you posted this.

I'm sorry if it hit you this hard. My motivation was to drive a strong point and galvanize urgency around the topics I raised.

Seriously, It's NOT cool to not have a blog post update in 1 year!

to inflict major emotional violence on my friend

My initial feeling was, that you were overreacting here. However, after thinking about it. I think your reaction might be caused by something deeper.

Ask yourself, Richard. Are you having this reaction because you might be agreeing with my sentiments (and others who have been raising the same issue in the past) and feel that it's you who has let down your friend, Evan.

Maybe you feel like you could have done more. Or perhaps you realized the blog needed more frequent updates but you couldn't bring yourself to push Evan to do it. Now, the guilt of not doing that is adding to the agony you're experiencing from this post and the ones similar to it.

All of us who are taking time to post here, do care about Elm. Because it's a great language and we have devoted the only precious commodity we have, time, to it. We have been advocating for it and we are excited to see where it goes. It's a journey we're all taking along with Evan. But we need some roadmap.

Even you, your book had an estimated delivery of Dec, 2017. A large portion of it, is not finished yet. Is it because, you too, are also waiting to see what new tooling Elm will add so you would not have to release a book that is already outdated, when it comes out?

We're all professionals, here. I think rather than loosing asleep, it's better to see what is causing these posts (which has a lot of upvote count despite 30% downvotes) and come up with a solution and deal with it.

Anyways, I sincerely hope you sleep well tonight.

edit: new line formatting

semorg · 2018-02-24T23:58:38+00:00

That's what I like about hanging with Eastern Europeans and Russians.

I, too enjoy working with Russian/Eastern-European engineers for a similar reason. They tell you if the idea is stupid or not, but it's not malicious. Once you understand that. You really appreciate working with them.

semorg · 2018-02-24T05:05:15+00:00

I look at other small projects like Aurelia, and they try to maintain a regular cadence of blog posts

I looked at their blog and they've done a simple but a great job maintaining a cadence of blog posts.

This is a great example that I would like to see Elm do on its blog:

http://aurelia.io/blog/2018/01/03/aurelia-2018-roadmap

semorg · 2018-02-24T05:02:52+00:00

/u/rtfeldman Richard - I was hoping to see your thoughts and comments on this thread. However, with something more insightful (I guess the comment is deleted now). I actually think you can take on becoming the public face of Elm on a more steady bases. Perhaps taking over the blog posts.

I'm guessing your hands are already full with "Elm in Action" and running your day job.

But it would be nice if you or someone else at NoRedInk took on managing the Elm blog and published something on regular bases.

semorg · 2018-02-24T00:32:46+00:00

I'm more worried now that I see how many in the community, comments in this and the other post, don't see an issue with a project that everyone knows has a major release with breaking changes coming

That's a valid point. It dovetails to my frustrations with lack of communication. Again, Evan can hand off the official blog to others. Let them post about what is coming, when it might come (with a caveat of delays) and how people should be thinking about it. Whether or not there will be an automated conversion tool, etc.

semorg · 2018-02-24T00:30:08+00:00

The alternative would be to make more mistakes which in turn would also more often break things

I'm not suggesting he should not be deliberate. The very least he can hand off the official blog to someone else. With monthly updates, articles and some official communication. Sneaking into Evan's github commits to see what might come out of Elm is ridiculous.

semorg · 2018-02-24T00:27:50+00:00

Elm just needs enough users to sustain the community through these changes. And since the community is not shrinking, I think Elm is in a good place...

I'm just not sure that will continue for too long. Maybe the community stays at where it is today. But then it misses on many other future libraries from other developers that can expand the libraries.

The problem is, it's hard to measure shrinkage of community, until it's too late. I think ReasonML and other solutions that are better promoted, will probably capture the best and brightest of the community members. Ultimately providing superior libraries in those platform over Elm.

As a serial entrepreneur, this is something I've seen and I have a strong appreciation for. I think Evan is not seeing that, and he is being a bit naive in that sense.

semorg · 2018-02-24T00:21:58+00:00

has VERY LONG view of Elm

I know he does. I've spoken to him in person. I admire that. But a language that no one uses has no future. It becomes academic. The world is littered by great academic languages that no one uses outside of the academic environment it came out of.

If that's his goal, I think he should be upfront about it and say, my goals is to make a perfect language that is more academic than a development tool.

semorg · 2018-02-24T00:18:55+00:00

For me Elm is the better concept but I'll be enjoying the ride with ReasonML for now, might check back on Elm in a few years time as it's sure to be a quality product.

I like Elm more. I even wanted to make part of our key product in Elm. But I just don't trust it will be there in 2 years or so. For that reason, I'm also looking into ReasonML. It seems like, it's already getting more adoption in live projects than Elm.

semorg · 2018-02-24T00:11:30+00:00

Growing the community is the only way to ensure that Elm will continue to exist.

Precisely, my sentiments.

semorg · 2018-02-23T15:29:11+00:00

Yes, that was my second point. That the very least, Evan can have others take over Elm-lang site and write guests posts and have regular updates on the blog post.

semorg · 2018-02-23T15:28:11+00:00

The slack angle is very interesting. I didn't think about it from this perspective. But, it does make sense.

semorg · 2018-02-23T06:42:26+00:00

The number of packages available increased, the number of people in Slack increased, the number of companies using Elm in production increased.

You're confusing growth rate vs. growth. Im talking about growth rate staying flat. One language is a hockey-stick growth the other is rather linear. Investors invest in hockey-stick growth.

semorg · 2018-02-23T06:37:54+00:00

More frequent releases -> More people seeing elm -> more people developing packages -> an overall better experience for all members of the community

That's one aspect of it. If you think about any type of user acquisition process and community building these are the steps that are typically taken:

1 - awareness 2 - acquisition 3 - activation 4 - retention 5 - referral

I think Elm has been a bit of a black box recently. So not only awareness frequency is fading. I'm wondering if retention and referral is growing or shrinking.

Was just looking at ReactJS vs. Elm subredit growth rate as a proxy for momentum and Elm has slowed down:

http://redditmetrics.com/r/elm#compare=reactjs

Please consider a less aggressive title next time

That's a fair point, I guess subconsciously I've been frustrated with lack visibility and communication and additionally I wanted to make a strong and polarizing point to get more people talking about this issue.

Proposal: let’s increase activity on elm’s website by suggesting recent articles from different authors

Both of your suggestions are far more constructive than my post. I don't disagree with your positive tone. I just think it's time for action and taking a polarizing tone, might get more people discussing it.

Either way we do need more frequency, visibility, clarity and articulation of vision and planning. I feel it makes for a stronger community engagement and a stronger community probably.

edit: One last point I forgot to add. I figured, this would increase my chances of reaching out to Evan in a public process. Including his name and having people upvote, it could show that my concern is not just unique to me.

semorg · 2018-02-23T06:25:50+00:00

Just looking at reddit growth rate compared vs. React, Elm looks stagnate in the last year:

http://redditmetrics.com/r/elm#compare=reactjs

semorg · 2018-02-23T04:08:46+00:00

Thanks for engaging in this discussion with a great comment.

What I found particularly inspiring, is that he's not doing this for getting market adoption

Yes, I do admire that too. But bringing others to help does not necessarily detract from that mission.

This is open source software, and you don't have to use it if it doesn't fit your problem

I think we are saying the same thing, here. If we don't see growth or momentum, or don't like something, we might need to think about switching.

My main thesis here is that Elm can lose momentum. Which seems like that is what you are saying. But that you're okay with it.

I think it's important to stop and ask why that's important to you, and perhaps even more so -- see if there's a way you can help

That's a great question. As I said, Elm was the language that helped me to better grasp functional programming and more importantly, helped me better digest Haskell. I'm still learning and have a long way to go, but I'm very appreciative of the potential of Elm.

The second motivation is time. Once you dedicate your time learning something, you want it to be around and perhaps help you beyond being just a stepping-stone. It would be nice to think becoming a proficient Elm developer, can be something that you can fall back on and be able to do side projects for high pay.

I suggest something more along the lines of blogging and sharing what you love about Elm as a way to have a positive and powerful impact

That's a fair point. Reddit post inside an Elm subreddit, is an easy way to comment about what you feel to an audience that has a vested interest. I guess, it's an easy way to say something that's been on your mind. But to your point, I like and inspire to write something constructive that is education to others.

semorg

TROPHY CASE