Wireshark · Ethereal-dev: Re: [Ethereal-dev] Fallen at the first hurdle :(

[Ulf Lamping <ulf.lamping@xxxxxx>]

Maynard, Chris wrote:
> Ulf,
> I'd like to start out by first saying that many people know how hard
> you've worked not only on the documentation, but on everything else as
> well, and although the documentation may seem like a thankless job, it
> is certainly appreciated and I'm sure your efforts have helped many more
> people than you'll probably ever know.
>   
It's good to hear that from time to time.
> That said, I'm not quite sure why you seemed to have been so taken aback
> by the recent posts that started with Dave Ramsey's inquiry.  He seems
> like someone who is fairly new to Ethereal and obviously does not have
> your level of expertise.  I read the chain and did not observe any
> whining but rather a simple call for help from the developers in which
> he seemed to even be joking at a bit at his own inability to get
> started.  
>   
Actually, Dave said in his mail that he had a look at the devguide, and 
then couldn't find the start of the Tools section ?!?

The whining was done in some Mail quite a while ago, and of course it 
wasn't actually whining.
> And I took Guy's comments as intended to be constructive feedback in
> order to try to improve the documentation, not to dictate to you what it
> must say.  
This wasn't meant to criticize Guy, as he's one of the few people keep 
the project going, and helped me several times solving problems.

However, there seems to be a lot of constructive feedback but a lot less 
work actually being done.

In parts it sometimes really reminds me of Monty Pythons "Life of Brian" ...
> It's my personal feeling that if folks new to Ethereal are
> still having trouble getting started, then even though there may be
> multiple ways of doing something, new folks are basically looking for a
> cook book of exact steps to follow because they just want to get going
> quickly in order to solve their own problem and not necessarily to learn
> all the ins-and-outs of Ethereal development ... at least not right
> away.  The easier it is for new people to get started, hopefully the
> more productive they'll be and the more interested they'll be in
> Ethereal, which will hopefully lead to more of them contributing to its
> development in the long run.
>   
Yes, I've noticed that in many other open source projects: "You can use 
A, B, or C and when you're very experienced you can even use D".
But no one is giving you a simple way to get a first time running system.

However, I did exactly that by trying to give that advise in the "Win32: 
Recommended Tools" section.

That's the catch 22 I tried to explain in my mail. I agree with you to 
make things at simple as possible for beginners.
But when you do it that way, some experienced user will tell you: "But 
that's not the way it really is, I'm doing..."
So you change it respectively and the next one comes having problems to 
understand as there's so much text to read ...

It that actually *can* be quite frustrating ...
> On behalf of the many people who have benefited from your work, I hope
> that you are only venting some frustrations, that you will not abandon
> work on the user's guide and that you will continue to be open to user's
> & developer's feedback regarding the documentation, much like a
> dissector author might receive comments on ways to improve a particular
> protocol dissector.  In some sense, it is easier to write Ethereal
> dissectors than good documentation because for the dissector,
> essentially it works or it doesn't, but the documentation is not
> measured by the same criteria.
>   
I actually don't know for now. Even after sleeping a night over it, it 
still don't seem to be a task that I like to continue.
> I'd like to conclude with this:  Since August 2003 (which probably makes
> me a newbie to most), I have developed over 15 proprietary dissectors
> for my company and I maintain them all, some of them quite complex
> (unfortunately).  When a new Ethereal update is released, I update our
> customized version to keep pace.  I maintain our own documentation and
> our own internal Ethereal group so I can easily disseminate information
> to people within the company who are using it, and so they can provide
> feedback, report bugs, etc.  Many times I have asked for help, but in
> the 2.5 years I've been involved, thus far nobody has been able or
> willing.  I wish others would assist me because I know that some of the
> dissectors are lacking, other protocols are yet to be written, and in
> some cases I simply can't gather even the test captures I need in order
> to fully test the dissectors.  Even within my own company it is hard to
> get any help or constructive feedback.  But regardless, I know that what
> I do serves a useful purpose and I enjoy doing it because the work I've
> done has helped people and I know it will continue to do so.  There are
> no rewards for my work; it's not even a funded project.  I work on it
> mostly in my "spare" time, but I guess the personal satisfaction is why
> I do it.  I hope it's why you do it as well.
>   
Hmmm, sounds much like the position I'm in, however within my company I 
do get at least some constructive feedback,
so my position might be slightly better :-)

However, the personal satisfaction is fading over the last months ...

I know that most of the time you'll only hear the negative side, as 
people complain about things they don't like,
and often say nothing about the things they like or which are going well.

So I get your mail as a constructive feedback in the positive sense :-)
> P.S. I know you hate the following disclaimer, but I have no control
> over it being added to the outgoing e-mail.  For the record, I hate it
> too.
>   
Agreed ;-)

Regards, ULFL