[Python-ideas] A bit meta

[Andrew Barnert]

On Jan 31, 2016, at 13:53, Nicholas Chammas <nicholas.chammas at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> I don’t think older generations of developers are intrinsically any more tolerant of bad UX than the younger generations are. They hate bad UX too, and they had to figure out their own solutions to make things better — their email filters, their clients, their homegrown scripts, etc. — when nothing better was available, and eventually settled into a flow that worked for them.

And, from a later message:

> I *have* been arguing that a modern web-based forum solves common discussion issues in a way that mailing lists cannot match. 

A modern forum can definitely be much better out-of-the-box than a mailing list and traditional mail tools. But a suite of mail tools configured over many years for one user's idiosyncratic needs can outdo anything general-purpose. And that's not even considering the fact that the oldster has adapted to his mail tools, just as much as he's adapted them to his needs, and would have to adapt again to anything new.

Compare the case with text editors. For me, Emacs is much better than some new editor like Atom. But for a novice, I'd definitely suggest Atom over Emacs (even Aquamacs). The difference here is that I can use Emacs while you use Atom, and we won't even notice we're using different tools; if I want to use email while you use Discourse, it seems unavoidable that one of us is going to be participating as a second-class citizen. You're effectively forcing me (and, more importantly, some core devs) to change.

You're not going to convince Stefan that he's wrong for preferring mailing lists, because he's _not_ wrong. You may, however, convince him that the overall benefit (helping bring in new blood, providing PSF-owned permalinks, etc.) is worth the cost to him.
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