[cdt-dev] our newsgroup

[John Camelon <jcamelon@xxxxxxxxxx>]

"I'll just mention one thing that
strikes me as extraordinary, even unique : the excellent technical support
provided in the Eclipse newsgroups by the actual people who wrote the code.
I know of no commercial product whose support is nearly as good, and no
other open source project whose developers are so committed to answering
any and all questions thrown at them."

        -
Bob Foster, from the foreword of "Eclipse in Action" (Gallardo,
Burnette & McGovern)            
    (Hi Ed if you're reading this!) 

I think it would be fair to say that
we as a group have not been living up to this claim (although one could
perhaps debate its validity).  

Mikhail & I are the two regulars
on there, and we do our best to handle things within our scopes, but still
at least a third of all posts do not get an official response from the
CDT project.  A lot of the questions that come up relate to build,
tool and platform integration work that I am not that experienced with
because I have not, up to this point, used the CDT to build a real project.
  

If we are serious about getting more
individual developers (like my man Victor) contributing to the project,
then we must come across as being proactive, organized and responsive to
the community.   
My proposal is as follows : 

A)  At least until we release CDT
2.0, each developer and tester should take 10-15 minutes a day to peruse
the newsgroup and answer anything that they can.  I understand that
everyone is busy, but so am I and I still take the time because it is important.
 The alternative is that I take an hour every day and bombard you
all with forwarded posts via email.  

B) We need to maintain a FAQ and post
it to the newsgroup once a month.  

Questions, comments and hate mail are
always welcome, 

JohnC