msn-pecan 0.1 good enough?

[Felipe Contreras]

On Wed, Mar 24, 2010 at 4:41 AM, Jordan <jas8522 at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, Mar 23, 2010 at 10:22 PM, Felipe Contreras
> <felipe.contreras at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Suppose you have a user called Steve who uses the MSN -> Yahoo
>> feature. Will he be angry if he can no longer contact his Yahoo
>> friends? Perhaps, but will he be willing to give up that feature in
>> exchange of fast file transfers? If Steve is anything like the typical
>> MSN user then yes, he will.
>
> You seem think that's the case, but for our users, it's very likely
> not.

"very likely" = you don't know

> I also think you are mistaking the typical MSN user for the users
> that make use of your bug tracker.

That's a wrong assumption. 95% of my MSN contacts don't even know what
is msn-pecan, in fact, most of them use the official client. Besides,
I knew that fast file transfers was the most requested feature even
before I started msn-pecan because, well, I wrote the original one, I
read forums and polls, and I used to hang around the #pidgin channel
(and #gaim) at that time.

The fact of the matter is that nobody cares about Yahoo contacts, it's
a feature nobody requested, and nobody will miss. It has nothing to do
with msn-pecan, it's just the reality.

If you have a different perception I would be glad to look at _any_
evidence, so far the only evidence provided has been by me, and it
supports the contrary claim.

> In my experience the typical MSN
> user rarely fills out bug reports accurately and has no concept of
> programming or how to get debug logs, etc. This is also likely one
> explanation for why there are few developers working on MSN protocol
> support. There is no trade-off to be made here, as Eric has said, if
> there are any regressions then we cannot use Pecan.

Ok, so you don't care about your users.

You are willing to sacrifice the vast majority of users for a
hypothetical number of users, most likely small, probably zero.

That is an exercise of masturbation; it's not about what you will
achieve; it's about how good the developers will feel when they
fulfill empty slogans such as "no regressions".

Geez, even in Nokia, where we know how to make consumer products,
regressions are negotiable.

>> Let's remember that the vast majority of MSN users use it because
>> their friends use it. Very few would have both MSN and Yahoo contacts
>
> I would agree if I hadn't worked on confusing tickets about it often
> enough in the past. And I say past because I haven't worked on any
> tickets recently, not because they aren't being filed.
>
>> Moreover, it's *not* big deal to loose that functionality because you
>> can always login with a Yahoo account.
>
> If you rework your idea of the typical MSN user to include the Adium
> MSN userbase (as described above), then you will conclude that this is
> not so easy anymore. One such user likely has no Yahoo account and
> doesn't want to create one. If we didn't already have support for it,
> then it wouldn't be a problem recommending people do this (we did when
> there was no Yahoo<->MSN support in the Pidgin prpl), but it's too
> late for that.

The point is that it's not the end of the world.

*If* somebody is actually using the Yahoo support, then most likely
it's using it only for a small percentage of its contacts. Therefore,
it would be relatively easy to create an account and add the relevant
users.

All the evidence points out that the users bitten by this annoyance
will be small, and even those will be happier to have a shinier
feature that compensates their pain.

>>> Despite it not being requested through Google Code, do you (Felipe)
>>> think it is something that could be added anytime soon? If we didn't
>>> have that regression I see nothing more barring the way to using
>>> msn-pecan as the primary MSN prpl in Adium - it seems to be the only
>>> remaining issue.
>>
>> Support for Yahoo contacts will require quite a bit of changes. So
>> personally I would not work on that feature unless end-users request
>> it as I do not like to work on useless features.
>>
>> If you can provide some numbers regarding the amount of users that
>> want Yahoo support, preferably compared to fast file transfers, that
>> would certainly be a good incentive.
>
> There is no need to compare it with direct file transfers as we won't
> be using Pecan due to the regression. That said, perhaps Robby and I
> (and others?) will take a look through the Adium Trac to get an idea
> of how many people are making use of (and voicing their opinions
> regarding) the Yahoo contact feature and enter the results in a report
> on your Google Code tracker in order to gather support for it.

Yeah, that would be nice: evidence. Perhaps you will be surprised of
your own findings: zero bugs.

According to Peter Hosey it's not even working right now therefore it
wouldn't be a regression.

> Since user support is your motivating factor, we will do our best to
> represent the Adium userbase of yahoo contact users and perhaps the
> feature will show enough support to be added to Pecan. If and when
> that time comes, we can compare and evaluate the Pidgin MSN prpl
> against Pecan once again for potential inclusion within Adium.

In the future (0.2) it will be easier to add support for Yahoo, but as
I said. I don't think there's any need to wait.

Cheers.

-- 
Felipe Contreras