At 03:31 PM 19-06-00 -0400, Jim wrote:

>One piece of culture lost in the general Borland/Inprise emphasis
>on secrecy is that major changes used to be discussed generally, openly
>and critically within the entire engineering group. On a project
>as large and complex as an RDMS different folks have different
>perspectives and sensitivities and may notice problems overlooked
>by others. This is good. Defending a proposal in front of a
>critical audience leads (sometimes indirectly) to better design and
>to better understanding of the design.

IMO, the landscape view is that it is happening on these lists, in an
entirely magical way, despite the lumps and bumps. We are breaking
completely new ground in this enterprise and we have a unique combination
of Good Forces - some of the smartest folk in the industry, the best
database product in its niche, a bunch of folk in the supporting company
structure who have already shown they will endure fire and brimstone to
make this adventure a success, the best community support in the world (bar
none!). This is where ** I ** want to be, with or without the pain.

>I see my role as mentor to budding architects and as a link to the
>past, explain both how things work and why they were designed the
>way they were, and sometimes to point out why what was a great idea
>in 1981 is a lousy idea in 2000. It is not my role to censor bad
>ideas. I would much rather take a new idea, roll it around a bit,
>and steer it toward something useful.

The medium of email is good for this process, in that it provides a written
record from which new perspectives bounce in a few keystrokes. It avoids
the horrors of noisy interruptions that so often spoil development meetings
in the traditional environment. It has the potential to let innovative
ideas be "heard", which is often absent in that environment.

It's also valuable to recognise also that email discourse denies us the
benefit of body-language clues which can temper a sharp or blocking
response. If it wasn't a widespread problem, emoticons wouldn't have been
invented. :=))

It works.

I've blown a lot of air down these tubes in the past few days. One thing
I've forgotten to do is to articulate my appreciation for the contributions
made by the two Jims, Jason, Dalton, Doug and many others as we beat
through the shrubbery of these highly technical issues. The record will
show that we made history here.

Recommended reading, if you haven't already done it - read Alvin
Toffler. If you only have time for one, read "The Third Wave". If you can
spare the time for two reads, read "Powershift" first. We are at the
spearhead of an extraordinary new social revolution.

Best regards,
Helen
http://www.interbase2000.org
___________________________________________________
"Ask not what your free, open-source database can do for you,
but what you can do for your free, open-source database."
(J.F.K.)