Puppet Beginners: New list suggestion?
Mister IT Guru
Let me start by saying that I really admire how far puppet has come in the last year or so, with the launch of the Enterprise version, Puppet Forge and the other innovations from within Puppet Labs, and in particular the community participation. I love the mailing list, even though I've been lurking for over a year. It's this "inner shame" that compels me to raise this issue. I apologise if this is not the place to mention this, but hey, you've already got this far, so keep reading!
I get stage fright looking at some of the "code fragments" that people post to the list and then say "This is how far I've got and I'm trying to do X" where X is something pretty complex/unique doesn't quite seem like best practice or something that you'll find on a general use linux box. While I have no problem or even issue with this, the problem I find is that when I tell my admin geek friends about puppet, they go to google and switch off when they see what they view as "buckets of work" to just get started.
In a nutshell the perception and feedback I get and I feel this myself, is that the competency level of those whose regularly participate in this list, and in other internet forums may just be a bit too good. I feel as if puppet is lacking a sort of "nursery area". After all, everyone here is already a 'professional' or so we like to think!
Would it be a good idea to have a puppet beginners list, where people can post dumb questions, and maybe have some patient people posting links to blog entries, you tube videos (something which I noticed is lacking for puppet, again making it hard for me to evangelise about it, to even get clients to look at it), and get up to speed with you guys.
I would like a Puppet Nursery - Or failing that, can we get a puppet advance list? :)
I'm just saying - It worked for a different project, that's part of how ubuntu started to take over the world, it just became accessible to the casual user. Well, there are a bucket load of causal professional linux admins, who I fear may dismiss taking up puppet because they just can't get the time together to learn or keep up with those who puppet 24/7
It's just an observation, with a request thrown in - If I annoyed you, upset you, hurt your ego or made you feel bad in any way, I'm sorry. If you wish to take it up with me personally, no problem, have your people call my people, and we'll set up the meet - I'm a big guy so bring backup! (just kidding, love peace and all that!) - I'm hoping to stimulate some conversation and debate - how can puppet be one of the first thoughts in the mind of someone who wants to manage from a 2 to 2 thousands machines? - Reach a critical mass amount casual users? Worked for Facebook, Twitter - not so much for Nokia but you get the point.
SO! Techie Admin Genius People!! Let's Debate
Craig Dunn
> Would it be a good idea to have a puppet beginners list, where people can post dumb questions, and maybe have some patient people posting links
[snip]
Without wanting to pigeon hole or stereotype anyone, my experience from
the IRC channel in particular is that "dumb questions" that get asked
often show that the poster has not read through the online documentation
and has jumped straight into the community support channels instead.
No-one minds helping a struggling beginner, but the old "him who helps
himself" saying applies and I think for most people, if they genuinely
read the excellent language guide properly they would answer the
majority of beginner questions on their own. Some people take offense
when told on IRC to RTFM, or given an anchor link to the docs in
response to a question, but it simply is the best source of information
to their issues.
Providing a beginners mailing list IMO would only encourage people to
bypass the docs even more.
2p/w :)
Craig
--
Craig Dunn | http://www.craigdunn.org
Yahoo/Skype: craigrdunn | Twitter: @crayfishX
Chad Huneycutt
I do not agree with this sentiment. The docs are a great reference,
but they can certainly be overwhelming to a beginner. We all should
definitely make folks feel comfortable asking whatever questions they
have. If the fear is that the IRC channel and mailing list would get
bogged down with folks asking the same beginner questions over and
over, I offer a couple thoughts:
* we can aways go with the OP's suggestions and start new avenues
for such questions
* answering easy questions scales: that is, the easier a question
is, the more people that can answer it.
* The corollary to the previous point is that if you find answering
easy questions tedious, you do not have to; someone else can most
likely pick it up
* Opening the floodgates to the easy questions makes it very
obvious what needs to go in the FAQ :-)
I have been helped out so much by the fine folks on IRC that I love it
when I get a chance to help someone out with any problem. ;-)
--
Chad M. Huneycutt
Scott Merrill
> * Opening the floodgates to the easy questions makes it very
> obvious what needs to go in the FAQ :-)
As a slight aside, I think that a list of frequently asked questions
is a statement that the documentation is incomplete. If those
questions are so frequently asked, why isn't the documentation updated
to account for them in the first place?
See also Rich Bowen's "Write a better FM" book:
http://betterfm.org/
Cheers,
Scott
Michael Stahnke
of Puppet Labs too. Obviously we have a large community that we are
trying to appeal to, and we keep doing our best to create the
experience for the user-base.
Breaking the users list into two lists has its pros and cons.
Pros:
* Less code fragments in emails
* Advanced users not bogged down with new user questions
Cons:
* Fragmentation of the user-base
* Who will monitor/answer questions on a new user list?
* New people may not learn from more experienced people, because the
more experienced users may not subscribe to the new-users list
What I really think we need, is a way to provide knowledge to new
users in an efficient (and non fragmented) way. In the past we had a
horrible problem with documentation all over the place, wiki issues,
blogs from everybody and their brother, etc. Today, we have narrowed
those problems with the Learning Puppet series.
(http://docs.puppetlabs.com/learning/), and lots of other
documentation improvements on docs.puppetlabs.com.
The points about FAQ make complete sense. We'd like to address this
with proper documentation and some other online presence that will be
rolled out in the in the next quarter or so.
As an interrum, could we have a wiki page where we place questions
that get asked frequently and have no (or incomplete) associated
documentation?
http://projects.puppetlabs.com/projects/puppet/wiki/Frequent_Questions_Without_Answers
We also hope that IRC is helpful and remains helpful. I don't often
see RTFM comments coming out in #puppet. When I do, it's quite often
because their exact question was already answered, with citations, and
the user still didn't read it. Also in this thread somebody mentioned
helping those willing to help themselves. That's a fair statement,
but we really want to make this an accepting community to make
everybody better at their workloads with Puppet.
I hope I've attempted to answer some of the concerns. I am totally
willing to revisit this in 90 days or so if the community thinks we
should be handling this differently.
This is also by no means designed to close this discussion, so please
weigh in if you have opinions.
Michael Stahnke
Community Manager
On Fri, Mar 30, 2012 at 1:00 PM, Mister IT Guru <mister...@gmx.com> wrote:
> Good Evening Guys,
>
> Let me start by saying that I really admire how far puppet has come in the last year or so, with the launch of the Enterprise version, Puppet Forge and the other innovations from within Puppet Labs, and in particular the community participation. I love the mailing list, even though I've been lurking for over a year. It's this "inner shame" that compels me to raise this issue. I apologise if this is not the place to mention this, but hey, you've already got this far, so keep reading!
>
> I get stage fright looking at some of the "code fragments" that people post to the list and then say "This is how far I've got and I'm trying to do X" where X is something pretty complex/unique doesn't quite seem like best practice or something that you'll find on a general use linux box. While I have no problem or even issue with this, the problem I find is that when I tell my admin geek friends about puppet, they go to google and switch off when they see what they view as "buckets of work" to just get started.
We have a lot of Puppet users on Mac, BSD, and now Windows too, so
it's not just Linux.
>
> In a nutshell the perception and feedback I get and I feel this myself, is that the competency level of those whose regularly participate in this list, and in other internet forums may just be a bit too good. I feel as if puppet is lacking a sort of "nursery area". After all, everyone here is already a 'professional' or so we like to think!
>
> Would it be a good idea to have a puppet beginners list, where people can post dumb questions, and maybe have some patient people posting links to blog entries, you tube videos (something which I noticed is lacking for puppet, again making it hard for me to evangelise about it, to even get clients to look at it), and get up to speed with you guys.
>
> I would like a Puppet Nursery - Or failing that, can we get a puppet advance list? :)
>
> I'm just saying - It worked for a different project, that's part of how ubuntu started to take over the world, it just became accessible to the casual user. Well, there are a bucket load of causal professional linux admins, who I fear may dismiss taking up puppet because they just can't get the time together to learn or keep up with those who puppet 24/7
>
> It's just an observation, with a request thrown in - If I annoyed you, upset you, hurt your ego or made you feel bad in any way, I'm sorry. If you wish to take it up with me personally, no problem, have your people call my people, and we'll set up the meet - I'm a big guy so bring backup! (just kidding, love peace and all that!) - I'm hoping to stimulate some conversation and debate - how can puppet be one of the first thoughts in the mind of someone who wants to manage from a 2 to 2 thousands machines? - Reach a critical mass amount casual users? Worked for Facebook, Twitter - not so much for Nokia but you get the point.
>
> SO! Techie Admin Genius People!! Let's Debate
>
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Denmat
-1 for separate lists.
Den
Brian Gupta
Brian
Pablo Fernandez
Besides, when you have a question, how do you know if it's a difficult one? Sometimes you just hit a bug when you are newby, and sometimes you are missing a comma when you are expert.
Then, for people like me that are learning, it is very useful to see all those questions getting answer, you learn really a lot from other's questions.
I would really focus on the documentation. Maybe going through it, checking which paragraphs are more confusing or hide not-so-easy concepts or common misconceptions, and back up with better real-life examples, together with a FAQ, would probably remove 30% of the questions there are here.
Thanks for this list!
Pablo
Dan White
But I concur
-1 for separation
“Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us.”
Bill Waterson (Calvin & Hobbes)
Scott Merrill
>
> Pros:
> * Less code fragments in emails
> * Advanced users not bogged down with new user questions
>
> Cons:
> * Fragmentation of the user-base
> * Who will monitor/answer questions on a new user list?
> * New people may not learn from more experienced people, because the
> more experienced users may not subscribe to the new-users list
I'm -1 on separating the list. While there's a lot of discussion that
isn't relevant or interesting to me on the list, there's been a
non-trivial number of posts that have directly addressed issues I was
researching, or have helped me work through stumbling blocks. Some of
it is simple serendipity, but I'd have lost out on those things if I
was only subscribed to the -newbie list.
> We also hope that IRC is helpful and remains helpful. I don't often
> see RTFM comments coming out in #puppet. When I do, it's quite often
> because their exact question was already answered, with citations, and
> the user still didn't read it. Also in this thread somebody mentioned
> helping those willing to help themselves. That's a fair statement,
> but we really want to make this an accepting community to make
> everybody better at their workloads with Puppet.
For what it's worth, my experiences in the IRC channel have been
nothing but positive. Yes, my questions have been sometimes answered
with a simple link to existing documentation, but in most cases thus
far those links have been exactly what I needed. And it's worth
pointing out that the links were not provided with aggression or
derision, but a matter-of-fact "here's what you need."
Because there are multiple ways to use Puppet to resolve the problems
of configuration management, there seems to me to be a gulf between
what's documented and what people are using in production. Stated
another way, there's a gap between the "how" and the "why".
Cheers,
Scott
Nigel Kersten
Michael,Would you guys consider standing up a shapado instance? http://shapado.com/ (It's basically an FLOSS clone of stackoverflow, and is great for Q&A type stuff.) You could stand it up as ask.puppetlabs.com, and point new users there for questions. One of the big issues of puppet-users, is simple the volume of emails that are blasted into ones inbox. (Ignoring the diverse nature of the various discussions.) In addition, I have a sense that IRC and mailing lists are a bit old-school, and can be intimidating to new users.
Nigel Kersten
Product Manager, Puppet Labs
Daniel Pittman
> How about a 'serverfault' or 'stackoverflow' or the like site? One of the issues I find is that previous answers are lost in mail lists and hard to search for. IRC isn't much help for searching previous answers either.
I would absolutely support getting a new StackExchange site for
configuration management or something going. What it really needs is
someone to drive that forward - you can't just ask for one, it needs a
community.
--
Daniel Pittman
⎋ Puppet Labs Developer – http://puppetlabs.com
♲ Made with 100 percent post-consumer electrons
Brian Gupta
On Mon, Apr 2, 2012 at 22:53, Denmat <tu2b...@gmail.com> wrote:I would absolutely support getting a new StackExchange site for
> How about a 'serverfault' or 'stackoverflow' or the like site? One of the issues I find is that previous answers are lost in mail lists and hard to search for. IRC isn't much help for searching previous answers either.
configuration management or something going. What it really needs is
someone to drive that forward - you can't just ask for one, it needs a
community.
Brian
--
Daniel Pittman
⎋ Puppet Labs Developer – http://puppetlabs.com
♲ Made with 100 percent post-consumer electrons
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Nigel Kersten
On Tue, Apr 3, 2012 at 2:35 PM, Daniel Pittman <dan...@puppetlabs.com> wrote:On Mon, Apr 2, 2012 at 22:53, Denmat <tu2b...@gmail.com> wrote:I would absolutely support getting a new StackExchange site for
> How about a 'serverfault' or 'stackoverflow' or the like site? One of the issues I find is that previous answers are lost in mail lists and hard to search for. IRC isn't much help for searching previous answers either.
configuration management or something going. What it really needs is
someone to drive that forward - you can't just ask for one, it needs a
community.Daniel, mmm.. do we want a general purpose configuration management site or a puppet specific one? I'd be willing to help host and setup a puppet specific one, however, I'd have thought that would be something that puppetlabs would want to own/run. Feel free to discuss internally, and let me know which way you guys want to go.
Nigel Kersten
myeazel
Mister IT Guru
Good Evening Craig, and thanks for your reply! I appreciate your comments, but having reflected more on the point
"Providing a beginners mailing list IMO would only encourage people to bypass the docs even more"
While this may be true, the number of people searching, finding links via twitter, or having a casual intrest, is only going to go up. And the docs are written from the perspective of a technical manual. Docs are great and I applaud the effort that goes into it. But it's still just documentation. When your in school, college, university, <insert place of education here>, a massive text book is not dropped in your lap on day one, and then your sent off into the world.
Every FOSS project pretty much comes with documentation these days - yet we have support forums. The same for a lot of technical products that are sold in our shops, but everyone has support lines. If documentation worked, most of us will be out of work.
I think the community aspect is the key.
Mister IT Guru
Mister IT Guru
I am really looking forward to Integrated Platform Team Puppet are currently working on.
It goes without saying that the more content that gets gobbled up by google and indexed, the more lonely newbies that will be rescued by that search bar.
I do have a more confidence puppet. I hope I didn't panic any of Team Puppet, you guys are doing a great job, honestly, I've had my butt pulled out the fire a good few times because of my basic of the most basic puppet setup, so I'm a fan
Nigel Kersten
> Thanks for the replies from all the puppet lab guys, and the members of this list. It really brighten my day to read all the responses. I've learnt that maybe I'm not so stupid after all! Ah yes, and that a second list is a no no!! (It wasn't my best suggestion, but the community helped me see the light)
>
> I am really looking forward to Integrated Platform Team Puppet are currently working on.
>
> It goes without saying that the more content that gets gobbled up by google and indexed, the more lonely newbies that will be rescued by that search bar.
>
> I do have a more confidence puppet. I hope I didn't panic any of Team Puppet, you guys are doing a great job, honestly, I've had my butt pulled out the fire a good few times because of my basic of the most basic puppet setup, so I'm a fan
No apologies necessary at all, and certainly no panic :)
We also love hearing stories about Puppet pulling butts out of fires :)
>
> On 3 Apr 2012, at 21:13, Nigel Kersten wrote:
>
>>
>> We do want to be running this, primarily because we want to provide an integrated platform that includes a bit more than just the Q&A site itself. We'd like to be able to integrate profiles across the Forge, a Q&A site and even the bug tracker.
>>
>> It would be great if you were on a Q&A site, asking questions about developing modules, and to be able to see that the person answering your question has published several awesome Puppet modules that are really popular. Vice versa, it would be great to be able to look at a module and see that the author is a highly engaged member of the community.
>>
>> So all in all, we do want to provide this as a service by us, and it's difficult to get that level of integration with StackExchange.
>>
>> I would like to point out that we've got a growing ServerFault community under the 'puppet' tag, and there are some great people answering Puppet questions there.
>>
>> This is clearly an even more pressing need than we'd been thinking, so we're going to try and accelerate this.
>>
>>
>> --
>> Nigel Kersten
>> Product Manager, Puppet Labs
>
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