Dave Gower wrote:

"Martin 53N 1W" <ml_news@ddnospamddml1dd.co.uk.dd> wrote in message

"message of encouragement to Seti@home development team"
http://setiweb.ssl.berkeley.edu/forum_thread.php?id=1988

Being one of the complainers, I too wish the development team well. But
there is a warped logic in this thread too. Complaining about the
complainers misses the point, and it's got nothing to do "hard-working
people on the development team". It's got to do with attitudes and
priorities at the top that allowed the whole thing to seize up. That should
never happen just because an improved version is being pushed through
prematurely.

Yes, fair enough.

However, the prematureness may just have been honest inexperience by those putting such a large system together. Handling data for a few hundred thousand users in one gulp is no small task and a huge jump up from the test users numbers. Literally pushing the frontiers of computing.

The release may also have been a calculated gamble to quickly shake down the system and speed development and get results sooner.

I think we've likely got a working robust system sooner due to the recent 'hiccups' than if 'testing' had dragged on further.

The 'rolling server blackouts' is a good measure by Berkeley to best use the hardware they've got to deliver WUs until they can get their upgrades installed.

A good gamble that is now giving good results even if the 'service' is not 100% there yet.

Any time technology interacts with people, there's a risk of a culture gap
between the techies and those who live in the world. Sometimes exceptional
people can bridge that gap, and then you have Apple Computer. Often they
can't and then you have SETI @ home dead beside the road.

For a long term BIG scientific effort, a few days downtime should be no big issue. If this was some high priority real-time effort, then concerns would be very different.

Perhaps the science and development message needs advertising better. Or perhaps other soothing notes are needed to lower the passions driving some users to try to make every CPU cycle count.

THAT's why complaining about the complainers misses the point, guys and
girls.

I do agree however that the twerp who emailed the entire Berkeley Astronomy
Department was out of line.

Fair informed complaints deserve a fair response. This is why Open Source and Scientific Peer Review work so well. Shame some folk have very sensitive or weak egos.


Meanwhile, certain blinkered selfish rants I've seen on here deserved all the fun being nuked that they got (:-))


Regards,
Martin