Stability -- openhab knows nothing but crapping itself

I agree with you, now. However, when you say like you did in previous message, you´re cutting all users in one. That why I said watch out for this.

Exactly, which is why we should focus on the masses.

No I don’t - that’s what your bias made of it. Note I didn’t (and don’t have to) change my statement.

This is just awesome. Love it! Thanks for making me laugh.

It seems like that should be posted in an FAQ or something a little easier to find. I never would have thought to look in the constitution for this, and as you point out, if I had I wouldn’t have found those addresses. I don’t think we want to encourage people to terminate their membership, but we shouldn’t make it hard to figure out how to do it.

Reasons contributors to open source projects have personally given me for contributing (non contribute to openHAB, for the record):

  • I needed a place to save the code, GitHub/Sourceforge/Bitbucket … were there and the private repos cost money
  • it builds up my resume
  • helps me make contacts
  • it solves a problem I need to solve, if I open source it I might get help to make it better
  • it’s fun
  • to build something of my own

In an interview they would probably say “to help the greater good” or something like that, but in casual conversation that never comes up.

Obviously, the above does not come from a scientifically valid sample of developers.

As we all know, it takes time and work to build any home automation system. If the users can not or will not spend the time then home automation and openHAB are not suitable systems for them. We can’t all go to every user’s house and build their system for them and debug their problems for them. If they can not or will not put in the time and effort necessary, they would be better served using a more commercial and less capable hub, or not getting into home automation. It is not for everyone.

Maybe sometime in the future the fragmented nature of home automation will unify on a more fixed set of standards and projects like openHAB or HA can spend their efforts building on the core instead of the hundreds of adapters required.

But this literally translates to “not all users can spend the time necessary to make openHAB work for them so you need to spend more time helping them.” I’m sorry, I don’t have that much time either so I choose to donate my time in a way that helps as many people as possible. Sometimes that means not being able to help everyone to the degree that they may want.

Next-Gen Rules | openHAB says “Experimental” and “Note: If you use it, this is at your own risk.”

Are you recommending next gen rules because there is a consensus of reliability?

Whith signing a membership application, one confirms to have read and understood the constitution. So there is no need for a FAQ, but it would not harm either :wink:

It’s hard to remember everything you read in the constitution three years ago. It would do no harm but I think it would do some good. :smiley:

It’s Davids crusade against anything that has to do with Xtend, whether that be the rules DSL or text based configuration files which use the Xtend libraries. Not all maintainers share his opinion though.

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I see nowhere openhab saying, it´s not for everyone…

I would assume, if a user shows some interest, openhab is for the user. Wether the user can or not is not really the question. Noone can do something before they have learned in some way, and most often they need some help to get started one way or another. Some learn from reading docs, others but the help from other users. And some do both. Whats important is, the user show interest.
Thats my opinion, as I simply refuse to accept, a user which has no interest in a smart home system would ever spend a second on a smart home system.

No, its the opposit…
Some users needs more help than others. You cant put all users in same category, and expect them to have the same background and well as the same experience, and therefore spending the same amount of time.
That literally means - you/we have to accept some users needs more help than others. We are free to not helping them, ofcouse. But if you´re choice is because you believe they havn´t spend the same amount of time others have spend, I´ll say you´re argument is wrong.
If you say that these users which needs more help, arn´t suitable for openhab or smart home systems, well… you´ll end up with just a small bunch of users, because you have limited the amount to suit your/openhabs/community needs. I´m not sure this is the real intention of openhab. I may be wrong though…
Remember, I´m not saying you or anyone else are forced to help anyone. I´m mainly trying to explain what can happen, if new users get the idea, that openhab is a closed members club, only for specific members, with the “right” (enough) knowledge.

I see nowhere where Nightcloud isn’t for everyone, but if you are not on a continuous glucose monitor (or know someone who is) it is clearly not for you.

That’s a first step but it is not sufficient. It takes more than interest to be successful in OH or any other home automation system. It also requires time, effort and learning.

On the first page of the OH docs it states:

When home automation just seems to work, it is always the result of hard work. Home automation is fascinating and requires a considerable investment of your time. Here are some key considerations especially for new users. To be successful, you will need to:

  • Start slowly and one step at a time
  • Be prepared to learn
  • Remain flexible in how you want to achieve your goal
  • Celebrate all the small successes

Remember, openHAB is just a computer program. The computer will only do what you tell it to do. openHAB can provide many default solutions that are easy to setup. On the flip side, the more you insist that everything should look and work exactly as you want it, the more work you will have to do. openHAB is fully customizable, but doing so will require substantial effort on your part.

We are clear and up front. It’s going to take work and time to get it to work. Some things will be relatively easy, others not so much. Those looking for a turn key solution with a big red easy button need not apply.

I treat every user individually, not comparatively. I do and will continue to reserve my time and effort more for those who are putting in the effort to learn how to stand on their own eventually over those who just want us to do it for them. I’ve written hundreds of lines of code for some users who are struggling but trying to learn. I’ve stopped helping or refused to help others who show no effort to learn themselves, refuse to answer direct questions about their config, or force us to pain painstakingly extract each and every major piece of information we need to understand what is being asked let alone help them with their problem.

I want a return on my investment and I get the most return by helping those who want to help themselves, and who respect the time and efforts of those who provide help on the forum. I consider it a huge success when I’ve helped a user through a dozen or so postings only to find that they’ve started answering other people’s questions too.

I’ll say it again. It’s not about the knowledge of the user, it’s about their attitude and their ability to demonstrate they are willing to put forth the effort to someday be successful on their own. I won’t do other people’s homework. I will spend dozens of hours teaching any user willing to learn. In point of fact, I spend less time on those users with a technical background because there’s less to teach. I can use short hand. A technically proficient user may get a one or two sentence answer where a not so technically proficient user might get a reply that took me half an hour to write.

In either case, teckie or noob, I will spend what ever time it takes to teach them to be self sufficient if they show a willingness to try.

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As a new user myself I think you make a very good point about starting out on OpenHab. OpenHab is huge and just finding where to start is a big job.

While the forum is a wealth of of information it can seem like contradictory advice due to all the different ways to do the same thing some of which may now be deprecated.

So many options and so much to read. I am sure I still do not understand enough to phrase a question never mind a good question and by the time I do, I may not need to ask the question anymore so it is a lovely catch 22.

As to the original post though, I can not say I recognise what is being described so I am not sure why the stick was thrown. @jimduchek I think your post looks like a boomerang so it will probably leave you in the same place with the same stick. Was that your intention or were you hoping to hit something with the stick?

quoted because really really
edit to add… I think David’s objective is to get OpenHAB to run well and be useable to more then a few gurus

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seriously… noobs say it better then I ever could. Maybe archive anything filter certain date?

Kim
Us non-programmers are here to chip in with the documentation you think the project is lacking man! Do you seriously think volunteer programmers want to do anything other then… program? You seem well spoken and very capable writer, maybe shut up with some of your verbose opinions and get on with helping man

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Agree, but a user wouldnt know how much time and work. Thats a very big difference between them and you.

I dont disagree on that.

I dont really care. If none does, wether or not its the developer or someone else, you can be damn sure, that things will be much worse, and this forum will be filled with a huge amount of questions.
You have to understand, docs are for helping others. Missing or lacking docs will reflect the ammount of questions insted.

First of all - I´ll never stop express my opinion. I dont demand anyone to listen, I can only hope. But that will not stop me. Sorry!
Second - I do whatever I can do to help where ever I can. Unlike others, I dont really care about the background of those who askfor help. (not unless it´s very obvious that they are not interested in doing any effort themselves. But this I havn´t actually seen. Even connecting to the community to ask for help, is an effort and show of interest in itself).
Thats MY opinion.

the pot calling the kettle black…

Kim has been very helpful to others on the forum. He is a valued contributor to openHAB, as are you. I consider you both among those successes I mentioned in my previous post.

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Hm. Seems like you guys drifted away from the OPs topic :smiley:

It’s about stability. And tldr; is:

  • The core is mostly stable in terms of memory usage.
  • Addons may blow up the installation.
  • Some features like specific DSL rule constructs might leak memory and therefore cause instability.

Cheers, David

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Is there anywhere that gives a bit more detail on what patterns can cause issues or do you have any other recommendations on how to avoid falling foul of the issues?