[Swan-dev] lecture: ignorance is like a delicate flower

[D. Hugh Redelmeier]

"Ignorance is like a delicate flower: touch it and the bloom is lost."
-- Oscar Wilde

When new eyes hit the project, of course they are going to make mistakes 
or be confused because they don't already know everything.

We can learn a lot from this.  We should consciously learn from their 
learning process.  For each one, we should ask how the problem happened 
and what we can change to prevent it in the future.

- re-examine our assumptions

- add to documentation

- change defaults

- add scripts and make targets

- add checking so when things go wrong they are caught early and diagnosed 
  clearly

- make paths through our system clear

This applies for new users and for new developers.

We don't get new ones often.  We should take maximum advantage of each 
ones learning curve.

I'm not claiming each newcomer is right, only that we should learn from 
it.  And, as Oscar said, we only get to do that once.  So these events are 
precious.

I think that we are usually very polite and helpful about these problems.  
That too is important.  We need to avoid (and examine) defensiveness.

Just to be very clear: this lecture is not pointed at anyone, it is 
pointed at everyone.