Your entitled behavior has no place in this project or its issue tracker
github.com
github.com
Alacritty is a really popular project. It probably gets a ton of issues being opened. As a maintainer, every single issue is time you’ve got to take out from stuff you’d rather be doing. From that perspective, someone popping in to complain about the default colorscheme because it doesn’t look like their previous editor, when they can easily change the colors to be however they like, is going to be super frustrating. This is doubly true if you don’t usually view issues as a spot for general discussion.
I can see that the person who posted the issue was trying to help, but honestly it’s just not very helpful. A lot of people view airing their own personal dissatisfaction with a tool as being helpful, and generally that’s not true.
Edit: also just noting that alacritty has an IRC channel linked on their README for discussion of things that aren’t bugs.
What if there's a product requirement to paint the shed red?
That's literally what happened here, something didn't look green when the user expected it to be green, and the user thought it was a bug.
Then you argue over the paint brand, how much to buy at what price, rollers vs sprayers vs brushes, and so on.
(src: merchandise printing)
(Also, at one place I worked we bought some used server racks that we were told had been painted in a very specific company standard server rack beige by the previous owner megacorp.)
no wonder linux has shitty UX
2. The default colors are all wrong (my own unwavering opinion). If the maintainer wants his own defaults colors, he can apply his own configuration for this and offer such scheme to those who prefer the same choice.
3. We all can crack at some point in time. So we need to be big and allow the space for both such discussions and the occasional blowout, but at the same time not be abused by it. Arrogance only reflect really badly on yourself in the end, but it can happen to the best of us.
4. Maybe someone is color-blind? Who knows? We must expect variety.
2. Agreed. Expressing it in HSL colorspace makes it pretty clear how close to yellow, and far from the large space of expressible greens. In RGB, yellow is the region near R% = G%, so #b9ca49 is, at a glace, still close to yellow. https://www.w3schools.com/colors/colors_picker.asp?colorhex=....
(4) Accessibility was mentioned and deuteranopia, red-green color blindness, is most common. Perhaps this shade is distinguishable. Accessible defaults are worthwhile.
Quote from the person who filed the issue:
> I don't understand why you think my behavior is entitled. I genuinely thought it was a bug because the colors didn't look right to me, in the sense that some of them don't match what is expected from their name. I still think that because the colors are distant from their expected neutral form this makes it a poor default theme.
https://github.com/alacritty/alacritty/issues/1561#issuecomm...
The original bug report was perfectly respectful, and this is a perfectly respectful reply to the revelation that it's "not-a-bug".
The maintainer is being aggressive and looking for a fight, venting their frustrations on some person who is trying to be helpful. All they had to say was, "Sorry, this is the default color scheme, we prefer it this way and I'm not concerned that the color isn't exactly green to everyone's eyes. Thanks for your interest!" and close the issue.
Describing someone else’s work and choices as ‘poor’, especially when you didn’t pay them anything for it, is disrespectful.
Regardless, people thinking whatever thing happened to aggravate them about a project is “a bug” is a huge and constant drain on open source maintainers. In this case, as other people have pointed out, there were other threads already where default colors were discussed that this person could have found, and even passing familiarity with terminal color schemes would show that much of the time, what the escape codes define as “green” or whatever is a very different color. That’s why the color schemes exist, so that you can redefine what “green” is for your own tastes. I can’t imagine opening an issue suggesting that a project change their default color scheme not because it’s inaccessible or illegible, but just because I don’t like it or it doesn’t look like some other project.
README.md said "If you run into a problem with Alacritty, please file an issue." at the time.[1]
I don't see where anyone pointed out what you said multiple people pointed out. The closest I see is 1 person said there are 88 color related issues now. Feel free to point out a specific issue you think the reporter should have found.
It isn't clear they expected the colors to match exactly. The default green looked yellow to them. And changing the default colors would be a valid feature request if nothing else.
[1] https://github.com/alacritty/alacritty/blob/9bc888fbe581efeb...
Edit: personally I don’t have the time to go digging through old repo issues of a project I don’t even work on for the sake of arguing about one entitled user. I do maintain several projects, and I definitely feel that these kind of aggressive non-issues are the worst.
It wasn't just a little yellower than they preferred. It looked yellow to them.
As a maintainer I definitely feel your attitude is worse than theirs.
As for my attitude, luckily as a maintainer it’s my right to have whatever attitude I choose about the software I write, and people are free to use or not use the software as they see fit. It’s also my right to make my own decisions about when I feel like people are wasting my time unnecessarily, and particularly about when they’re being jerks about it.
Personally I find it very hard to maintain enthusiasm for the actual work of building the software when having to deal with entitlement in the issue tracker.
WHAT IS YOUR DISPLAY?
display = XOpenDisplay("unix:0");
WHAT IS YOUR COLORMAP?
cmap = DefaultColormap(display, DefaultScreen(display));
AND WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE COLOR?
favorite_color = 0; /* Black. */
/* Whoops! No, I mean: */
favorite_color = BlackPixel(display, DefaultScreen(display));
/* AAAYYYYEEEEE!! */
(client dumps core & falls into the chasm)
The conversation should have been:
A: “Hey this green is legit yellow, this is very confusing for new users. I’m not sure if this is a bug because it’s so abnormal I’ve never seen this anywhere ever before”
B: “Ya we did that on purpose, because we hate green, please use the IRC channel in the future to determine if something is a bug or something we did because of our dislike for the color green first in the future. Our github time is more important than our IRC time. Anyone who doesn’t know all our rules will be attacked and banned from the community. And here are some other themes for people that like green to look green instead of yellow, please enjoy.”
A: “oh cool, thanks”