Commit messages revisited
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Hi Folks -
We had a little board discussion about the commit messages posted to Squeak-dev and I wanted to move the discussion over here. I think there are some excellent arguments to be made for commit messages in general, both from the point of awareness, but perhaps more importantly because (quoting from a message that said it better than I could): "The real value comes when, for example, someone like Dan Ingalls who is reading squeak-dev but not tracking active development notices a change in code which he has an interest in or knowledge of and catches an issue that might otherwise go unnoticed for a significant period of time. Better yet, when someone not otherwise engaged sees a submission that really grabs her imagination and inspires her to contribute or develop some piece of software using the ideas. Related these bits of code have educational value. I don't believe any digest view is going to have the same value for the simple reason that most people are not going to look past the subject of the message or maybe the first few lines, that is the one and only chance to grab them." I think this is a great summary for why these messages are useful. On the other hand, when something happens like in the last two days where we have literally some fifty commit messages clogging the inbox, the viewers at gmane or nabble (which can't be filtered easily), the spam factor is considerable. What I have been proposing is to use the mailman digest features to have the commit messages go to a separate commit list and cross-post a daily digest from the commit list to Squeak-dev. This should help us to keep awareness up and I think dealing with a single commit summary per day would keep the volume low enough for people to keep up with. I'm curious what people think about this idea or if you have other proposals for balancing these tradeoffs. We'll need some help with the mailman setup as well since at the very least we'll need to limit the amount for the diffs to something reasonable or else these message will go over the limit for Squeak-dev. We have also discussed a more elaborate approach that creates repository hierarchies to search for ancestor versions but whichever way we'd do it we'll have to make sure that the initial report is within reason and need some help here. Cheers, - Andreas |
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On Tue, Oct 20, 2009 at 08:35:25PM -0700, Andreas Raab wrote:
> > What I have been proposing is to use the mailman digest features to have > the commit messages go to a separate commit list and cross-post a daily > digest from the commit list to Squeak-dev. This should help us to keep > awareness up and I think dealing with a single commit summary per day > would keep the volume low enough for people to keep up with. > > I'm curious what people think about this idea or if you have other > proposals for balancing these tradeoffs. Perhaps the response will vary according to what mail reader is being used. For myself, I use a simple text mail client (mutt), and it is very convenient to scan through the commit messages quickly, deleting them as I get the gist of what was done. This is easy and and efficient, so I am satified with the current notifications. Dave |
Re: Commit messages revisited
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2009/10/21 David T. Lewis <[hidden email]>:
> On Tue, Oct 20, 2009 at 08:35:25PM -0700, Andreas Raab wrote: >> >> What I have been proposing is to use the mailman digest features to have >> the commit messages go to a separate commit list and cross-post a daily >> digest from the commit list to Squeak-dev. This should help us to keep >> awareness up and I think dealing with a single commit summary per day >> would keep the volume low enough for people to keep up with. >> >> I'm curious what people think about this idea or if you have other >> proposals for balancing these tradeoffs. > > Perhaps the response will vary according to what mail reader is being > used. For myself, I use a simple text mail client (mutt), and it is very > convenient to scan through the commit messages quickly, deleting them > as I get the gist of what was done. This is easy and and efficient, so > I am satified with the current notifications. > > Dave > > I personnally do not much like digests, precisely because containing too much information at a time. The best feature of digests is that they are throwable in one click, I'm afraid that's the olny one. I'm not sure if we must legiferate at each specific event (a French sport !) The question is whether such burst of activity will occur frequently or not. Nicolas |
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In reply to this post by David T. Lewis
On Wed, Oct 21, 2009 at 5:57 AM, David T. Lewis <[hidden email]> wrote:
> and it is very > convenient to scan through the commit messages quickly, deleting them > as I get the gist of what was done. This is easy and and efficient, so > I am satified with the current notifications. +1 |
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I do not like the current system. It is just too much mail. I bet it
is driving people out of squek-dev. A digest of commits would be better. -Ralph |
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I think we sould rename squeak beginner to smalltalk-general and let squeak-dev as it is.
2009/10/21 Ralph Johnson <[hidden email]> I do not like the current system. It is just too much mail. I bet it -- Cédrick |
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In reply to this post by Andreas.Raab
just my 2c: for me the current situation is fine:
i can thumb through the commit emails. i can sort by sender and dispose of them. or create a message filter to do that. and its good to have them searchable should i need ever to do that. i am used to receive lots of email and thumb through them; whether its one email or 50 a day is not a problem for me. thanks, wolfgang |
Re: Commit messages revisited
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> just my 2c: for me the current situation is fine:
same here. Stef |
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In reply to this post by Ralph Johnson
On Wed, 2009-10-21 at 06:21 -0500, Ralph Johnson wrote:
> I do not like the current system. It is just too much mail. I bet it > is driving people out of squek-dev. A digest of commits would be > better. > > -Ralph At the current moment there are 1627 subscribers to this list which is I believe the highest number yet, so this one data point doesn't suggest anyone is leaving yet. If you really truly never want to see commit messages why not add a simple rule to delete them? If the addition of some specific header would help let us know. As I see it the number of people who are adamant that the commit messages are bad and don't want to see them are a small minority and as such it is better for all for them to choose individually to delete them than for us to choose for everyone to move them to a different list to which they may never subscribe. Ken |
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In reply to this post by Andreas.Raab
At 8:35 PM -0700 10/20/09, Andreas Raab apparently wrote:
>Hi Folks - > >We had a little board discussion about the commit messages posted to Squeak-dev and I wanted to move the discussion over here. I think there are some excellent arguments to be made for commit messages in general, both from the point of awareness, but perhaps more importantly because (quoting from a message that said it better than I could): > > "The real value comes when, for example, someone like Dan Ingalls who is reading squeak-dev but not tracking active development notices a change in code which he has an interest in or knowledge of and catches an issue that might otherwise go unnoticed for a significant period of time. Better yet, when someone not otherwise engaged sees a submission that really grabs her imagination and inspires her to contribute or develop some piece of software using the ideas. Related these bits of code have educational value. I don't believe any digest view is going to have the same value for the simple reason that most people are not going to look past the subject of the message or maybe the first few lines, that is the one and only chance to grab them." > >I think this is a great summary for why these messages are useful. On the other hand, when something happens like in the last two days where we have literally some fifty commit messages clogging the inbox, the viewers at gmane or nabble (which can't be filtered easily), the spam factor is considerable. I am not particularly bothered by the commit messages in the inbox at the moment since I can easily filter them on receipt with my email client if need be at some point. Sending the commit messages to another list would however have the benefit of enabling their receipt in a digest format which would be a bit of an improvement in my inbox. There is already a list set up by Keith way back in Feb., 2005 for this exact purpose, ready to go. <http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/mailman/options/packages/> Ken G. Brown >What I have been proposing is to use the mailman digest features to have the commit messages go to a separate commit list and cross-post a daily digest from the commit list to Squeak-dev. This should help us to keep awareness up and I think dealing with a single commit summary per day would keep the volume low enough for people to keep up with. > >I'm curious what people think about this idea or if you have other proposals for balancing these tradeoffs. We'll need some help with the mailman setup as well since at the very least we'll need to limit the amount for the diffs to something reasonable or else these message will go over the limit for Squeak-dev. We have also discussed a more elaborate approach that creates repository hierarchies to search for ancestor versions but whichever way we'd do it we'll have to make sure that the initial report is within reason and need some help here. > >Cheers, > - Andreas |
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In reply to this post by Ken Causey-3
Am 21.10.2009 um 16:35 schrieb Ken Causey:
> On Wed, 2009-10-21 at 06:21 -0500, Ralph Johnson wrote: >> I do not like the current system. It is just too much mail. I bet >> it >> is driving people out of squek-dev. A digest of commits would be >> better. >> >> -Ralph > > At the current moment there are 1627 subscribers to this list which > is I > believe the highest number yet, so this one data point doesn't suggest > anyone is leaving yet. > > If you really truly never want to see commit messages why not add a > simple rule to delete them? If the addition of some specific header > would help let us know. > > As I see it the number of people who are adamant that the commit > messages are bad and don't want to see them are a small minority and > as > such it is better for all for them to choose individually to delete > them > than for us to choose for everyone to move them to a different list to > which they may never subscribe. > > Ken |
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In reply to this post by Nicolas Cellier
One reason why I really like individual commit messages is that they
can serve as starting points for disscussing one particular change. That has already happened quite a few times. I think we will lose that with digests. Cheers, Bernhard Am 21.10.2009 um 08:38 schrieb Nicolas Cellier: > 2009/10/21 David T. Lewis <[hidden email]>: >> On Tue, Oct 20, 2009 at 08:35:25PM -0700, Andreas Raab wrote: >>> >>> What I have been proposing is to use the mailman digest features >>> to have >>> the commit messages go to a separate commit list and cross-post a >>> daily >>> digest from the commit list to Squeak-dev. This should help us to >>> keep >>> awareness up and I think dealing with a single commit summary per >>> day >>> would keep the volume low enough for people to keep up with. >>> >>> I'm curious what people think about this idea or if you have other >>> proposals for balancing these tradeoffs. >> >> Perhaps the response will vary according to what mail reader is being >> used. For myself, I use a simple text mail client (mutt), and it is >> very >> convenient to scan through the commit messages quickly, deleting them >> as I get the gist of what was done. This is easy and and efficient, >> so >> I am satified with the current notifications. >> >> Dave >> >> > > I personnally do not much like digests, precisely because containing > too much information at a time. > The best feature of digests is that they are throwable in one click, > I'm afraid that's the olny one. > I'm not sure if we must legiferate at each specific event (a French > sport !) > The question is whether such burst of activity will occur frequently > or not. > > Nicolas > |
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In reply to this post by Stéphane Rollandin
2009/10/21 Stéphane Rollandin <[hidden email]>:
>> just my 2c: for me the current situation is fine: > > same here. > +1 For others: learn how to use your email client :) > Stef > > > > -- Best regards, Igor Stasenko AKA sig. |
Re: Commit messages revisited
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In reply to this post by Andreas.Raab
Hi,
One non-zero-sum approach would be to leverage an email aware service such as Posterous. By investing a few minutes of time the board could obtain an email address at posterous.com to send commits to. Then people could use any RSS reader they wanted and use or create more powerful Squeak-based tools for search/repurposing. With a few more minutes Posterous can be configured to autopost to Twitter, Tumblr or many other places. I've already done this(http://squeakcommits.posterous.com/) for my own benefit and also so folks can see but it would be better IMO for it to be an official feed. It's worth considering me thinks, that according to the Squeak Wiki The primary mailing list for anyone interested in programming in Squeak. It is a lively and busy forum for discussion on all things related to Squeak! so getting a screen full of commit messages is probably not a good first experience for the seasoned developer coming from another language looking for how to *use* Squeak rather than maintain/develop it. Maybe there needs to be another list for folk not working on the trunk but regardless of which way things go choices are available. Laurence On Tue, Oct 20, 2009 at 11:35 PM, Andreas Raab <[hidden email]> wrote: Hi Folks - |
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Please, set up another list for commit messages, as Laurence said the
mailing list is for programming in/using Squeak, not for developing the Squeak itself. There are many options before expecting/requiring 1000+ subscribers to create filtering rules in their e-mail clients. Cheers, Hernán 2009/10/22 Laurence Rozier <[hidden email]>: > Hi, > > One non-zero-sum approach would be to leverage an email aware service such > as Posterous. By investing a few minutes of time the board could obtain an > email address at posterous.com to send commits to. Then people could use any > RSS reader they wanted and use or create more powerful Squeak-based tools > for search/repurposing. With a few more minutes Posterous can be configured > to autopost to Twitter, Tumblr or many other places. I've already done > this(http://squeakcommits.posterous.com/) for my own benefit and also so > folks can see but it would be better IMO for it to be an official feed. > > It's worth considering me thinks, that according to the Squeak Wiki > >> The primary mailing list for anyone interested in programming in Squeak. >> It is a lively and busy forum for discussion on all things related to >> Squeak! > > so getting a screen full of commit messages is probably not a good first > experience for the seasoned developer coming from another language looking > for how to *use* Squeak rather than maintain/develop it. Maybe there needs > to be another list for folk not working on the trunk but regardless of which > way things go choices are available. > > Laurence > > On Tue, Oct 20, 2009 at 11:35 PM, Andreas Raab <[hidden email]> wrote: >> >> Hi Folks - >> >> We had a little board discussion about the commit messages posted to >> Squeak-dev and I wanted to move the discussion over here. I think there are >> some excellent arguments to be made for commit messages in general, both >> from the point of awareness, but perhaps more importantly because (quoting >> from a message that said it better than I could): >> >> "The real value comes when, for example, someone like Dan Ingalls >> who is reading squeak-dev but not tracking active development notices a >> change in code which he has an interest in or knowledge of and catches an >> issue that might otherwise go unnoticed for a significant period of time. >> Better yet, when someone not otherwise engaged sees a submission that >> really grabs her imagination and inspires her to contribute or develop some >> piece of software using the ideas. Related these bits of code have >> educational value. I don't believe any digest view is going to have the >> same value for the simple reason that most people are not going to look past >> the subject of the message or maybe the first few lines, that is the one and >> only chance to grab them." >> >> I think this is a great summary for why these messages are useful. On the >> other hand, when something happens like in the last two days where we have >> literally some fifty commit messages clogging the inbox, the viewers at >> gmane or nabble (which can't be filtered easily), the spam factor is >> considerable. >> >> What I have been proposing is to use the mailman digest features to have >> the commit messages go to a separate commit list and cross-post a daily >> digest from the commit list to Squeak-dev. This should help us to keep >> awareness up and I think dealing with a single commit summary per day would >> keep the volume low enough for people to keep up with. >> >> I'm curious what people think about this idea or if you have other >> proposals for balancing these tradeoffs. We'll need some help with the >> mailman setup as well since at the very least we'll need to limit the amount >> for the diffs to something reasonable or else these message will go over the >> limit for Squeak-dev. We have also discussed a more elaborate approach that >> creates repository hierarchies to search for ancestor versions but whichever >> way we'd do it we'll have to make sure that the initial report is within >> reason and need some help here. >> >> Cheers, >> - Andreas >> > > > > > |
Re: Commit messages revisited
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Two things:
- I like to see what (for example,) Nicholas has just done in the trunk *in the context of the broader dialog.* Context is everything. - I got a very warm fuzzy feeling knowing that there were lots of eyes on what I was doing when I put changes to Compiler into the inbox when I was removing the old colorPrint feature. One of the things that makes this community epic is the level of peer review and feedback that I get; if I've done something stupid, I'm learning about it from you almost right away. In a digest, I think I'd lose some of that. On Thu, Oct 22, 2009 at 10:07 AM, Hernán Morales Durand <[hidden email]> wrote: > Please, set up another list for commit messages, as Laurence said the > mailing list is for programming in/using Squeak, not for developing > the Squeak itself. There are many options before expecting/requiring > 1000+ subscribers to create filtering rules in their e-mail clients. > Cheers, > > Hernán > > 2009/10/22 Laurence Rozier <[hidden email]>: >> Hi, >> >> One non-zero-sum approach would be to leverage an email aware service such >> as Posterous. By investing a few minutes of time the board could obtain an >> email address at posterous.com to send commits to. Then people could use any >> RSS reader they wanted and use or create more powerful Squeak-based tools >> for search/repurposing. With a few more minutes Posterous can be configured >> to autopost to Twitter, Tumblr or many other places. I've already done >> this(http://squeakcommits.posterous.com/) for my own benefit and also so >> folks can see but it would be better IMO for it to be an official feed. >> >> It's worth considering me thinks, that according to the Squeak Wiki >> >>> The primary mailing list for anyone interested in programming in Squeak. >>> It is a lively and busy forum for discussion on all things related to >>> Squeak! >> >> so getting a screen full of commit messages is probably not a good first >> experience for the seasoned developer coming from another language looking >> for how to *use* Squeak rather than maintain/develop it. Maybe there needs >> to be another list for folk not working on the trunk but regardless of which >> way things go choices are available. >> >> Laurence >> >> On Tue, Oct 20, 2009 at 11:35 PM, Andreas Raab <[hidden email]> wrote: >>> >>> Hi Folks - >>> >>> We had a little board discussion about the commit messages posted to >>> Squeak-dev and I wanted to move the discussion over here. I think there are >>> some excellent arguments to be made for commit messages in general, both >>> from the point of awareness, but perhaps more importantly because (quoting >>> from a message that said it better than I could): >>> >>> "The real value comes when, for example, someone like Dan Ingalls >>> who is reading squeak-dev but not tracking active development notices a >>> change in code which he has an interest in or knowledge of and catches an >>> issue that might otherwise go unnoticed for a significant period of time. >>> Better yet, when someone not otherwise engaged sees a submission that >>> really grabs her imagination and inspires her to contribute or develop some >>> piece of software using the ideas. Related these bits of code have >>> educational value. I don't believe any digest view is going to have the >>> same value for the simple reason that most people are not going to look past >>> the subject of the message or maybe the first few lines, that is the one and >>> only chance to grab them." >>> >>> I think this is a great summary for why these messages are useful. On the >>> other hand, when something happens like in the last two days where we have >>> literally some fifty commit messages clogging the inbox, the viewers at >>> gmane or nabble (which can't be filtered easily), the spam factor is >>> considerable. >>> >>> What I have been proposing is to use the mailman digest features to have >>> the commit messages go to a separate commit list and cross-post a daily >>> digest from the commit list to Squeak-dev. This should help us to keep >>> awareness up and I think dealing with a single commit summary per day would >>> keep the volume low enough for people to keep up with. >>> >>> I'm curious what people think about this idea or if you have other >>> proposals for balancing these tradeoffs. We'll need some help with the >>> mailman setup as well since at the very least we'll need to limit the amount >>> for the diffs to something reasonable or else these message will go over the >>> limit for Squeak-dev. We have also discussed a more elaborate approach that >>> creates repository hierarchies to search for ancestor versions but whichever >>> way we'd do it we'll have to make sure that the initial report is within >>> reason and need some help here. >>> >>> Cheers, >>> - Andreas >>> >> >> >> >> >> > > -- Ron |
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In reply to this post by hernanmd
2009/10/22 Hernán Morales Durand <[hidden email]>:
> Please, set up another list for commit messages, as Laurence said the > mailing list is for programming in/using Squeak, not for developing > the Squeak itself. There are many options before expecting/requiring > 1000+ subscribers to create filtering rules in their e-mail clients. > Cheers, > Is developing Squeak implying using and programming in Squeak? If yes, then why you think that this list is wrong place for that? :) There is one problem which we had in the past: a team of dedicated people doing a black voodoo behind the scenes, and nobody aware what exactly they doing, and then when they finally made a release, the got burned because of major unacceptance among community. What you think , in order to prevent that in future, wouldn't it better to make a development process as much as open as possible? > Hernán > -- Best regards, Igor Stasenko AKA sig. |
Re: Commit messages revisited
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Maybe squeak-users is in order after all. I think that with the
internet going for it, Smalltalk is virulent. I was going on about objects and messages with some new coworkers when they looked at one another, looked at me, and one of them said: "Have you heard of Squeak?" I had, I'd even installed it (another company I worked at had a Swiki that I migrated to another server.) I just hadn't taken it seriously enough to really *look.* Two years later I'm in love, and I'm telling everyone I meet about it. I would bet that the word "beginners" scares a lot of experienced developers off of the other list. I almost wonder if squeak-core or squeak-trunk is in order. Eventually, the community will be big enough that the lists will need to split based if focus, I think. Not convinced that now is the time, though. On Thu, Oct 22, 2009 at 9:22 PM, Igor Stasenko <[hidden email]> wrote: > 2009/10/22 Hernán Morales Durand <[hidden email]>: >> Please, set up another list for commit messages, as Laurence said the >> mailing list is for programming in/using Squeak, not for developing >> the Squeak itself. There are many options before expecting/requiring >> 1000+ subscribers to create filtering rules in their e-mail clients. >> Cheers, >> > > Is developing Squeak implying using and programming in Squeak? > If yes, then why you think that this list is wrong place for that? :) > > There is one problem which we had in the past: a team of dedicated > people doing a black voodoo behind the scenes, and nobody aware what > exactly they doing, and then when they finally made a release, the got > burned because of major unacceptance among community. > What you think , in order to prevent that in future, wouldn't it > better to make a development process as much as open as possible? > > >> Hernán >> > > > -- > Best regards, > Igor Stasenko AKA sig. > > -- Ron |
Re: Commit messages revisited
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>>>>> "Ronald" == Ronald Spengler <[hidden email]> writes:
Ronald> I would bet that the word "beginners" scares a lot of experienced Ronald> developers off of the other list. I almost wonder if squeak-core or Ronald> squeak-trunk is in order. Eventually, the community will be big enough Ronald> that the lists will need to split based if focus, I think. Not Ronald> convinced that now is the time, though. It all depends on where you try to divide people. We've broken it up as "-beginners" (any question is fair game) and "-dev" (probably fewer beginner questions). Are you saying it'd be better to break it up as: -beginners => minute 0 to writing my own classes -users => writing my own classes to just short of hacking core classes -dev => hacking core classes, perhaps for inclusion in next release ? -- Randal L. Schwartz - Stonehenge Consulting Services, Inc. - +1 503 777 0095 <[hidden email]> <URL:http://www.stonehenge.com/merlyn/> Smalltalk/Perl/Unix consulting, Technical writing, Comedy, etc. etc. See http://methodsandmessages.vox.com/ for Smalltalk and Seaside discussion |
Re: Commit messages revisited
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In reply to this post by Igor Stasenko
FWIW I made a script that posts a daily summary of trunk commits to
this list. Someone just needs to commit something today ;) Once we have that and it works, we can decide if posting that summary would be a good enough compromise to move individual commit notices to a dedicated list. - Bert - |
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