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[squeak-dev] Trunk commits

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Colin Putney

Re: [squeak-dev] Trunk commits

On 24-Aug-09, at 3:41 AM, Ian Trudel wrote:

>> Ok... but they don't come by the truck load just yet. Why worry
>> about it
>> until they do?
>
> Here's the thing: there is a lot of laissez-faire already. The image
> is messy, the wiki/documentation are messy, and it goes on and on.
> We'll fix later sounds like a motto. We certainly cannot step ahead
> every problem but we should at least take time to think, if only the
> time of a discussion.

Ah, but this isn't a case of "we'll fix it later." This is "we'll fix
it if it becomes a problem."

If it does become a problem, and we find we have to deal with hundreds
of commit messages per day, then the best solution will likely look a
bit different than one we'd choose today. If it ain't broken, don't
fix it.

Colin

Ian Trudel-2

Re: [squeak-dev] Trunk commits

2009/8/24 Colin Putney <[hidden email]>:
> Ah, but this isn't a case of "we'll fix it later." This is "we'll fix it if
> it becomes a problem."
>
> If it does become a problem, and we find we have to deal with hundreds of
> commit messages per day, then the best solution will likely look a bit
> different than one we'd choose today. If it ain't broken, don't fix it.

Wait a minute! You cannot just use "if it ain't broken, don't fix it."
like this. This is a brand new addition to the mailing list and
consequently not exactly proved useful (yet) and not entirely
unanimously welcomed.

Moreover, it seems to me that you have misunderstood what Bert has
suggested. There would be a mailing list with complete commit reports
and Squeak dev would receive digests. The digests will point out to
the complete commit reports for anyone who wants more information.

It does NOT prevent you to comment full reports at any moment (those
emails could even have a reply address on squeak dev) and it does NOT
force everybody to receive several reports that may or may not be
interesting.

Ian.
--
http://mecenia.blogspot.com/

K. K. Subramaniam

Re: [squeak-dev] Trunk commits

In reply to this post by Colin Putney

On Monday 24 Aug 2009 4:00:20 pm Colin Putney wrote:
> That would be a great problem to have! Hundreds of commits per day.
> Wow. All the other Squeak distributions would be jealous of the
> progress we'd be making!
Mmm.... posts discussing commits outnumber commits themselves (including this
note :-(). There should a daily digest for comments ;-).

Subbu

Ian Trudel-2

Re: [squeak-dev] Trunk commits

2009/8/24 K. K. Subramaniam <[hidden email]>:
> On Monday 24 Aug 2009 4:00:20 pm Colin Putney wrote:
>> That would be a great problem to have! Hundreds of commits per day.
>> Wow. All the other Squeak distributions would be jealous of the
>> progress we'd be making!
> Mmm.... posts discussing commits outnumber commits themselves (including this
> note :-(). There should a daily digest for comments ;-).
>

And it should only be available encrypted with a 4 Gb key. :)

Ian.
--
http://mecenia.blogspot.com/

Tobias Pape

Re: [squeak-dev] Trunk commits

In reply to this post by Bert Freudenberg

Hello —,
Am 2009-08-24 um 10:27 schrieb Bert Freudenberg:
[…]
> PROPOSAL: we make the detailed commit notices go to a separate list
> as soon as someone has added a "digest" feature. This would send a
> daily or weekly summary to squeak-dev, containing just the commit
> summary a link to the detailed diffs. Bonus points for listing
> affected classes.

In fact, mailman (wich is aparently powering this list) is capable of
creating daily digests.
That said, having this list subscribing to a distinct commit-mailing-
list, is would be
possible to have squeak-dev receiving only the digest whilst have all
other subscribers
receive the standard form.
A side effect would be that the digest would already contain all
discussion going on
the commit-list. This would avoid the opt-out-scenario described by
Michael. In fact,
it would be opt-in (to the commit list) for everyone interested in
very recent commit
messages and disscussion of them.

So Long,
-Tobias

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Bert Freudenberg

Re: [squeak-dev] Trunk commits

On 24.08.2009, at 13:48, Tobias Pape wrote:

> Hello —,
> Am 2009-08-24 um 10:27 schrieb Bert Freudenberg:
> […]
>> PROPOSAL: we make the detailed commit notices go to a separate list
>> as soon as someone has added a "digest" feature. This would send a
>> daily or weekly summary to squeak-dev, containing just the commit
>> summary a link to the detailed diffs. Bonus points for listing
>> affected classes.
>
> In fact, mailman (wich is aparently powering this list) is capable
> of creating daily digests.
> That said, having this list subscribing to a distinct commit-mailing-
> list, is would be
> possible to have squeak-dev receiving only the digest whilst have
> all other subscribers
> receive the standard form.

That's a nice low-tech idea, but by far not as useful as a customized
digest.

It should be as concise as possible while still providing enough
information to follow what's going on (my suggestion was to only have
the commit summary, a list of affected classes, plus a link to the
full commit that shows the diff). The format could be similar to the
update log.

Making the development process transparent is way more important than
the convenience of those who don't care about it. At least so much we
learned. I agree with Collin that individual commit notes on squeak-
dev do not appear to be a real problem for now (how hard is it to
press delete?). But a nicely generated digest that balances
convenience with utility would be an acceptable compromise.

> A side effect would be that the digest would already contain all
> discussion going on
> the commit-list. This would avoid the opt-out-scenario described by
> Michael. In fact,
> it would be opt-in (to the commit list) for everyone interested in
> very recent commit
> messages and disscussion of them.

No. The commit list would only allow posting from the source server,
and have reply-to set to squeak-dev. Discussion needs to take place
here.

- Bert -

Ken Causey-3

Re: [squeak-dev] Trunk commits

In reply to this post by Bert Freudenberg

+1

On Mon, 2009-08-24 at 00:07 +0200, Bert Freudenberg wrote:

> On 23.08.2009, at 23:51, Michael van der Gulik wrote:
>
> > Hi all.
> >
> > Would it perhaps be better to have the automated trunk commit
> > messages going to some other dedicated mailing list?
> >
> > Gulik.
>
>
> I was curious how long it would take the first one to speak up :)
>
> No, I would rather create a squeak-users list for those not interested
> in developing Squeak itself, but just "with" Squeak. IMHO the commits
> messages make the community development process visible, which is a
> Good Thing.
>
> - Bert -

If we have to do anything about this then I think it is time we
seriously consider a separate "squeak users" mailing list. I would
rather that users have to consider going from 'developer' to 'user'
rather than from 'user' to 'developer'; by which I mean that I would
prefer that we change the definition of squeak-dev and make another list
the 'user' list, rather than create a new developer list. Perhaps we
should consider renaming the beginners list 'squeak-users' or the like.
This would have the added benefit of bringing more eyes to bear on
beginners requests.

Ken

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Ken Causey-3

Re: [squeak-dev] Trunk commits

In reply to this post by Bert Freudenberg

-1

On Mon, 2009-08-24 at 10:27 +0200, Bert Freudenberg wrote:

> On 24.08.2009, at 10:09, Michael Haupt wrote:
>
> > Hi,
> >
> > On Mon, Aug 24, 2009 at 12:07 AM, Bert Freudenberg<[hidden email]
> > > wrote:
> >> No, I would rather create a squeak-users list for those not
> >> interested in
> >> developing Squeak itself, but just "with" Squeak. IMHO the commits
> >> messages
> >> make the community development process visible, which is a Good
> >> Thing.
> >
> > before anything else: I like the fine-grained commit messages *very*
> > much as they make immediately apparent what has been done, by whom,
> > and where it has been uploaded.
> >
> > As for the target mailing list, squeak-dev has obviously moved away
> > from being solely about developing *Squeak*. The commit mails kind of
> > push the fact that squeak-dev, after all, *is* a developers' list, in
> > people's faces. Asking all users not interested in Squeak
> > *development* to go and join another list may be asking too much; it
> > has a distinct smell of "go away if you're not interested in this".
> > (I'm deliberately exaggerating a bit here.)
> >
> > As for developers, some of them may rather like to inform themselves
> > about commits in a batch-oriented way; this has been asked for
> > already. A dedicated commit mailing list can be configured to send
> > single e-mails or batches by each subscriber.
> >
> > In a nutshell, I'd opt for a commit mailing list.
>
>
> How about this -
>
> PROPOSAL: we make the detailed commit notices go to a separate list as
> soon as someone has added a "digest" feature. This would send a daily
> or weekly summary to squeak-dev, containing just the commit summary a
> link to the detailed diffs. Bonus points for listing affected classes.
>
> Btw, the code is at http://squeaksource.com/ss.html
>
> - Bert -

I much much prefer your earlier suggestion.

Ken

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Igor Stasenko

Re: [squeak-dev] Trunk commits

In reply to this post by Ken Causey-3

2009/8/24 Ken Causey <[hidden email]>:

> +1
>
> On Mon, 2009-08-24 at 00:07 +0200, Bert Freudenberg wrote:
>> On 23.08.2009, at 23:51, Michael van der Gulik wrote:
>>
>> > Hi all.
>> >
>> > Would it perhaps be better to have the automated trunk commit
>> > messages going to some other dedicated mailing list?
>> >
>> > Gulik.
>>
>>
>> I was curious how long it would take the first one to speak up :)
>>
>> No, I would rather create a squeak-users list for those not interested
>> in developing Squeak itself, but just "with" Squeak. IMHO the commits
>> messages make the community development process visible, which is a
>> Good Thing.
>>
>> - Bert -
>
> If we have to do anything about this then I think it is time we
> seriously consider a separate "squeak users" mailing list. I would
> rather that users have to consider going from 'developer' to 'user'
> rather than from 'user' to 'developer'; by which I mean that I would
> prefer that we change the definition of squeak-dev and make another list
> the 'user' list, rather than create a new developer list. Perhaps we
> should consider renaming the beginners list 'squeak-users' or the like.
> This would have the added benefit of bringing more eyes to bear on
> beginners requests.
>

+1
a list name - "squeak-dev" speaks for itself.
I can understand that some of list readers never contributed to
squeak, or contributed occasionally, and mainly staying with it to be
in touch with latest & hottest news and discussions around squeak. But
let's not forget the main purpose of the list.

Do trunk commits increasing mail traffic? Absolutely.
Can they be easily filtered by users who reading the list? Absolutely.
So, where is the problem?

Do such commits increasing the process visibility and giving everyone
a chance to evaluate and examine the changes as soon as they become
available? Yes.
So, given that this improves the development process (even by a bit) i
think it overweights any inconveniences, such as increase in mail
traffic, and everyone who understands that our main "employment" in
squeak-dev list should be a development of Squeak, also should only
wellcome such move :)

> Ken
>

--
Best regards,
Igor Stasenko AKA sig.

Casey Ransberger

Re: [squeak-dev] Trunk commits

Whenever I'm thinking about a clever solution for a problem that I don't quite have yet, I go back to this page and meditate:

http://c2.com/xp/YouArentGonnaNeedIt.html

On Mon, Aug 24, 2009 at 1:03 PM, Igor Stasenko <[hidden email]> wrote:

2009/8/24 Ken Causey <[hidden email]>:

> +1
>
> On Mon, 2009-08-24 at 00:07 +0200, Bert Freudenberg wrote:
>> On 23.08.2009, at 23:51, Michael van der Gulik wrote:
>>
>> > Hi all.
>> >
>> > Would it perhaps be better to have the automated trunk commit
>> > messages going to some other dedicated mailing list?
>> >
>> > Gulik.
>>
>>
>> I was curious how long it would take the first one to speak up :)
>>
>> No, I would rather create a squeak-users list for those not interested
>> in developing Squeak itself, but just "with" Squeak. IMHO the commits
>> messages make the community development process visible, which is a
>> Good Thing.
>>
>> - Bert -
>
> If we have to do anything about this then I think it is time we
> seriously consider a separate "squeak users" mailing list. I would
> rather that users have to consider going from 'developer' to 'user'
> rather than from 'user' to 'developer'; by which I mean that I would
> prefer that we change the definition of squeak-dev and make another list
> the 'user' list, rather than create a new developer list. Perhaps we
> should consider renaming the beginners list 'squeak-users' or the like.
> This would have the added benefit of bringing more eyes to bear on
> beginners requests.
>

+1
a list name - "squeak-dev" speaks for itself.
I can understand that some of list readers never contributed to
squeak, or contributed occasionally, and mainly staying with it to be
in touch with latest & hottest news and discussions around squeak. But
let's not forget the main purpose of the list.

Do trunk commits increasing mail traffic? Absolutely.
Can they be easily filtered by users who reading the list? Absolutely.
So, where is the problem?

Do such commits increasing the process visibility and giving everyone
a chance to evaluate and examine the changes as soon as they become
available? Yes.
So, given that this improves the development process (even by a bit) i
think it overweights any inconveniences, such as increase in mail
traffic, and everyone who understands that our main "employment" in
squeak-dev list should be a development of Squeak, also should only
wellcome such move :)

> Ken
>

--
Best regards,
Igor Stasenko AKA sig.

Damien Cassou-3

Re: [squeak-dev] Trunk commits

In reply to this post by Michael van der Gulik-2

On Sun, Aug 23, 2009 at 11:51 PM, Michael van der
Gulik<[hidden email]> wrote:
> Would it perhaps be better to have the automated trunk commit messages going
> to some other dedicated mailing list?

With squeaksource, it is easy to get an RSS feed of a package. That
way only people interested get noticed.

--
Damien Cassou
http://damiencassou.seasidehosting.st

"Lambdas are relegated to relative obscurity until Java makes them
popular by not having them." James Iry

Bert Freudenberg

Re: [squeak-dev] Trunk commits

On 02.09.2009, at 09:33, Damien Cassou wrote:

> On Sun, Aug 23, 2009 at 11:51 PM, Michael van der
> Gulik<[hidden email]> wrote:
>> Would it perhaps be better to have the automated trunk commit
>> messages going
>> to some other dedicated mailing list?
>
> With squeaksource, it is easy to get an RSS feed of a package. That
> way only people interested get noticed.

Why would people on squeak-dev not be interested in Squeak development?

Invisibility of the actual development process was a big problem. I'd
rather have too much visibility than the impression that there is no
work being done.

Btw, you and many others got an invitation to become a core developer,
too. The list of current core developers on http://source.squeak.org/
(click Groups, then "Core Developers") is not even not half the number
of people who got the invitation (*). This indicates to me they are
not actually interested in advancing Squeak, but may I ask why not?

- Bert -

(*) If you didn't get an invitation in the first round but you have
been an active contributor on squeak-dev before, we probably just
missed you. Sorry, please let us know.

Randal L. Schwartz

Re: [squeak-dev] Trunk commits

>>>>> "Bert" == Bert Freudenberg <[hidden email]> writes:

Bert> Why would people on squeak-dev not be interested in Squeak development?

Bert> Invisibility of the actual development process was a big problem. I'd
Bert> rather have too much visibility than the impression that there is no
Bert> work being done.

I've had people on IRC comment "I didn't realize there was so much activity on
the core" regarding the emails. And the squeaksourcebot showing off the
50-150 commits a day to squeaksource in general is also good to show that
there are as many packages being uploaded to Squeaksource every day as there
are Perl CPAN modules, which we've often held as a sign that Perl activity is
alive and well.

I agree that while we'll probably want to dial it back eventually, it's good
for now that we start raising visibility in the short term.

--
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

keith1y

Re: [squeak-dev] Trunk commits

In reply to this post by Bert Freudenberg

Bert Freudenberg wrote:
>
> On 02.09.2009, at 09:33, Damien Cassou wrote:
>
>> On Sun, Aug 23, 2009 at 11:51 PM, Michael van der
>> Gulik<[hidden email]> wrote:
>>> Would it perhaps be better to have the automated trunk commit
>>> messages going
>>> to some other dedicated mailing list?
Which we already have.
>> With squeaksource, it is easy to get an RSS feed of a package. That
>> way only people interested get noticed.
>
>
> Why would people on squeak-dev not be interested in Squeak development?
1. Not having time.

2. Poluting the exisiting actual human messages with extra stuff to
trawl through when you are searching for something.

3. I tried commit messages on the release list 3 years ago and it was
shot down in 2 minutes, so we adopted the packages list to receive
commit emails from squeaksource.

4. The more you do on trunk, the more of a porting effort is looming in
the future, because trunk isn't targeted at exisiting users, nor is
there a migration path for existing images. This is the same mistake
made between 3.8 and 3.9, and squeak->pharo. Thus relegating existing
users to stay with the images they are in now. Trunk is a fork of 3.10
and thus every commit to trunk and every commit email fills me with
dread and a desire to move to a more stable platform.

If you were to make planned innovations somewhere else (i.e. the release
list etc) which were delivered to the community (squeak-dev) in a
documented form for exisitn 3.9/3.10 images with an impact analysis of
some kind, then I could see squeak moving forwards in a useful manner.
Otherwise the rest is just noise.

Keith

Bert Freudenberg

Re: [squeak-dev] Trunk commits

On 02.09.2009, at 14:32, Keith Hodges wrote:
>
> If you were to make planned innovations somewhere else (i.e. the
> release
> list etc) which were delivered to the community (squeak-dev) in a
> documented form for exisitn 3.9/3.10 images with an impact analysis of
> some kind, then I could see squeak moving forwards in a useful manner.

Burdening a much too small release team is what held back Squeak for
years. We are trying to distribute the burden onto much broader
shoulders now, and it appears to encourage contributions. So no, I do
not agree discussions how to evolve Squeak should happen on the
release list.

- Bert -

Michael van der Gulik-2

Re: [squeak-dev] Trunk commits

In reply to this post by keith1y

On Thu, Sep 3, 2009 at 12:32 AM, Keith Hodges <[hidden email]> wrote:

Bert Freudenberg wrote:
>
> On 02.09.2009, at 09:33, Damien Cassou wrote:
>
>> On Sun, Aug 23, 2009 at 11:51 PM, Michael van der
>> Gulik<[hidden email]> wrote:
>>> Would it perhaps be better to have the automated trunk commit
>>> messages going
>>> to some other dedicated mailing list?

Which we already have.

>> With squeaksource, it is easy to get an RSS feed of a package. That
>> way only people interested get noticed.
>
>
> Why would people on squeak-dev not be interested in Squeak development?

1. Not having time.

2. Poluting the exisiting actual human messages with extra stuff to
trawl through when you are searching for something.

95% of the human messages end up in my trash unread. I'm finding about the same proportion of commit messages are relevant to me as human messages.

I'm becoming a bit of a fan of the commit messages. You can see what's happening, and it's the best forum for discussing changes.

Gulik.

--
http://gulik.pbwiki.com/

Igor Stasenko

Re: [squeak-dev] Trunk commits

2009/9/2 Michael van der Gulik <[hidden email]>:

>
>
> On Thu, Sep 3, 2009 at 12:32 AM, Keith Hodges <[hidden email]>
> wrote:
>>
>> Bert Freudenberg wrote:
>> >
>> > On 02.09.2009, at 09:33, Damien Cassou wrote:
>> >
>> >> On Sun, Aug 23, 2009 at 11:51 PM, Michael van der
>> >> Gulik<[hidden email]> wrote:
>> >>> Would it perhaps be better to have the automated trunk commit
>> >>> messages going
>> >>> to some other dedicated mailing list?
>> Which we already have.
>> >> With squeaksource, it is easy to get an RSS feed of a package. That
>> >> way only people interested get noticed.
>> >
>> >
>> > Why would people on squeak-dev not be interested in Squeak development?
>> 1. Not having time.
>>
>> 2. Poluting the exisiting actual human messages with extra stuff to
>> trawl through when you are searching for something.
>
>
> 95% of the human messages end up in my trash unread. I'm finding about the
> same proportion of commit messages are relevant to me as human messages.
>
> I'm becoming a bit of a fan of the commit messages. You can see what's
> happening, and it's the best forum for discussing changes.
>

indeed :)
sometimes i like to turn on my "exploration mode" to see what's new
and what is happening around
and reading commits is quite interesting way to stay in touch with
latest & hottest stuff.

> Gulik.
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> http://gulik.pbwiki.com/
>
>
>
>

--
Best regards,
Igor Stasenko AKA sig.

Karl Ramberg

Re: [squeak-dev] Trunk commits

In reply to this post by Michael van der Gulik-2

On 2009-09-02 23:12, Michael van der Gulik wrote:

On Thu, Sep 3, 2009 at 12:32 AM, Keith Hodges <[hidden email]> wrote:

Bert Freudenberg wrote:
>
> On 02.09.2009, at 09:33, Damien Cassou wrote:
>
>> On Sun, Aug 23, 2009 at 11:51 PM, Michael van der
>> Gulik<[hidden email]> wrote:
>>> Would it perhaps be better to have the automated trunk commit
>>> messages going
>>> to some other dedicated mailing list?

Which we already have.

>> With squeaksource, it is easy to get an RSS feed of a package. That
>> way only people interested get noticed.
>
>
> Why would people on squeak-dev not be interested in Squeak development?

1. Not having time.

2. Poluting the exisiting actual human messages with extra stuff to
trawl through when you are searching for something.

95% of the human messages end up in my trash unread. I'm finding about the same proportion of commit messages are relevant to me as human messages.

I'm becoming a bit of a fan of the commit messages. You can see what's happening, and it's the best forum for discussing changes.

And I think the big drawback with Mantis is that is very quiet and not visible. It's a place where bugs go to be ignored most of the time.

Karl

garduino

Re: [squeak-dev] Trunk commits

2009/9/3 Karl Ramberg <[hidden email]>:
> And I think the big drawback with Mantis is that is very quiet and not
> visible. It's a place where bugs go to be ignored most of the time.
>
> Karl
>

+1.

To my personal preferences Mantis is also a bit complicated or, to
better says, not homy. And, indeed, a thing all of us
are seeing all the time is squeak-dev.

--
=========================================================
Germán S. Arduino <gsa @ arsol.net> Twitter: garduino
Arduino Software & Web Hosting http://www.arduinosoftware.com
PasswordsPro http://www.passwordspro.com
=========================================================

Casey Ransberger

Re: [squeak-dev] Trunk commits

Ron the bug collector says:

We should still collect bugs, and have a place to put them, while we're studying them, but we shouldn't keep them very long, as they've lots to do, and little time.

On Thu, Sep 3, 2009 at 11:24 AM, Germán Arduino <[hidden email]> wrote:

2009/9/3 Karl Ramberg <[hidden email]>:

> And I think the big drawback with Mantis is that is very quiet and not
> visible. It's a place where bugs go to be ignored most of the time.
>
> Karl
>

+1.

To my personal preferences Mantis is also a bit complicated or, to
better says, not homy. And, indeed, a thing all of us
are seeing all the time is squeak-dev.

--
=========================================================
Germán S. Arduino <gsa @ arsol.net> Twitter: garduino
Arduino Software & Web Hosting http://www.arduinosoftware.com
PasswordsPro http://www.passwordspro.com
=========================================================

--
Ron

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