From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: "Eric S. Raymond" Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: What a modern collaboration toolkit looks like Date: Tue, 1 Jan 2008 15:57:57 -0500 Organization: Eric Conspiracy Secret Labs Message-ID: <20080101205757.GB11934@thyrsus.com> References: <20071230122217.3CA84830B9A@snark.thyrsus.com> <20071231131129.GA2737@muc.de> <20071231152509.GC8641@thyrsus.com> <20080101203433.GG3830@muc.de> Reply-To: esr@thyrsus.com NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1199221196 28610 80.91.229.12 (1 Jan 2008 20:59:56 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 1 Jan 2008 20:59:56 +0000 (UTC) Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Alan Mackenzie Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Tue Jan 01 22:00:16 2008 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1J9oDe-0000qR-OX for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Tue, 01 Jan 2008 22:00:15 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1J9oDJ-0004ZF-0v for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Tue, 01 Jan 2008 15:59:53 -0500 Original-Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1J9oBG-0002FP-4H for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 01 Jan 2008 15:57:46 -0500 Original-Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1J9oBF-0002E0-6W for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 01 Jan 2008 15:57:45 -0500 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.173] (helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1J9oBF-0002Dm-12 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 01 Jan 2008 15:57:45 -0500 Original-Received: from static-71-162-243-5.phlapa.fios.verizon.net ([71.162.243.5] helo=snark.thyrsus.com) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1J9oBE-0000XQ-RR for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 01 Jan 2008 15:57:45 -0500 Original-Received: by snark.thyrsus.com (Postfix, from userid 23) id 8CAA3830B84; Tue, 1 Jan 2008 15:57:57 -0500 (EST) Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20080101203433.GG3830@muc.de> X-Eric-Conspiracy: There is no conspiracy User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.15+20070412 (2007-04-11) X-detected-kernel: by monty-python.gnu.org: Linux 2.6 (newer, 3) X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:85821 Archived-At: Alan Mackenzie : > > IRC functions as a kind of triage on such changes. If we can't resolve > > a problem in real time, we fall back to the mailing list. This happens > > much less often than I myself would have expected before I became used > > to this style. > > Again, how can the Emacs developers do this? Some of us live in North > America, others in Europe, East Asia and New Zealand, possibly other > places too. We're never all going to be on line at the same time. No, and that's true on the Battle For Wesnoth project, too. In particular, we have for some reason a large contingent of developers in Germany, including the release manager. But the project founder is West Coast US; I and a couple of the other most active senior devs are East Coast US. So we're spread from GMT-1 to GMT+8. It works out, though. We all monitor #wesnoth-dev constantly. Well, OK, my IRC client is often minimized, but the task-bar entry for it glows discreetly orange when Chatzilla sees my name mentioned. > Surely this process would promote a minority clique who would be making > all the decisions. You do gradually gain status by being available when you're needed. And you do lose influence when you're not around for a while. But there's no cliquishness about it -- all you have to do to have a place in the discussion is show up, really. I went from newbie to senior dev in about four months by (a) pitching in doing a lot of work, and (b) often being available because I was working late at night when the Germans were waking up and joining IRC for the day. After a while the Germans started feeling unwilling to make large decisions without having me in on the conversation and partly adapted themselves to *my* schedule. I think one of the tipping points there was when the release manager (not a native English-speaker) started always having me spell-check the release announcements before he shipped them. > For me, silence means _nothing_ flashing or moving on the screen (except, > perhaps, a cursor), no garishness, {scroll,tool,menu} bars switched off, > and absolutely nothing like a dialog boxes exploding in my face. Chatzilla is your friend, then -- no flashy bits. Avoid Xchat. > OK. So we'd be modifying our goal of "bug free, exhaustively tested at > each major release". This might be good, might be bad. More likely we'd relax our standards for point releases at the six-week marks and do maybe two or three major releases a year with careful testing. -- Eric S. Raymond