From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: joaotavora@gmail.com (=?iso-8859-1?Q?Jo=E3o_T=E1vora?=) Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Metaproblem, part 3 Date: Fri, 05 Dec 2014 10:27:49 +0000 Message-ID: References: <20141203142859.24393.98673@vcs.savannah.gnu.org> <20141203193110.GF12748@thyrsus.com> <20141203215426.GA15791@thyrsus.com> <87ppbzplcw.fsf@newcastle.ac.uk> <83iohr48kr.fsf@gnu.org> NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1417775303 19123 80.91.229.3 (5 Dec 2014 10:28:23 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 5 Dec 2014 10:28:23 +0000 (UTC) Cc: esr@thyrsus.com, phillip.lord@newcastle.ac.uk, emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Eli Zaretskii Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Fri Dec 05 11:28:17 2014 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1Xwq7U-0006Kj-L2 for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Fri, 05 Dec 2014 11:28:16 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:49615 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Xwq7U-0004Et-2L for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Fri, 05 Dec 2014 05:28:16 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:48979) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Xwq7C-00049I-Sc for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 05 Dec 2014 05:28:03 -0500 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Xwq78-00017s-Cc for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 05 Dec 2014 05:27:58 -0500 Original-Received: from mail-wi0-x229.google.com ([2a00:1450:400c:c05::229]:57537) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Xwq78-00017Z-2Y; Fri, 05 Dec 2014 05:27:54 -0500 Original-Received: by mail-wi0-f169.google.com with SMTP id r20so948226wiv.2 for ; Fri, 05 Dec 2014 02:27:53 -0800 (PST) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=20120113; h=from:to:cc:subject:references:date:in-reply-to:message-id :user-agent:mime-version:content-type:content-transfer-encoding; bh=BfcbwvBj7jIkF1sMwg6k2xFkoW5bIhB5Pk3YGluSjm8=; b=hxnNUr9Rt9F5H85x7irbDb9dcBW7OmNZXGF7hop/jPTQ50BlxCvxSRLR8XdDm5qZ+J qbFClj7suOuW0RQqTCtm7EZxW4lmLhCAPU5u7oHGIisYimCoY4GKWkm0RRUir1fM2QJY uGGEib+jjrSyvinqvRhzua+8KYZjc6lt+VuG9Z2I5s4s/WihVYY7/JqQGmN9TNOsKGIq t4dNriwLo/EkpdDPLa/g8dYQQZKkltWFSbWxuAVykeh58X9x4p6Rj7K3sj8icR8Bb9yg M6fBS9wBWYi5k+/9OnhAzQ6/vgJaZHtQ0NcDd+ij4MY5gmtvMntwrJ1b7pfNiQuyON1F 3tow== X-Received: by 10.180.99.1 with SMTP id em1mr3050113wib.29.1417775273222; Fri, 05 Dec 2014 02:27:53 -0800 (PST) Original-Received: from GONDOMAR.yourcompany.com (53.236.108.93.rev.vodafone.pt. [93.108.236.53]) by mx.google.com with ESMTPSA id jr4sm4149538wjc.20.2014.12.05.02.27.51 for (version=TLSv1.2 cipher=ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256 bits=128/128); Fri, 05 Dec 2014 02:27:52 -0800 (PST) In-Reply-To: <83iohr48kr.fsf@gnu.org> (Eli Zaretskii's message of "Thu, 04 Dec 2014 19:40:36 +0200") User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/24.4 (windows-nt) X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: Error: Malformed IPv6 address (bad octet value). X-Received-From: 2a00:1450:400c:c05::229 X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:178898 Archived-At: Eli Zaretskii writes: >> From: joaotavora@gmail.com (Jo=E3o T=E1vora) >> Date: Thu, 04 Dec 2014 14:32:23 +0000 >> Cc: esr@thyrsus.com, emacs-devel@gnu.org >>=20 >> phillip.lord@newcastle.ac.uk (Phillip Lord) writes: >>=20 >> > Cheesy as it sounds, perhaps, what is needed is "mentors". So, someone >> > wants to fix something or change something about Emacs, they get a sho= rt >> > term mentor to help them through the process (both at a code level, and >> > at a rules of community level). So, the first piece of advice in >> > contribute wouldn't be "do this, do that", it would be "think of a >> > problem, ask for a mentor". >>=20 >> +1 to this. In every software project I've worked on, some form of >> mentorship has proven essential in every first-time >> contribution. Including projects that I started, and including Emacs >> (thanks Stefan!). > > I also think that we have mentoring here, so I don't understand what > exactly is this gripe about. People ask questions, both here and on > bug-gnu-emacs, and get helpful answers and guidance even when the > questions are only tangentially related to Emacs (or even not at > all). What exactly is missing? As you pointed out, mentorship happens on emacs-devel and on bug-gnu-emacs. But also as you pointed out, a lot of effort goes into questions only tangentially related to Emacs. The proposed mentoring would be targeted at first time code contributions only and administered by anyone with a reasonably solid grasp of Emacs's and GNU's red tape. >From my (limited) perspective this is frequently channeled to Stefan, who is really good at it, but is possibly overloaded. So what is being proposed, or what at least what I understood from Phillip's message, is that a new broad guideline is added to the top of the contribution guide [1] reading something like: "If this is your first time contributing to Emacs, ask for a mentor on emacs-devel first. A mentor can be anyone who has contributed to Emacs at least once, and will guide you through the instructions [linked] below, as well as any extra documentation. He/she can also answer specific questions about copyright assignment, version control, changelogs, coding style, etc." The phrasing could be improved of course, I'm not a native speaker. Also, perhaps the ideas of "friendliness" and "tolerance" could be made explicit there, though "mentorship" should imply them. Note that I'm *not* saying that having a mentor guarantees code quality or pertinence (indeed, ideally, the mentor should be reasonably agnostic about the contribution's pertinence, unless it really *is* a waste of time :-) ). This is to say that reviews and discussion still take place, but at the very least the boring bits will be taken care of, and more frequently the first-time contributor will be on the right track. > Or maybe I don't understand what "mentoring" is being alluded to here. Your idea of mentoring described earlier is pretty much the same as mine. Jo=E3o [1]: either https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/Contributing.html or in the linked etc/CONTRIBUTE file