From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: joaotavora@gmail.com (=?utf-8?B?Sm/Do28gVMOhdm9yYQ==?=) Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Results of the "mentoring" experiment Re: Metaproblem, part 3 Date: Sun, 21 Dec 2014 20:17:08 +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> <83388u4bps.fsf@gnu.org> <83y4qm2uz9.fsf@gnu.org> <83vblq2los.fsf@gnu.org> <87vblpjq24.fsf@uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp> <83mw7119yz.fsf@gnu.org> NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1419193080 29453 80.91.229.3 (21 Dec 2014 20:18:00 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 21 Dec 2014 20:18:00 +0000 (UTC) Cc: esr@thyrsus.com, stephen@xemacs.org, phillip.lord@newcastle.ac.uk, rasmus@gmx.us, emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Eli Zaretskii Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sun Dec 21 21:17:54 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 1Y2mwr-0004ML-J5 for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sun, 21 Dec 2014 21:17:53 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:38229 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Y2mwq-0001CX-Nt for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sun, 21 Dec 2014 15:17:52 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:42609) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Y2mwZ-0001CO-UQ for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 21 Dec 2014 15:17:40 -0500 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Y2mwV-0002JN-Iz for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 21 Dec 2014 15:17:35 -0500 Original-Received: from mail-wi0-x236.google.com ([2a00:1450:400c:c05::236]:40656) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Y2mwV-0002JF-83; Sun, 21 Dec 2014 15:17:31 -0500 Original-Received: by mail-wi0-f182.google.com with SMTP id h11so6246936wiw.15; Sun, 21 Dec 2014 12:17:29 -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=/mXL2cuQbwshnDDGjFFBCO1Ws+f4i7GbPBwYlNXvKe0=; b=fBlQ/J15Abneu9W/8lhEwf9GIypI5G8g28jxjfhFRsyU5vEzcZCkziB9M1X2MIB+ax 5svEe4LZVuvJzeYPcHhS7cu198AmKbZT7JQI3lHLf0TeFvqSVWygXx4L4cd35LHo4fU1 6iezl7TTxCPsVAnzUuo3vIi0g04u1vcwustr9ir0QJqEMnqAcbz28WhIFo98EwWuUsYA d956lTqFKdnseLy9phDWk9+0GCYjl5bSgWXJzJbZ0oYKgutjKdczNjx+S5Kg66ozv5il 0Hevv3xwLsOMARfHq7Rjv4E2opJ8qeWOu9qFaCy9PFiXvDQXpM7P0gKdauiB0wpMKjAH nnzQ== X-Received: by 10.180.8.70 with SMTP id p6mr25690138wia.72.1419193049865; Sun, 21 Dec 2014 12:17:29 -0800 (PST) Original-Received: from king.yourcompany.com (31.57.37.188.rev.vodafone.pt. [188.37.57.31]) by mx.google.com with ESMTPSA id jp3sm10676721wid.9.2014.12.21.12.17.27 (version=TLSv1.2 cipher=ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256 bits=128/128); Sun, 21 Dec 2014 12:17:29 -0800 (PST) In-Reply-To: <83mw7119yz.fsf@gnu.org> (Eli Zaretskii's message of "Sat, 06 Dec 2014 10:03:16 +0200") User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/24.3.92 (darwin) X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: Error: Malformed IPv6 address (bad octet value). X-Received-From: 2a00:1450:400c:c05::236 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:180441 Archived-At: Eli Zaretskii writes: >> From: joaotavora@gmail.com (Jo=C3=A3o T=C3=A1vora) >> Cc: Eli Zaretskii , esr@thyrsus.com, phillip.lord@newcas= tle.ac.uk, emacs-devel@gnu.org >> Date: Sat, 06 Dec 2014 07:07:21 +0000 >>=20 >> To test the process, I can volunteer to submit a couple of reasonably >> small ideas, between 100 and 300 LOC, that need a mentor (*). > > Please go ahead, and thanks. > > Of course, to be practical, there's a need for a mentoree for each > such idea, but if that's you, then that issue is solved. Hi, On Friday, I pushed darkroom.el to ELPA.git, as one of my "reasonably small ideas" that I setup for the "mentoring experiment" to ELPA.git. I consider the experiment finished: Here are some notes: * I posted two emails with two "mentor requests". One had a couple of replies the other had none. * From one of the replies (this thread or https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2014-12/msg00808.html), three or four iterations with Rasmus ensued until the code was mostly clean of obvious mistakes, according to Emacs coding-style rules and so on. Rasmus also helped clarify much of the functionality and insisted on good docstrings for example. * Doing this on-list went OK, with not too much noise. Stefan contributed some very small, but useful comments. After Rasmus gave the go-ahead more or less informally, Dmitry Gutov and Martin Rudalics each gave some final advice and resolved the final blockers. I get the feeling there were some followers of the thread, because visits spiked at my github upstream. Richard Stallman also expressed curiosity about what the "darkroom hack" was. Stephen Turnbull complained about being in Cc. Sorry, for some reason I only say that mail today. You're in Cc now because you predicted "an early demise of this experiment." and I'm interested in knowing your thoughts now that it's over. Anyway, after some silence, I pushed to git. * According to Rasmus, the mentoree must do some effort in this phase to convincingly present the utility of his extension, and how it differentiates from the rest. * According to Rasmus, and I agree, availability and commitment of mentors depends on the personal interest they have in the code. Apparently Rasmus had used something similar to darkroom.el * Rasmus' interest motivated me to actually do the work and really clean it up. * Changing subject line prefixes to express the state of the process didn't please Rasmus much. I guess it's a stupid way to emulate a bug tracker. * It's really very easy to distract oneself into the implementation details (for example "loop" vs "reduce") during what I idealized that the mentoring phase should be. There has to be some force to focus on the procedure-based blockers (copyright assignment, git workflow, big flaws in code) and separate them from the rest of the analysis etc. * My opinion is that this can work, but there have to be some guidelines in place (like manual, CONTRIBUTE or README) so that mentors and mentorees are aware of some minimal formality in their roles. It went OK without it, but could go better. Also Rasmus prefers it to be called "peer-review". * I found that the information that is sought after in this phase is practically all written down and available already, but spread across the Elisp manual, wikipedia, the ELPA.git README, git tutorials, etc. A nice aggregation of this information would be useful, but this was in the original discussion I believe. I guess the whole idea of mentoring is that a person with some experience is the best aggregator and additionally provides (a lot of) motivation to clean your stuff up and contribute. Thanks everybody and bye! Jo=C3=A3o