From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Tassilo Horn Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: What a modern collaboration toolkit looks like Date: Tue, 01 Jan 2008 12:28:43 +0100 Message-ID: <87y7b96az8.fsf@member.fsf.org> References: <20071230122217.3CA84830B9A@snark.thyrsus.com> <20071231130712.GB8641@thyrsus.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1199186967 17533 80.91.229.12 (1 Jan 2008 11:29:27 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 1 Jan 2008 11:29:27 +0000 (UTC) To: emacs-devel@gnu.org Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Tue Jan 01 12:29:40 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 1J9fJR-0006ZT-1B for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Tue, 01 Jan 2008 12:29:40 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1J9fJ1-00038L-7S for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Tue, 01 Jan 2008 06:29:11 -0500 Original-Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1J9fIw-000374-HD for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 01 Jan 2008 06:29:06 -0500 Original-Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1J9fIq-00034k-CY for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 01 Jan 2008 06:29:06 -0500 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.173] (helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1J9fIq-00034g-2Q for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 01 Jan 2008 06:29:00 -0500 Original-Received: from out4.smtp.messagingengine.com ([66.111.4.28]) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1J9fIn-0003ao-BR for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 01 Jan 2008 06:28:59 -0500 Original-Received: from compute1.internal (compute1.internal [10.202.2.41]) by out1.messagingengine.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id D72DA827B2 for ; Tue, 1 Jan 2008 06:28:46 -0500 (EST) Original-Received: from heartbeat2.messagingengine.com ([10.202.2.161]) by compute1.internal (MEProxy); Tue, 01 Jan 2008 06:28:46 -0500 X-Sasl-enc: sbDiO7XmhIDBRYoCA/pv4jIiygNWhfIQjX4+Astb2ITT 1199186926 Original-Received: from baldur (dslb-084-063-047-220.pools.arcor-ip.net [84.63.47.220]) by mail.messagingengine.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 02B841EB85 for ; Tue, 1 Jan 2008 06:28:45 -0500 (EST) Mail-Followup-To: emacs-devel@gnu.org In-Reply-To: (Eli Zaretskii's message of "Mon, 31 Dec 2007 22:57:33 +0200") User-Agent: Gnus/5.110007 (No Gnus v0.7) Emacs/23.0.50 (gnu/linux) X-detected-kernel: by monty-python.gnu.org: Genre and OS details not recognized. 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:85809 Archived-At: Eli Zaretskii writes: Hi Eli, > And if you are hinting that using CVS is the reason, then I must say > that in the 15 years I've been involved in Emacs development (using > RCS at first, btw), I don't think I've ever heard some potential > contributor say that she refuses to come on board because of the VCS > we use. Speaking as one of the youngsters in the team, I'd say that it matters quite a bit. There are a lot of emacs lisp projects where younger devs are involved (e.g. EMMS), but getting something into emacs is quite hard. A distributed VCS would help here definitely. The current way with posting patches on emacs-devel, getting review, rewriting the patches, yet more review and eventually being included (but still with no write access) can make the work much harder. Of course I do think that the review is very good thing and that giving write access to a person is a decision that has to be weighted accurately, but a tool like git would free contributors from needing that. I could say, hey, I've developed this new foo-mode, please look at my git repository at http://www.tsdh.de/repos/git/foo, get the review, change it till everybody is satisfied and eventually one of the core devs could pull the changes. There would be no need to have write access at all. I can alway commit to my repository (even when I'm offline, a fact that should be a big plus for Richard) and synching happens whenever something important has be done and some core dev reviewed it. There's a nice video at youtube where Linus Torvalds talks about git where he discribes the benefits of distributed VCSs (in a very entertaining way). > My analysis is different: I think we are limited by a small number of > core developers, and by the lack of head maintainer(s) who could > devote much more time than any of us can evidently provide to coding > and leading the rest of the developers. IMO this would change with a VCS like git, too. On problem with the current situation is that possible contributors might fear that their changes break something or won't be liked by the core devs. So they don't even try it at all. With a distributed VCS it's like everybody has his own branch where he can do what he likes, so I expect people to hack on parts they wouldn't try normally. And since then there will be finished patches which actually are easily appliable and testable, the maintainer's job would be to try the different branches and incorporate the good stuff into the main line. So to sum up: There are quite a few young devs that write good elisp code, but currently they concentrate on extensions, because the core stuff seems somewhat locked behind bureaucratical walls. A distributed version control system would definitely help to break them down. Bye, Tassilo