Re: How can we decrease the cognitive overhead for contributors?

[Katherine Cox-Buday <cox.katherine.e@gmail.com>]

On 8/25/23 3:57 AM, Attila Lendvai wrote:

>> Otherwise I do not get your point: I keep untreated messages with the latest
>> patch version in my Guix inbox, and file away the others in a separate mbox.
>> So things are not flat, but have two levels: "to be treated" or "done".
> 
> 
> my point is that in a PR based model/workflow things like this is done by a program. and each brain cycle you spend on maintaining the sanity of your local inbox, is not spent on hacking, and the results of your effort is not even mirrored into the inbox of the other contributors.

I was reflecting on what it is about the email-based workflow that I 
find difficult, and I think you've highlighted one thing:

With a PR based workflow, there is a program essentially figuring out 
the equivalent of the `git send-email` flags and doing the submission 
for me. I generally go to the site for a repo's main branch, get 
prompted about my recent branch, click a button, and it's submitted.

And you've also highlighted the core of my original message: it's 
frustrating to spend effort on the meta of changing code instead of 
changing code. There will always be ancillary effort, but it can be 
greatly reduced.

> this seems like a small thing, but multiply this with every message, and every potential contributor and maintainer... and then consider its cumulative effect on the emergent order that we call the Guix community.

A thousand times this.

> 
> meta:
> 
> the reason i'm contributing to this discussion is not that i'm proposing to move to some specific other platform right now. it's rather to nudge the consensus away from the conclusion that the email based workflow is good and is worth sticking with.
> 
> once/if we get closer that consensus, only then should the discussion move on to collect our requirements and evaluate the free sw solutions that are available today. which again could be organized much better in a wiki than in email threads, but that's yet another topic...

I just want to call out that my original message was not strictly about 
the email based workflow. I want reduction of cognitive overhead to be 
an ongoing goal, whatever that comes to mean.

--
Katherine