Re: [gentoo-dev] Attracting developers (Re: Packages up for grabs...)

[Jeroen Roovers]

On Thu, 27 Dec 2012 05:39:00 +1300
Kent Fredric <kentfredric@×××××.com> wrote:

> On 19/12/2012 10:03 p.m., Michał Górny wrote:
> > If I were to throw random ideas, I'd think about letting new
> > recruits did all commits through a proxy (mentor?). Of course, it
> > all would be easier if we used git.

For once someone suggests a single good case where git beats CVS for
portage tree changes: easily checking suggested changes ...

> I know this side question of "git" migration is one we want to avoid
> discussing, I know its in progress.
>
> But I am literally waiting for it to happen, because for whatever
> reason, the present barriers to contribution are too high for me
> without it.

... and yet someone will always turn up, ignore the context, and write
another rant about git.

> I can't put an exact finger on it, but devs seem to think the quiz
> methodology is "easy", but it ( oh, and CVS ) are a high barrier to
> entry for me.

For tree commits, we don't use complex CVS features at all. It isn't and
shouldn't be used as a development repository, so you need to know about
`cvs {add,commit,remove}', mainly. Most of the `cvs commit' instances
are normally handled by repoman.

> I don't have the time/motivation/focus required to commit to even
> completing the quizzes, and I don't have the time/motivation/focus
> really required to be a "full dev", and I don't even want to be a
> "Full dev" really.
>
> But I basically have found every time I've done the quiz, its
> eventually boiled down to a cycle of
>
> 1. Read quiz
> 2. Find it hard to find documentation on
> 3. Search for
> 4. Get lost
> 5. Find the resulting information I eventually find is vague and
> confusing with regard to the question.
> 6. Eventually get distracted and do something other than the rest of
> the quiz.

[More of the same...]

What you want to do is contact your mentor - that is the person who
should be able to point out where to find the actual answer or just
tell you what the answer is - the point of the quizes is to properly
teach you how things work, not how to find out how things work.

> Can we short cut the whole quiz process and have some "Inbound"
> repository until we're full git, which people can fork/commit/pull
> and trusted people can review submitted branches and apply them to
> CVS?

You can mail or pastebin someone a diff right now or attach it to a bug
report. If every recruit/mentor team worked that way right now, we
would already catch a lot more problems much earlier.

> Because I feel its quite possible partly that CVS is due to blame
> ( due to requiring of trusted commit, which requires the questions )
> that there is difficulty getting devs, and the longer we're stuck
> with it, the more it will be a problem.

A shiny new workflow doesn't magically make Gentoo development easier.
The hard bits aren't usually related to interactive repo access methods.

We can't get rid of the quizes just because we all now use $shiny.

>
> It could actually be just the Proxy Maintainer workflow is not clear
> enough, or simple enough, and that we need more push towards a more
> heavy proxy-maintainer based system ( I don't know, I'm ignorant to
> too much of proxy-maintainer-ship stuff,  to discern /why/ that is
> might be difficult, but I'd imagine my ignorance is part of the
> problem )

Proxy commits should work exactly like recruit/mentor commits: you
review patches and give the nod and then the commits get done. This
workflow is only slightly less convenient with CVS than with git.



     jer


---
I could be a brilliant programmer if someone wrote the perfect IDE for
me.