From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: from lists.gentoo.org (pigeon.gentoo.org [208.92.234.80]) by finch.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id DD2D513838B for ; Tue, 29 Sep 2015 19:35:21 +0000 (UTC) Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 67D2EE0883; Tue, 29 Sep 2015 19:35:12 +0000 (UTC) Received: from mail.muc.de (mail.muc.de [193.149.48.3]) (using TLSv1 with cipher DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id CB772E0866 for ; Tue, 29 Sep 2015 19:35:10 +0000 (UTC) Received: (qmail 24915 invoked by uid 3782); 29 Sep 2015 19:35:08 -0000 Received: from acm.muc.de (p5B1472C1.dip0.t-ipconnect.de [91.20.114.193]) by colin.muc.de (tmda-ofmipd) with ESMTP; Tue, 29 Sep 2015 21:35:07 +0200 Received: (qmail 15594 invoked by uid 1000); 29 Sep 2015 19:36:35 -0000 Date: Tue, 29 Sep 2015 19:36:35 +0000 To: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] update problems Message-ID: <20150929193635.GA2385@acm.fritz.box> References: <87eghucic9.fsf@heimdali.yagibdah.de> <55FDBE16.1070404@gmail.com> <87pp15ecli.fsf@heimdali.yagibdah.de> <56068293.6090201@gmail.com> <87vbav3c4n.fsf@heimdali.yagibdah.de> <56085FB7.1020703@gmail.com> <874mie88cm.fsf@heimdali.yagibdah.de> <20150929010950.2e8ce0ca@digimed.co.uk> <878u7p12vd.fsf@heimdali.yagibdah.de> Precedence: bulk List-Post: List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Id: Gentoo Linux mail X-BeenThere: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Reply-to: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <878u7p12vd.fsf@heimdali.yagibdah.de> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.23 (2014-03-12) X-Delivery-Agent: TMDA/1.1.12 (Macallan) From: Alan Mackenzie X-Primary-Address: acm@muc.de X-Archives-Salt: 12374c4b-136a-4210-b648-6057780c6c41 X-Archives-Hash: 291287717cfd5e86b72c9615ed73f0dd Hello, Lee. On Tue, Sep 29, 2015 at 08:45:10PM +0200, lee wrote: > Neil Bothwick writes: > > Patches are always more welcome than suggestions. "Fix it!" is never as > > welcome as "here's how". I think it was Canek who said "code talks". > Do you have an example for such a case? Yes, many. I'm a contributor to Emacs, and relatively frequently (perhaps 10 - 30 times a yeaar) somebody reports a bug and simultaneously submits a patch for it. This is always well received, and the patch is usually applied, sometimes with a bit of to and fro and negotiation, sometimes after waiting for the tedious paperwork to be completed. One of my own first contributions was a request for an enhancement (to enable scrolling during an incremental search) together with a rough, but working patch. After some amendments, this was applied. On the other hand, "wouldn't X be a good idea"s which reach the mailing list only rarely get taken up by regular contributors - there's only so much time in the day, and such hackers usually have plenty of Xs of their own to fill their time with. > My experience has disproved this claim, and I've even seen people > fixing stuff multiple times after I told them it's broken and provided > a perfectly working version before telling them, much better coded, > which they could have used instead of insisting on their crappy code > and trying to fix it several times. That's not very friendly, and hardly inclined to gain extra contributors for your project. A gentle guiding hand, helping these other people to reach a satisfactory fix themselves, would work much better. [ .... ] > > On the contrary, it serves to illustrate that you do not grasp the > > complexity of the situation. > Perhaps you can enlighten me how it is so difficult to change a message > from "slot conflict" to "slot conflict (can probably be ignored while > there are other problems)" and what the complexity is which makes it > impossible to do so. It's not difficult, it's just tedious. Something like that which is user facing needs to be agreed by the core of the project, and getting that agreement tends to involve lots of bike shedding on the project mailing lists - there's always a few people who'll prefer the message to stay the same. Then there's all the stuff about writing change logs for the change and commiting it. Such a tiny change is scarcely achievable in less than an hour. To the core developers, it barely seems worth it. -- Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).