Re: [Python-Dev] [Python-checkins] devguide: Strip out all generic svn instructions from the FAQ. It's not only
On Wed, Jan 5, 2011 at 5:55 AM, brett.cannon <python-checkins@python.org> wrote:
brett.cannon pushed 72a286c3452d to devguide:
http://hg.python.org/devguide/rev/72a286c3452d changeset: 13:72a286c3452d user: Brett Cannon <brett@python.org> date: Tue Jan 04 11:48:38 2011 -0800 summary: Strip out all generic svn instructions from the FAQ. It's not only silly to duplicate instructions that can be found all over the internet that are maintained by the creators of the tools under discussion, but it's a maintenance burden that is unneeded.
Your call as the author, but please reconsider this one. I've found it *hugely* convenient over the years to have these task oriented answers in the FAQ. The problem with the answers all over the internet is that I (or someone new to our source control tool) may not know enough to ask the right question, and hence those answers may as well not exist. Even if these FAQ answers don't always provide everything needed, they usually provide enough information to let me search for the full answers. Cheers, Nick. -- Nick Coghlan | ncoghlan@gmail.com | Brisbane, Australia
On Wed, Jan 5, 2011 at 04:13, Nick Coghlan <ncoghlan@gmail.com> wrote:
On Wed, Jan 5, 2011 at 5:55 AM, brett.cannon <python-checkins@python.org> wrote:
brett.cannon pushed 72a286c3452d to devguide:
http://hg.python.org/devguide/rev/72a286c3452d changeset: 13:72a286c3452d user: Brett Cannon <brett@python.org> date: Tue Jan 04 11:48:38 2011 -0800 summary: Strip out all generic svn instructions from the FAQ. It's not only silly to duplicate instructions that can be found all over the internet that are maintained by the creators of the tools under discussion, but it's a maintenance burden that is unneeded.
Your call as the author, but please reconsider this one. I've found it *hugely* convenient over the years to have these task oriented answers in the FAQ. The problem with the answers all over the internet is that I (or someone new to our source control tool) may not know enough to ask the right question, and hence those answers may as well not exist. Even if these FAQ answers don't always provide everything needed, they usually provide enough information to let me search for the full answers.
I agree with Nick here. I also found these instructions useful in the past, although I'm quite familiar with SVN. New devs interested in contributing to Python but not too familiar with the source-control tool it's using at the time will benefit even more from this. As for maintenance nightmare, I'm sure it's simple enough to attract contributors. For example, I can volunteer to maintain it. Eli
On 1/5/2011 1:18 AM, Eli Bendersky wrote:
On Wed, Jan 5, 2011 at 04:13, Nick Coghlan <ncoghlan@gmail.com
Your call as the author, but please reconsider this one. I've found it *hugely* convenient over the years to have these task oriented answers in the FAQ. The problem with the answers all over the internet is that I (or someone new to our source control tool) may not know enough to ask the right question, and hence those answers may as well not exist. Even if these FAQ answers don't always provide everything needed, they usually provide enough information to let me search for the full answers.
I agree with Nick here. I also found these instructions useful in the past, although I'm quite familiar with SVN. New devs interested in contributing to Python but not too familiar with the source-control tool it's using at the time will benefit even more from this.
As for maintenance nightmare, I'm sure it's simple enough to attract contributors. For example, I can volunteer to maintain it.
As a complete neophyte at actually using a source code system, I found the stripped-down step-by-step instructions useful even though I am using TortoiseSVN. Even the TortoiseSVN help doc is a bit overwhelming because it includes so much that I do not need to read. It would be a bit like a beginning programmer trying to learn Python from the Langauge Reference without having the Tutorial to read. (And even as an experienced C programmer, I started with the latter.) -- Terry Jan Reedy
To those that want to keep those steps in the dev FAQ, go ahead but I recuse myself from maintaining it. Having had so many instances of people asking "how do I do this?" and me almost always able to go "read the dev FAQ" has basically made me feel like it is not worth the effort if people are not going to bother to check it and just simply ask how to do things. The copy of the dev FAQ on the website has not been touched, so me cutting this stuff out so I know what has and has not been covered has no permanent impact. Plus having the devguide on hg.python.org and not the website means anyone with commit rights can modify the devguide, including adding/maintaining a dev FAQ on common VCS/SSH/whatever tools. On Wed, Jan 5, 2011 at 01:08, Terry Reedy <tjreedy@udel.edu> wrote:
On 1/5/2011 1:18 AM, Eli Bendersky wrote:
On Wed, Jan 5, 2011 at 04:13, Nick Coghlan <ncoghlan@gmail.com
Your call as the author, but please reconsider this one. I've found it *hugely* convenient over the years to have these task oriented answers in the FAQ. The problem with the answers all over the internet is that I (or someone new to our source control tool) may not know enough to ask the right question, and hence those answers may as well not exist. Even if these FAQ answers don't always provide everything needed, they usually provide enough information to let me search for the full answers.
I agree with Nick here. I also found these instructions useful in the past, although I'm quite familiar with SVN. New devs interested in contributing to Python but not too familiar with the source-control tool it's using at the time will benefit even more from this.
As for maintenance nightmare, I'm sure it's simple enough to attract contributors. For example, I can volunteer to maintain it.
As a complete neophyte at actually using a source code system, I found the stripped-down step-by-step instructions useful even though I am using TortoiseSVN. Even the TortoiseSVN help doc is a bit overwhelming because it includes so much that I do not need to read. It would be a bit like a beginning programmer trying to learn Python from the Langauge Reference without having the Tutorial to read. (And even as an experienced C programmer, I started with the latter.)
-- Terry Jan Reedy
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On 05/01/2011 18:37, Brett Cannon wrote:
To those that want to keep those steps in the dev FAQ, go ahead but I recuse myself from maintaining it. Having had so many instances of people asking "how do I do this?" and me almost always able to go "read the dev FAQ" has basically made me feel like it is not worth the effort if people are not going to bother to check it and just simply ask how to do things.
I think you have it backwards. The benefit of having a FAQ is not that people read it first (they will almost never do that) but that you have a single place to send them when they ask the questions. It sounds like it's working! :-) All the best, Michael Foord
The copy of the dev FAQ on the website has not been touched, so me cutting this stuff out so I know what has and has not been covered has no permanent impact. Plus having the devguide on hg.python.org and not the website means anyone with commit rights can modify the devguide, including adding/maintaining a dev FAQ on common VCS/SSH/whatever tools.
On Wed, Jan 5, 2011 at 01:08, Terry Reedy<tjreedy@udel.edu> wrote:
On Wed, Jan 5, 2011 at 04:13, Nick Coghlan<ncoghlan@gmail.com Your call as the author, but please reconsider this one. I've found it *hugely* convenient over the years to have these task oriented answers in the FAQ. The problem with the answers all over the internet is that I (or someone new to our source control tool) may not know enough to ask the right question, and hence those answers may as well not exist. Even if these FAQ answers don't always provide everything needed, they usually provide enough information to let me search for the full answers.
I agree with Nick here. I also found these instructions useful in the past, although I'm quite familiar with SVN. New devs interested in contributing to Python but not too familiar with the source-control tool it's using at the time will benefit even more from this.
As for maintenance nightmare, I'm sure it's simple enough to attract contributors. For example, I can volunteer to maintain it. As a complete neophyte at actually using a source code system, I found the stripped-down step-by-step instructions useful even though I am using TortoiseSVN. Even the TortoiseSVN help doc is a bit overwhelming because it includes so much that I do not need to read. It would be a bit like a beginning programmer trying to learn Python from the Langauge Reference without having the Tutorial to read. (And even as an experienced C
On 1/5/2011 1:18 AM, Eli Bendersky wrote: programmer, I started with the latter.)
-- Terry Jan Reedy
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On Thu, Jan 6, 2011 at 10:24 PM, Michael Foord <fuzzyman@voidspace.org.uk> wrote:
I think you have it backwards. The benefit of having a FAQ is not that people read it first (they will almost never do that) but that you have a single place to send them when they ask the questions. It sounds like it's working! :-)
I believe it's also the case that *any given person* usually only needs to be sent to the dev FAQ once :) Still, Brett's right that any of us will be able to add the source control cheat sheet once he has finished with the basic structure of the dev guide. Cheers, Nick. -- Nick Coghlan | ncoghlan@gmail.com | Brisbane, Australia
participants (5)
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Brett Cannon -
Eli Bendersky -
Michael Foord -
Nick Coghlan -
Terry Reedy