[Python-Dev] Unicode Maintenance

M.-A. Lemburg mal@lemburg.com
Tue, 03 Jul 2001 13:30:05 +0200


Fredrik Lundh wrote:
> 
> > Please let me suggest that for the next coding party you prepare a patch
> > which spans all party checkins and upload that patch with a summary
> > like the above to SF. That way we can keep the documentation of the overall
> > changes in one place and make the process more transparent for everybody.
> 
> Sorry, but as long as Guido wants an open development approach
> based on collective code ownership (aka "egoless programming"),
> that's what he gets.
> 
> The current environment provides several tools to track changes
> to the code base.  The python-checkins list provides instant info
> on every single change to the code base; the investment to track
> tha list is a few minutes per day.  The CVS history is also easy to
> access; you can reach it via the viewcvs interface, or from the
> command line.

I think you misunderstood my suggestion: I didn't say you can't have
a coding party with lots of small checkins, I just suggested that *after*
the party someone does a diff before-and-after-the-party.diff and
uploads this diff to SF with a description of the overall changes.

You simply don't get the big picture from looking at various small 
checkin messages which are sometimes spread across mutliple files/checkins.
 
> Using both CVS and SF's patch manager to track development history
> is a waste of time.  A development project manned by volunteers
> doesn't need bureaucrats; the version control system provides
> all the accountability we'll ever need.
> 
> (commercial development projects doesn't need bureaucrats
> either, and usually don't have them, but that's another story).

Wasn't talking about bureaucrats... 
 
> I'd also argue that using many incremental checkins improves
> quality -- the smaller a change is, the easier it is to understand,
> and the more likely it is that also non-experts will notice simple
> mistakes or portability issues.  (I regularily comment on checkin
> messages that look suspicious codewise, even if I don't know
> anything about the problem area.  I'm even right, sometimes).
> Reviewing big patches on SF is really hard, even for experts.

It's just for keeping a combined record of changes. Following up on
dozens of checkins spanning another dozen files using CVS is 
harder, IMHO, than looking at one single before/after diff.
 
> And every hour a patch sits on sourceforge instead of in the code
> repository is ten hours less burn-in in a heterogenous testing en-
> vironment.  That's worth a lot.

Agreed.
 
> Finally, my experience from this and other projects is that the
> "visible heartbeat" you get from a continuous flow of checkin
> messages improves team productivity and team morale.  No-
> thing is more inspiring than seeing others working for a common
> goal.  It's the final product that matters, not who's in charge of
> what part of it.  The end user couldn't care less.
> 
> I'd prefer if you didn't feel the need to play miniboss on the Python
> project (I'm sure you have plenty of 'mx' projects that you can use
> that approach, if you have to). 

I have no intention of playing "miniboss" (I have enough of that being
the boss of a small company), I'm just trying to keep the task of a code
maintainer manageable; that's all. 'nuff said.

> And I'd rather see you at the next
> party than out there whining over how you missed the last one.

Perhaps you can send around invitations first, before starting the party 
next time ?!

BTW, do you have plans to update the Unicode database to the 3.1
version ? If not, I'll look into this next week.

-- 
Marc-Andre Lemburg
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