[Python-Dev] Looking for VCS usage scenarios

[Terry Reedy]

Paul Moore wrote:
> 2008/11/5 David Ripton <dripton at ripton.net>:
>> All timings very approximate:
>>
>> Time for average user to check out Python sources with bzr: 10 minutes
>>
>> Time for average user to check out Python sources with git or hg: 1 minute
>>
>> Time for average user's trivial patch to be reviewed and committed: 1 year
>>
>> I love DVCS as much as the next guy, but checkout time is so not the
>> bottleneck for this use case.
> 
> :-) That's a fair point. But it's not the point I was trying to make,
> which is that I'd want whatever DVCS is chosen to make the initial
> experience of a casual user / newcomer as easy as possible. Why
> discourage them in the first 10 minutes (which, BTW, is much faster
> than my experience with bzr last time I tried the Python repo) when we
> can make them suffer for a whole year? :-) :-)

It does get to the point that the current bottleneck is code review, to 
the point that people may not submit patches because it seems nearly 
useless*.  And often, when a patch does get reviewed, the diff is 
obsolete and needs to be redone versus the changed 'current' trunk.  I 
presume that patches as branches would alleviate this last part.

So I think easier review should be a prime consideration for 
infrastructure improvement.  If I go to the tracker now and click on a 
'patch', I get a sometime easy, usually difficult, and sometimes 
impossible to read diff.  With a wide-screen monitor, I would like a 
side-by-side display with differences marked, as with Guido's code 
review tool and other such displays I have seen here and there.

*The current quick review and implementation of doc suggestions and 
patches, on the other hand, has encouraged more submissions from me and, 
I believe, others.