[Python-Dev] devguide: Generate patches without code checkout (Was: devguide: Write a guide to committing a patch.)

[Brian Curtin]

On Wed, Feb 2, 2011 at 06:50, anatoly techtonik <techtonik at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Wed, Feb 2, 2011 at 12:27 PM, Nick Coghlan <ncoghlan at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Wed, Feb 2, 2011 at 6:33 PM, anatoly techtonik <techtonik at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >> Making and testing a patch from Python checkout requires compiling
> >> Python, which is not possible for Windows users.
> >
> > That latter comment hasn't been true since Microsoft started releasing
> > the Visual Studio Express editions.
>
> "not possible" here means that practically only a very small percent
> of Python users will go through the hurdles of getting code checkout,
> downloading and installing Visual Studio, compiling project, switching
> their code to use compiled version and finally submitting a patch.
>

In reality this doesn't seem to be the case. In all of the Windows-related
Python issues I've looked at in a year and a half, only a small handful of
the patches or analysis have been based on installed versions or from users
who don't have the capability or interest in setting up the environment. Of
course we welcome those users, but my experience shows them to be the
minority.

Installing Visual Studio is probably one of the more rare steps in the
process, as many Windows-using software developers tend to use it for other
things.

> People that can't check out and build their own version of Python are
> > quite welcome to simply report issues without trying to fix them
> > themselves.
>
> But if they really want for an issue to be fixed, they will need to
> think about preparing a patch.


This is not true at all. It's perfectly acceptable to report an issue and do
nothing further. It certainly helps the process to contribute more, but
we're happy to just get valid bug reports. Someone even made it easy enough
to email report at bugs.python.org so you don't even have to create an account.


> The first time they ask about plans to
> fix the issue, they will be asked to send a patch anyway.


We don't want bugs to linger, but there's only so many developers and so
little time. If you want to know when something will be fixed, a lot of
people will say something like "I won't be able to get to this next week,
unless you have a patch of your own". I don't see anything wrong with that.
In fact, it's pretty common in open source.

This person
> will look into devguide how to send a patch. There will be
> instructions to download Visual Studio, clone repository, compile,
> etc. I doubt this person will have time to do this, but next time the
> person will think twice before reporting.


I've found quite the opposite to be true. The dev guide I wrote for PSF
Sprints, most of which was absorbed into the recently created
http://docs.python.org/devguide/, got many people happily setup to
contribute and I expect the new one to do the same. In fact, I've heard
comments from a number of people that the setup was much easier than they
thought, especially compared to other projects.
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