[PythonCAD] Centralized SCM not the problem

[Glenn Meader]

I agree that centralized SCM is not an issue preventing participation by
developers.

Other issues are much more critical.
PythonCAD is a moderately complex application. 
I am a casual developer just learning Python.

One major barrier to my participation is simply figuring out how the code is
architected so that I can understand where to make changes and/or additions.

I spent a bunch of hours on this, submitted some patches for R36, but still
don't know how to get started implementing things.

For example:
Implementing Architectural dimensions (Feet, inches and fractions). I sent
Art some Python code to convert decimal feet to Arch dims, but I can't yet
figure out how to integrate that code into PythonCAD...

I'd also like to add scrollbars to the drawing area, but there's a huge
learning curve to the GTK toolkit, and I don't really understand how
PythonCAD draws into the drawing area enough to understand how implementing
scrolling would affect that.

More detailed code documentation and a detailed spec of the software
architecture would be very helpful. Like: exactly what methods in what
objects are called when a user clicks a button to do something.

-----Original Message-----
From: pythoncad-bounces at python.org [mailto:pythoncad-bounces at python.org] On
Behalf Of Eric Wilhelm
Sent: Thursday, May 24, 2007 4:07 PM
To: pythoncad at python.org
Subject: Re: [PythonCAD] Post R36 plans

# from Art Haas
# on Thursday 24 May 2007 11:59 am:

>One thing I want to do, and I've said it before, is to replace the
>centralized Subversion repository with a distributed SCM.

I have some doubts that this will make that big of a difference to 
contributors.  

That's just my take on it.  I think SCM is fairly minor among the number 
of factors in open-source community building.

While there's no science to it, I think the time/money, skill, and 
motivation factors are more significant.  What is the barrier-to-entry 
for developers and what audience (i.e. profession) are they in?

--Eric