From jaysinhp at gmail.com Fri Sep 9 13:28:18 2016 From: jaysinhp at gmail.com (Jaysinh Shukla) Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 22:58:18 +0530 Subject: [Mailman-Developers] [X-POST] Regarding invition for Dev sprint of Pycon India Message-ID: <161e6ad7-d50c-1441-22ee-389cd0b3c99e@gmail.com> Respected Member, Dev Sprint is the best way to collaborate/guide other contributors physically rather than over IRC / email. We invite this community to join and hack for whole 3 days during the conference. Programmers are dreaming of contributing but they are unable to just because of lacking guidance. It will be a proud moment to mentor participants for whole three days and encourage them to be the active contributor for the project. Large contributing guidelines are always hard to digest. CFP is already started. We invite you to submit a proposal [here](https://in.pycon.org/cfp/dev-sprint-2016/proposals/). Schedule for Dev sprint [Pycon India, New Delhi](https://in.pycon.org) * Day-I: 23rd September 2016 - Full day * Day-II: 24th September 2016 - 5.00 PM to 9.00 PM * Day-III: 25th September 2016 - 5.00 PM to 9.00 PM Note: If you are reading this mail and you believe referring interested contributors will help to represent project well, feel free to drop me a mail. I will try to invite them individually. Many Thanks! From simon.hanna at serve-me.info Mon Sep 12 18:43:51 2016 From: simon.hanna at serve-me.info (Simon Hanna) Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2016 00:43:51 +0200 Subject: [Mailman-Developers] Request to process merge requests faster Message-ID: <3dddf311-a029-2b5f-3f6f-9498a2c37edf@serve-me.info> Hi, I know all core devs are volunteers, and no one is maintaing the Mailman projects full-time, but it's a little frustrating to have your merge request open for a couple of months without any/much reaction to it... I try to keep my merge requests up to date and conflict-free, but having to do this for a couple of months, while there is no clear reason why it's not merged yet, is a little demotivating. In Postorius there have been (and there still are) merge requests by new contributors that were probably abandoned, because quite some time has passed since their creation... Simon From terri at toybox.ca Wed Sep 21 18:24:09 2016 From: terri at toybox.ca (Terri Oda) Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2016 15:24:09 -0700 Subject: [Mailman-Developers] Request to process merge requests faster In-Reply-To: <3dddf311-a029-2b5f-3f6f-9498a2c37edf@serve-me.info> References: <3dddf311-a029-2b5f-3f6f-9498a2c37edf@serve-me.info> Message-ID: <9c54d60a-7a52-07f3-5c1a-6a0a8157233d@toybox.ca> Sorry it's been such a demotivating experience for you. I can't speak for anyone else, but I had some big life events this summer, both expected and unexpected, happy and very sad, and have been too tapped out to handle merge requests at anything resembling a reasonable speed. Florian and I do need to sit down and talk about how to improve things going forwards, but we've barely had time to chat as friends let alone make grand decisions about the project or find another maintainer whose opinion we value. I expect things to get better over the next few months as I start to get my footing under me again and figure out my new schedules, but it's going to be a while before we find a way to handle merge requests at the speed I'd like to have them handled. I know it's not the answer you want to hear, and I would not blame you in the slightest if you want to find another project to contribute to with more active maintainers. Please don't feel bad about finding a more active use of your time. If you need help finding another project, or want an introduction to any of the folk from other projects who participate in GSoC under the Python Software Foundation, please don't hesitate to ask! Terri On 2016-09-12 3:43 PM, Simon Hanna wrote: > Hi, > > I know all core devs are volunteers, and no one is maintaing the Mailman > projects full-time, but it's a little frustrating to have your merge > request open for a couple of months without any/much reaction to it... > > I try to keep my merge requests up to date and conflict-free, but having > to do this for a couple of months, while there is no clear reason why > it's not merged yet, is a little demotivating. > > In Postorius there have been (and there still are) merge requests by new > contributors that were probably abandoned, because quite some time has > passed since their creation... > > Simon > > _______________________________________________ > Mailman-Developers mailing list > Mailman-Developers at python.org > https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/mailman-developers > Mailman FAQ: http://wiki.list.org/x/AgA3 > Searchable Archives: > http://www.mail-archive.com/mailman-developers%40python.org/ > Unsubscribe: > https://mail.python.org/mailman/options/mailman-developers/terri%40toybox.ca > > > Security Policy: http://wiki.list.org/x/QIA9 > From turnbull.stephen.fw at u.tsukuba.ac.jp Thu Sep 22 00:33:52 2016 From: turnbull.stephen.fw at u.tsukuba.ac.jp (Stephen J. Turnbull) Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2016 13:33:52 +0900 Subject: [Mailman-Developers] Request to process merge requests faster In-Reply-To: <9c54d60a-7a52-07f3-5c1a-6a0a8157233d@toybox.ca> References: <3dddf311-a029-2b5f-3f6f-9498a2c37edf@serve-me.info> <9c54d60a-7a52-07f3-5c1a-6a0a8157233d@toybox.ca> Message-ID: <22499.24368.900821.446220@turnbull.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp> Terri Oda writes: > I can't speak for anyone else, but I had some big life events this > summer, So have others, though I won't speak for them either. > > I know all core devs are volunteers, and no one is maintaing the > > Mailman projects full-time, but it's a little frustrating to have > > your merge request open for a couple of months without any/much > > reaction to it... That's the way things work, though. Sure, it is better in some projects for a while, but I don't know any project which maintained a backlog-free status for very long, even with paid developers (see below). > > I try to keep my merge requests up to date and conflict-free, I recommend not doing that unless there's committer interest or you're using the patch in a branch that tracks trunk anyway. I generally update once after a comment from a core person just in case they might follow up with concrete improvements or intention-to-commit, but not during periods of silence. Every once in a while I look up, update, and ping the dev list for attention. (This is also a common practice on Python-Dev, which is where I picked it up.) > > but having to do this for a couple of months, while there is no clear > > reason why it's not merged yet, is a little demotivating. There probably is no clear reason why it's not merged. Some non-core developers get their patches merged very quickly, because they propose patches that resonate with the core developers' interests and tastes. I've noticed that your interests are not so well-aligned with Terri and Florian (or with me, for that matter). There's nothing "wrong" with that, and in the long run skew directions are often the most profitable. But in the short run it does make it harder for the committers to make a decision to merge. They have to stretch, and do slow-think analysis, rather than just "get it" with fast-think pattern matching. Yes, this does mean there's discrimination in the sense that some people just get their patches merged faster than others do. But it's not arbitrary discrimination; it's based on cognitive costs that have to be paid by somebody. The Bazaar project for one or two years ran a near-zero backlog by assigning a "patch pilot" whose responsibility was to help non- committers negotiate their baroque process (not to mention one of the most overelaborated APIs I've ever seen). But the patch pilots were paid developers (though they volunteered for the service, nobody considered it a "fun" assignment), and the project basically died when Canonical defunded it and reassigned the developers (not just the patch pilot program, all organized release activity). They did a good job, while the funding lasted, but in the end, they were not an exception to the "all projects have a backlog" rule. For you, you have three main alternatives: (1) find a project where your way of thinking resonates with the committers -- not only will your patches be merged quickly, but you'll probably be invited into the core relatively quickly (2) work on aligning your thinking about the Mailman suite with the core developers (often called "drinking the Kool-Aid", but no question, it's work, not just a matter of beverage of choice) (3) be yourself, work on Mailman suite, and practice patience. None would be your first choice, but I don't see a better available alternative than choosing among those three (or some combination, depending on how much time you have to devote to multiple projects). By the way, (1) is hard to do. Normally you want to contribute something where you've scratched an itch, but almost by definition the core doesn't have an itch there. So new contributors generally find themselves somewhat misaligned. > > In Postorius there have been (and there still are) merge requests > > by new contributors that were probably abandoned, because quite > > some time has passed since their creation... If you really care about that, as opposed to criticizing the core's practices, choose option (2). Then you not only will get your patches merged (or you'll decide to withdraw them as inappropriate in like of "Postorius-think"), but you'll likely be invited to become a committer, at which point you can help with the backlog. Once again, let me emphasize that I don't want to put anybody down. I believe the "cognitive costs" are real, somebody has to pay them, and that's what I'm trying to argue here. Regards, Steve