[SciPy-dev] Scipy workflow (and not tools).

[Charles R Harris]

On Thu, Feb 26, 2009 at 9:31 AM, Ondrej Certik <ondrej at certik.cz> wrote:

> On Thu, Feb 26, 2009 at 5:55 AM, Alex Griffing <argriffi at ncsu.edu> wrote:
> >
> >> I'm another long-time lurker who's been thinking about contributing for
> >> a while but who's been a bit uncertain about where to start. These
> >> discussions, plus the git branches Pauli has created, are encouraging me
> >> greatly to roll up my sleeves and delve in.
> >>
> >> Cheers,
> >> Gareth.
> >
> > Hi I'm also mostly a lurker.  Here's a story about the time I tried to
> > contribute to scipy.
> >
> > Maybe a year ago I wanted a procedure to attempt to optimize some aspect
> > of a multidimensional function.  I found scipy.optimize, but the
> > procedure that I tried failed by dividing by zero.  Undaunted, I started
> > digging in the scipy source code, finding the error in the broyden2
> > function.  The problem was that the algorithm was finding the correct
> > solution in fewer than the default number of iterations and was dividing
> > by an error term that was zero.
> >
> > I sent an email to a scipy mailing list saying that this function needed
> > some kind of check to see if it was done (error near zero) so that it
> > could stop iterating so that it would not divide by zero.  I got a reply
> > saying that I needed to write a patch that included the fix to the
> > function and a new test that used to fail but that now passes.  So I
> > simplified my failing code, I changed the broyden2 function in a way
> > that I thought would fix the problem, and I sent the code to the mailing
> > list.  I got a reply saying that what they meant by a patch was an svn
> diff.
> >
> > So I installed svn and I checked out the scipy code with the idea that I
> > could change my local copy, test my changes, and send the diff to the
> > mailing list.  After spending some time trying to get this working, I
> > stopped for the following reasons:
> >
> > 1) Binary format and path problems were causing me grief.
> > 2) I already had a scipy that worked, and I didn't want to break this.
> > 3) Neil's comment:
> > """
> > If I want to make a change, I have to check out the trunk and then
> > develop my change *completely without the benefit of version control*.
> > I am not allowed to make any intermediate commits while I learn my way
> > through the coding process.  I must submit a fully formed patch without
> > ever being able to checkpoint my own progress.  This is basically a
> > deal-breaker for me.
> > """
> >
>
> Hi Alex,
>
> it was my who was trying to help you with this. The problem was, that
> people who have svn access to scipy (e.g. I don't) are very busy, and
> do you must submit your patches in a way so that it is easy for them
> to apply it. I agree that git is much easier to use for that, but imho
> it's not difficult to create a patch with svn as well, especially if
> you have a working scipy on your computer.
>

Do you want SVN access?

Chuck
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