The core problem is fragmentation. I would follow Hop development more
closely if I wouldn't have to monitor yet another chat client. Having
one source of truth, is what we should strive for. Again, this doesn't
mean getting rid of the chat but all design discussions should live on
the dev mailing list. Alternatively, a summary could be posted.
Mailing lists and chats are two mediums. Generally, I find that the
mailing lists are better suited for archival because more thinking goes
into the writing.
On the other hand I found it surprisingly hard to find anything in the Apache
mailing list archives.
@Matt I'm not sure which service you used to search the mailing list but
from my experience,
https://lists.apache.org/[email protected] works quite well.
-Max
On 11.01.21 11:08, Matt Casters wrote:
Again, nobody is disagreeing in principle. However, I personally don't
think this is as black and white is being stated by the mentors.
First off, Julian made it seem like we're using some sort of locked down
medium for the chat. Let me state here on the record that the Mattermost
server is open source and that we don't have any limits on the discussion
archive. It's as such quite different from free Slack functionality.
For all practical intents and purposes we are actually archiving
everything. It's easy to get on the system without limitations. It's also
very easy to find something by using the search functions.
On the other hand I found it surprisingly hard to find anything in the
Apache mailing list archives. Perhaps these need a software update as well?
I just think that the gap between both is too wide. Imagine having a
"discussion" on look & feel, images and so on on the dev mailing list? I
can tell you right away it's just not practical no matter who wants to
decide what on the topic.
Furthermore, now that you have me going on this tangent... the concerns
that are being raised by ASF surely cover major decisions and not
day-to-day small trivia? Who on Earth is going to argue about minor details
of any project? We trust people to commit to the source code but we
somehow need to somehow see everything that was said and only via a mailing
list?
Anyway, we'll do our best. I've reminded everyone to subscribe to this
mailing list.
The name of the chat server was changed to Apache Hop.
We're looking into creating an archive for all chat channels.
Matt
On Sun, Jan 10, 2021 at 10:12 PM Julian Hyde <[email protected]> wrote:
Yes, chat is excellent for discussions. That’s actually the problem.
Discussions (and therefore decisions) will naturally happen on chat. It’s
great for people who happen to be on chat, but people who are not on chat
will be excluded.
So, we need to make a conscious effort to move discussions off of chat and
onto dev@ if they look likely to result in a decision.
I’m not saying we should ban chat. Just be careful how chat is used.
By the way, a lot of Apache communities face this or similar problems. For
example, I know of one or two projects that started in China and have a
strong temptation to use Chinese, which is efficient for them but makes the
rest of us feel excluded. It’s difficult for those projects to grow beyond
their original country.
The other suggestions in my email were to create a public, read-only
archive of chat so that people can see what has been happening, and to more
strongly encourage people to join the dev list, not just chat. I think it
is important that we do those.
Julian
On Jan 6, 2021, at 1:54 PM, Matt Casters <[email protected]>
wrote:
I don't disagree with Julian but for that specific example I indeed
mentioned this first on dev when I stated how I felt about how important
these integration tests are ... to me.
I'm not sure it warrants a specific discussion since the devs seem to be
on
the same wavelength on the subject.
Where I do disagree is that chat is excellent for discussions and
throwing
ideas against the wall to see if they stick.
The way we typically seem to do it is to just ping an idea back and forth
and throw it in JIRA in some form.
These cases indeed are always visible and remembered more easily than on
chats or mailing lists.
On Wed, Jan 6, 2021 at 10:24 PM Julian Hyde <[email protected]> wrote:
I am a bit concerned about Hop's use of Chat. To be clear, Apache
projects use chat rooms (e.g. Slack, IRC) and they are a good way to
get questions answered quickly and to build a sense of community.
First, I am concerned about the lack of a public archive. People who
want to read the chat have to first sign up. (Hopefully, I am
mistaken. If so, please post a link to the archive on the site.)
Second, let's fix the branding on Chat. Currently it is under the
project-hop.org domain, and the project is called 'hop'. No 'apache'
in sight.
Third, at Apache we have a rule 'if it doesn't happen on dev it didn't
happen', i.e. don't make decisions off the mailing list. The
conversation on chat is generally pretty benign, but I saw one
exception: this one from Matt Casters:
I would like to set a goal of having a substantial set of integration
tests
for 1.0. The bare minimum seems to be all the popular most often used
transforms and actions. I know that this far exceeds what P5o and
Kettle had but stability is really important.
That discussion should have been on the dev list.
Last, according to the latest incubator report [1], a lot more people
are signed up for chat than for the dev list (122 vs 22). I am
concerned that, with such a disparity in membership, Chat will become
the de facto place that people discuss important matters. I think the
solution is to increase the number of people on the dev list, and to
continue to drive significant discussions onto off of Chat and onto
dev@.
Julian
[1] https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/INCUBATOR/January2021
--
Neo4j Chief Solutions Architect
*✉ *[email protected]
☎ +32486972937
