On Aug 19, 2009, at 5:29 AM, Martin Pool wrote:
Well, I'd say the most important information we want to give the opportunistic hacker is (to tease it out a bit)1- you can get a copy of this code - it's pretty quick and easy - you need to use Bazaar, and install it if you don't already - you probably want a shared repo directory - and then you type blahdeblah (**) - and then you'll have a working tree 2- you can also share your own changes to this code - for free - you should make your own branch locally, within a shared repo - then push it to Launchpad under a sensible name - you'll need to register and set an SSH key first - then you might want to link it to a bug or propose a merge I think the problem with the draft is we're focusing on just one element (**) of this, but realistically if you don't know the rest of it typing that command isn't super helpful, and if you do know the rest of it all you need is the url. That's why I think we need to actually guide people into some kind of mini-explanation that can be hidden once you know it. I guess the commands will often give somebody at least some kind of copy of the code, but it's not the best explanation we could give. I do think too that we could look at cutting steps from this by eg avoiding separate creation of a shared repo, or having a browser mime or url handler to kick off bzr.
I think we have to, because if I had to read all that to look at some unfamiliar code in an unfamiliar VCS, I think I'd run away quickly!
I'm not sure all that information is necessary though. Thinking about how I make commando patches, I really want to just grab the code and start hacking immediately. So the 'get a copy' instructions are crucial and I don't care right away if that's got built-in efficiencies for later, and I probably don't even care about pushing changes back. Maybe I'll make a patch or maybe I'll abandon my hacking when I realize what a hornets nest the code is. Point being, when there's a bug in some foreign code that's annoying me and that I think I can fix, I really want to go from threshold-of-pain to debugging-a-local-running-copy in as few steps as possible. I don't need to know anything about git to run some monkeycommand to get a local copy of the source.
-Barry
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