A large part of the bar being so high is that this is not easy! GPUs are tough, fickle beasts to master, requiring more code than just about any other bit of dedicated HW to setup and use. Each GPU is different, and the documentation on each GPU (when it exists) often lacks the deep details needed to actually pull all the functionality together. This kind of information is, more often than not, put directly into the source code, and if it's weird enough, it'll get a comment too, but we don't maintain exhaustive lists of errata or tricky things like some other communities do, because they're unfixable and unchangeable. In my experience, other communities document these things primarily so they can get fixed later, but GPUs can't be changed.
We *do* answer questions when we have the time. However, the amateurs are busy with other things (for example, I'm a full-time student, part-time coder, part-time musician) and the pros are either working for distros, in which case they aren't paid to answer your questions, or they're TG/VMWare, in which case they probably can't help as much as you'd like with GPU-specific questions. Additionally, the community really has two halves. The mailing list is great for Mesa/Gallium questions, as all the Gallium designers are on here, but you won't get much help with a chipset-specific query. For that, you've gotta go to IRC; the Big Three all have channels dedicated to GPU development: #intel-gfx, #nouveau, and #radeon, all on Freenode. The bar's getting lower all the time, but spending a couple hours on Wikipedia learning about rasterizer-driven pipelines and the basics of computer graphics will go a long way towards understanding what's going on in the code. On Tue, Jan 26, 2010 at 4:33 AM, José Fonseca <jfons...@vmware.com> wrote: > On Mon, 2010-01-25 at 23:28 -0800, Uros Nedic wrote: >> First of all I consider myself as experienced C/C++/Java programmer. >> Even tough I know other languages this is my primary area of >> expertise. >> Also I have very good background in CS, mathematics, etc. >> >> >> What I wanted to say is that rapidly-changing GPU architectures market >> is not possible to track if you are not spending significant amount >> of time to learn about it and to keep informed. Learning curve is just >> to high. >> >> >> At the same time guys from Gallium started one really nice project, >> where I found myself. I saw that in Windows world something similar >> is happening. Ultimately, it is industry trend. >> >> >> I wanted to join to gallium community and asked one of leaders to >> tell me number of people, etc. His conversation with me was rather >> tough than welcomed. All I got is that I have to write to mesa3d-dev >> and hope that anyone would respond. >> >> >> Exactly as one developer noticed - I had to "hijack" thread in hope >> that anyone would read it. It looks like my idea succeeded. We are >> talking about that now. >> >> >> Another thing that bother me, is that gallium community is very small >> but worse thing is that some of people who are working on gallium are >> very hard to approach, even arrogant. This is certainly not way how to >> build successful society, for sure. It looks like that they consider >> themselves as that they have some "mission" and stuffs like community >> are not important at all. >> >> >> Documentation, as an example, fits perfectly into my story. There is >> no >> successful community if there aren't good documentation. I really do >> not know how do you imagine to develop any large-scale project if >> you do not develop documentation concurrently with code!? >> Documentation >> is at least important as source code is (read Donald Knuth!). >> >> >> But if some developers (I do not want to say all!) consider themselves >> as a "higher class" then they will get corresponding community >> response. >> >> >> I would like to start contributing to gallium community but behavior >> of some developers and luck of documentation simply rejects me from >> that. >> This is my final call that you make revision of your current policy >> to the rest of the world (community), and to apologize and start to >> communicate. >> >> >> Regards, >> Uros Nedic, MSc > > Uros, > > You're right went you say documentation would increase community size. > More importantly, the life of the already existing developer community > would be easier if there was more documentation. We all agree on this, > and things have lately been going in the right direction, as a spec is > being written. > > But documentation is not an absolute requirement to join. I complained > about lack of documentation 8 years ago, but I didn't stop -- I analyzed > the whole archive of mesa3d-dev and dri-dev mailing lists, created FAQs, > glossaries, a wiki. A lot of that material is in todays' DRI wiki still. > > The problem is here is developer's time. And once in a while you see a > newbie demanding documentation, personalized help, or pushing their > vision of what the architecture should look like. And we really have no > time to produce that documentation immediately, explaining basic stuff, > or argue why things are as they are. Probably you're better than one of > them, but unfortunately you sounded like one, and that's probably why > this harsh reaction. > > In summary, it is not our intention to be elitist and put the entry bar > high to avoid newbies, but we simply do not have the time to lower the > bar ourselves. If newbies are really serious about participating and > joining development, they will have to surpass the hurdles themselves > and hopefully help lower the entry bar while they still remember how > difficult it is to get started on this. > > Jose > > > -- Only fools are easily impressed by what is only barely beyond their reach. ~ Unknown Corbin Simpson <mostawesomed...@gmail.com> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Planet: dedicated and managed hosting, cloud storage, colocation Stay online with enterprise data centers and the best network in the business Choose flexible plans and management services without long-term contracts Personal 24x7 support from experience hosting pros just a phone call away. http://p.sf.net/sfu/theplanet-com _______________________________________________ Mesa3d-dev mailing list Mesa3d-dev@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/mesa3d-dev
