On 10/17/13 4:01 PM, Vik Fearing wrote:
On 10/17/2013 06:59 PM, Josh Berkus wrote:
Our project has a serious, chronic problem with giving new
patch-submitters a bad experience, and this patch is a good example of
that. The ultimate result is that people go off to contribute to other
projects where submissions are easier and the rules for what gets
accepted are relatively transparent.
That may be true, but it depends on the contributor. I would much
rather be told that my contribution is not up to snuff than what
happened on another project I recently tried to contribute to for the
first time.
A parser refactoring broke my code. I reported it and it was promptly
fixed. When the fix came up for review, I said it needed a regression
test to prevent it from happening again and I was told by the author
that such a test would be "flimsy" and it went on to be committed (by
that same guy) without one. I'm undecided whether I'll be contributing
there any further.
The rigor here makes me want to try and try again.
ISTM the big issue with new contributors is our methodology is rather different
from most other projects, and if you don't understand that you're likely to end
up with negativity towards contributing here. Specifically:
- We place a heavy, HEAVY emphasis on discussion, to the point that you can
easily spend 50x more time on discussing a feature over implementing it.
- We place a very heavy emphasis on "quality", be that testing, not breaking
backwards compatability, etc, etc.
I agree with Vik; I think the way we develop is a feature and not a bug. But I
also think we need to do everything we can to enlighten new contributors so
they don't walk away with a bad taste in their mouth.
--
Jim C. Nasby, Data Architect j...@nasby.net
512.569.9461 (cell) http://jim.nasby.net
--
Sent via pgsql-hackers mailing list (pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org)
To make changes to your subscription:
http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-hackers
