3 ms·

There was a long thread on the topic in the emacs-dev mailing list not too long ago that generated a heated discussion of over half-a-thousand messages (where m

There was a long thread on the topic in the emacs-dev mailing list not too long ago that generated a heated discussion of over half-a-thousand messages (where most of it was around "the proper way of sending patches"). I'm not trying to start another flamewar. The basic notion is that the email threads model is focused around the subject line, and PR-model is specifically designed to have discussions where the code changes take the main stage. I'm sure if you ask Jonas Bernoulli, Steve Purcell, Oleh Krehel, Bozhidar Batsov, and many other prominent Emacs hackers, they'd probably agree, without PR-model, it would be a lot harder for them to find so many contributors for great Emacs packages they authored and maintain. To be honest, it feels a bit ironic when the shepherds of Free Software (GNU hackers, et al.) choose to ignore the people's free will, and in 2020 it is clear - people have made their choice. They don't want to deal with email threads, patches, etc. The majority of developers prefer to be able to issue Pull-Requests instead. But there's something else, there's now an entire generation of software developers who simply don't know how to deal with sending patches, etc., and they don't even care. And that's not a good trend. The issue of patches vs. pull-requests has become generational. And if the old software projects fail to adapt, I'm afraid they'd slowly start dying.

bzg 6y ago
"But there's something else, there's now an entire generation of software developers who simply don't know how to deal with sending patches, etc., and they don't even care. And that's not a good trend." Agreed. I hope https://sr.ht https://sr.ht can help resisting this trend. I'm sure there are plenty of happy Git(Lab/Hub) users here but again, I'm not convinced these platforms would fit Org's needs.
- shaunxcode 6y ago
  Interesting, I did not expect to find fennel there!
- tikej 6y ago
  I'm a beginner in elisp (and tbh in programming in general) but would like to help. For me pull request model is much more natural than mailing lists and patches. It doesn't matter at all if its GitHub, GitLab or (my personal preference as it's lightweight, open source and easy to use) Gitea (interestingly it's not present in comparison on https://forgeperf.org https://forgeperf.org). I don't even know how to make PR on sourcehut and can't find any tutorial. Of course I will try to learn in order to help org but the entry barrier is much higher than for Git(Lab/Hub/ea). EDIT: I just found orgmode code on Gogs here: https://code.orgmode.org/bzg/org-mode https://code.orgmode.org/bzg/org-mode That's great! I'll register and try to help soon! Mabye it should be more visible and linked in docs (I'll... make a PR I suppose? :)
  - moonchild 6y ago
    You can still do pull requests over email. Rather than attaching a patch, you simply send a link to your git repository (+branch if applicable), and the maintainer can pull from it.
  - bzg 6y ago
    We don't use code.orgmode.org for Org's development. But please clone Org's repo, make a patch - perhaps with https://magit.vc https://magit.vc - and attach it to an email you send to emacs-orgmode@gnu.org: that's all it takes. Then we will help with polishing your contribution :)
    - iLemming 6y ago
      Alright. Now, let's say everyone is busy, and the maintainers have no time to review the patch. Who's going to remember that someone sent an email with some improvements a few months later? AFAIK There's no easy way to find all the emails with patches that weren't merged/(not) accepted/upvoted/downvoted/closed/etc. It's not easy to refer to the specific email; it's difficult to pinpoint the exact conversation around a specific change using git-blame. GitHub/Gitlab/etc. make all that a lot simpler.
      - bananadonkey 6y ago
        Reviewers possibly use org-mode to keep track of those things. Would be trivial if Emacs is their mail reader. For those who are really taking advantage of org-agenda et al, I'd argue GitHub issue tracking UI is far more restrictive for tracking patches. If I were in that position I'd be duplicating issues into org-mode anyway (or using an Emacs mode to interact with/sync them). Maybe that's the missing link?
    - mindB 6y ago
      Isn't org-mode part of emacs now? You don't require the FSF copyright assignment paperwork?

bzg 6y ago

"But there's something else, there's now an entire generation of software developers who simply don't know how to deal with sending patches, etc., and they don't even care. And that's not a good trend." Agreed. I hope https://sr.ht https://sr.ht can help resisting this trend. I'm sure there are plenty of happy Git(Lab/Hub) users here but again, I'm not convinced these platforms would fit Org's needs.

shaunxcode 6y ago
Interesting, I did not expect to find fennel there!
tikej 6y ago
I'm a beginner in elisp (and tbh in programming in general) but would like to help. For me pull request model is much more natural than mailing lists and patches. It doesn't matter at all if its GitHub, GitLab or (my personal preference as it's lightweight, open source and easy to use) Gitea (interestingly it's not present in comparison on https://forgeperf.org https://forgeperf.org). I don't even know how to make PR on sourcehut and can't find any tutorial. Of course I will try to learn in order to help org but the entry barrier is much higher than for Git(Lab/Hub/ea). EDIT: I just found orgmode code on Gogs here: https://code.orgmode.org/bzg/org-mode https://code.orgmode.org/bzg/org-mode That's great! I'll register and try to help soon! Mabye it should be more visible and linked in docs (I'll... make a PR I suppose? :)
- moonchild 6y ago
  You can still do pull requests over email. Rather than attaching a patch, you simply send a link to your git repository (+branch if applicable), and the maintainer can pull from it.
- bzg 6y ago
  We don't use code.orgmode.org for Org's development. But please clone Org's repo, make a patch - perhaps with https://magit.vc https://magit.vc - and attach it to an email you send to emacs-orgmode@gnu.org: that's all it takes. Then we will help with polishing your contribution :)
  - iLemming 6y ago
    Alright. Now, let's say everyone is busy, and the maintainers have no time to review the patch. Who's going to remember that someone sent an email with some improvements a few months later? AFAIK There's no easy way to find all the emails with patches that weren't merged/(not) accepted/upvoted/downvoted/closed/etc. It's not easy to refer to the specific email; it's difficult to pinpoint the exact conversation around a specific change using git-blame. GitHub/Gitlab/etc. make all that a lot simpler.
    - bananadonkey 6y ago
      Reviewers possibly use org-mode to keep track of those things. Would be trivial if Emacs is their mail reader. For those who are really taking advantage of org-agenda et al, I'd argue GitHub issue tracking UI is far more restrictive for tracking patches. If I were in that position I'd be duplicating issues into org-mode anyway (or using an Emacs mode to interact with/sync them). Maybe that's the missing link?
  - mindB 6y ago
    Isn't org-mode part of emacs now? You don't require the FSF copyright assignment paperwork?