Seems like you're arguing against something they didn't say. They just said, "The culture around p.r.s is truly a high barrier of entry for many people." That'

Seems like you're arguing against something they didn't say. They just said, "The culture around p.r.s is truly a high barrier of entry for many people." That's true and it's important to acknowledge that on any project that wants contributions from as many people as possible. When I was at Code for America I saw smart people putting plenty of time into helping people get over that barrier. That's certainly the case here. If a professor of CS receives help from an open-source maintainer who's been coding for decades and still doesn't feel confident, then it's safe to say a) there's room for improvement, and b) until we figure out what the improvement is, we should make sure that we're providing the necessary support to everybody we want to contribute.