3 ms·

> That's super gross, and that's the reason I so rarely contribute nowadays to medium to big FOSS projects. Reading that PR discussion, I don't see any sort of

> That's super gross, and that's the reason I so rarely contribute nowadays to medium to big FOSS projects. Reading that PR discussion, I don't see any sort of 'gross'-ness. The submitter submits a (presumably unrequested) PR. One project maintainer adds comments to bring it up to project standards. Later, another dev clarifies that after discussion, they agree that it doesn't belong in the core project. For anyone else out there who doesn't like 'their time wasted', discuss your idea with project maintainers before submitting a PR. Just because you think it is a good idea doesn't mean it fits within their vision for the project.

freedomben 4y ago
I agree it's not gross from the perspective of the team, who are familiar with who can and who can't approve/merge PRs, but from the contributor's perspective (who has no idea who is and isn't authoritative) it is. The person requesting changes seems authoritative and it does seem like it's going to be merged. But there are multiple perspectives here, and one who invested a lot more effort than everyone else, and from that perspective it's gross. > For anyone else out there who doesn't like 'their time wasted', discuss your idea with project maintainers before submitting a PR. Just because you think it is a good idea doesn't mean it fits within their vision for the project. Of course. I give the same advice. But that's not a valid excuse for treating would-be contributors like this. You can reject PRs but in a more respectful and polite manner, without the misleading additional time-wasting requests. Rejection and professionalism/politeness are not mutually exclusive. clarification request: with scare qutoes around "their time wasted," does that imply that you do like your time wasted? or that you don't think all the effort spent making the PR was wasted?
- gorjusborg 4y ago
  > clarification request: with scare qutoes around "their time wasted," does that imply that you do like your time wasted? You know the answer, so forgive me for not responding to your not-in-good-faith question. To clarify my point: If you think about this from the project maintainer's standpoint, the submitter is the one doing something wrong if they are getting angry at this outcome. They are speculatively doing work assuming that it is going to eventually get integrated, without seeking any information about its value beforehand.
  - freedomben 4y ago
    > You know the answer, so forgive me for not responding to your not-in-good-faith question. No I don't, otherwise I wouldn't have asked. And if you're going to assume bad faith on my end then there's probably not much more to discuss. Curious, what if the maintainer had just replied with a "finger" emoji instead? Would that change your opinion on whether this was gross, or is the manner of the reply completely irrelevant to you? (Since you seem to be presuming bad faith on my part, I feel I have to add this disclaimer to my thought experiment. Don't assume I'm implying there is some sort of equivalency here with the response that was given and a hypothetical "finger" response. I am not. This is a thought experiment, not an implication that the maintainer acted in such a way). If so, then I would suggest that our disagreement here is just about what is polite and what's not, and what a person's social responsibility is regarding being polite. In my opinion there's a responsiblity on the maintainer to be polite in this case. If you disagree with that, that's just an "agree to disagree" sort of thing. If your opinion wouldn't change if the response had been a "finger" emoji, then I would suggest that our disagreement here is about whether politeness is something that matters.
    - gorjusborg 4y ago
      I honestly don't see how politeness factors into this (but I definitely think the maintainers were polite enough in this case). The person who submitted this code went out on a limb and implemented something without talking to the maintainers first. That's completely fine. I'm sure they learned quite a bit by implementing it. That's a win by itself. It's the getting upset that it didn't get integrated that I think is unreasonable. The maintainers donate their time to write and curate code to make progress on their vision of the software. Submitting code like this (not talking beforehand) is like giving a friend who likes photography a camera without asking what they want. There's a chance they love it, but there's a good chance they wont. If you care about getting one outcome over another, you need to communicate beforehand.

freedomben 4y ago

I agree it's not gross from the perspective of the team, who are familiar with who can and who can't approve/merge PRs, but from the contributor's perspective (who has no idea who is and isn't authoritative) it is. The person requesting changes seems authoritative and it does seem like it's going to be merged. But there are multiple perspectives here, and one who invested a lot more effort than everyone else, and from that perspective it's gross. > For anyone else out there who doesn't like 'their time wasted', discuss your idea with project maintainers before submitting a PR. Just because you think it is a good idea doesn't mean it fits within their vision for the project. Of course. I give the same advice. But that's not a valid excuse for treating would-be contributors like this. You can reject PRs but in a more respectful and polite manner, without the misleading additional time-wasting requests. Rejection and professionalism/politeness are not mutually exclusive. clarification request: with scare qutoes around "their time wasted," does that imply that you do like your time wasted? or that you don't think all the effort spent making the PR was wasted?

gorjusborg 4y ago
> clarification request: with scare qutoes around "their time wasted," does that imply that you do like your time wasted? You know the answer, so forgive me for not responding to your not-in-good-faith question. To clarify my point: If you think about this from the project maintainer's standpoint, the submitter is the one doing something wrong if they are getting angry at this outcome. They are speculatively doing work assuming that it is going to eventually get integrated, without seeking any information about its value beforehand.
- freedomben 4y ago
  > You know the answer, so forgive me for not responding to your not-in-good-faith question. No I don't, otherwise I wouldn't have asked. And if you're going to assume bad faith on my end then there's probably not much more to discuss. Curious, what if the maintainer had just replied with a "finger" emoji instead? Would that change your opinion on whether this was gross, or is the manner of the reply completely irrelevant to you? (Since you seem to be presuming bad faith on my part, I feel I have to add this disclaimer to my thought experiment. Don't assume I'm implying there is some sort of equivalency here with the response that was given and a hypothetical "finger" response. I am not. This is a thought experiment, not an implication that the maintainer acted in such a way). If so, then I would suggest that our disagreement here is just about what is polite and what's not, and what a person's social responsibility is regarding being polite. In my opinion there's a responsiblity on the maintainer to be polite in this case. If you disagree with that, that's just an "agree to disagree" sort of thing. If your opinion wouldn't change if the response had been a "finger" emoji, then I would suggest that our disagreement here is about whether politeness is something that matters.
  - gorjusborg 4y ago
    I honestly don't see how politeness factors into this (but I definitely think the maintainers were polite enough in this case). The person who submitted this code went out on a limb and implemented something without talking to the maintainers first. That's completely fine. I'm sure they learned quite a bit by implementing it. That's a win by itself. It's the getting upset that it didn't get integrated that I think is unreasonable. The maintainers donate their time to write and curate code to make progress on their vision of the software. Submitting code like this (not talking beforehand) is like giving a friend who likes photography a camera without asking what they want. There's a chance they love it, but there's a good chance they wont. If you care about getting one outcome over another, you need to communicate beforehand.