On 2015-04-16 06:50:35 +0000, Jacob Carlborg <doob@me.com> said:

> I've been working on the Objective-C support for quite a while. I'm on my third rewrite due to comments in previous pull requests. The latest pull request [1] was created in January, it's basically been stalled since February due to lack of review and Walter has not made a single comment at all in this pull request.
> 
> I did the rewrites to comply with the requests Walter made in previous pull requests. Although not present as a bugzilla issue with the "preapproved" tag, I did interpreted it as preapproved based on a forum post made by you [2].
> 
> I know that focus has shifted to GC, reference counting, C++ and so on, but you're not making it easy for someone to contribute.
> 
> [1] https://github.com/D-Programming-Language/dmd/pull/4321
> [2] http://forum.dlang.org/post/lfoe82$17c0$1@digitalmars.com

Back at the time I was working on D/Objective-C, my separate work on a feature proposed in pull #3 (that const(Object)ref thing) got a similar treatment: no comment from Walter in months. It's time-consuming to maintain a complex pull request against a changing master branch, and it was abandoned at some point because I got tired of maintaining it with no review in sight.

Using Github was a new thing back then, so I didn't necessarily expect the review to go smoothly given #3 isn't a trivial change. But getting no comment at all made me rethink things. It made me dread a similar fate would await D/Objective-C. It was one of the reasons I stopped working on it. Now that Jacob has taken over the Herculean task of making it work with current DMD after a few years of falling behind and of refactoring it as a series of pull requests by sub-feature to make it easier to review, I fear more and more it'll get the same treatment as #3, ignored by Walter for several months (that's where we are now) and then abandoned (when Jacob patience and/or spare time runs out).

It would be sad to see all those efforts wasted.

-- 
Michel Fortin
michel.fortin@michelf.ca
http://michelf.ca

On 4/15/2015 10:07 PM, Joakim wrote:
> I understand that it's frustrating to get stuff done on a decentralized open
> source project, but you have to help contributors a bit in order for them to
> help you.  Your [WORK] appeals have been a great step- I had one of them open in
> my browser to remind me to get to it, but Walter beat me to it- but the forum is
> not easy to keep track of and navigate for newbies. How much harder would it be
> for you to stick all those in a single wiki page, to make it easier for noobs to
> find and easy for us to point them at?  That's all I'm asking for.

Ask and ye shall receive:

https://issues.dlang.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED&bugidtype=include&list_id=200235&order=Bug%20Number&query_format=advanced

On 4/16/2015 8:47 AM, bachmeier wrote:
> In my case I don't know where to start. I'll leave the Phobos and compiler code
> to the experts, but I'm sure I can help with documentation. On my own small
> projects, I can clone a repo, make a small change, and create a pull request. If
> it were that simple, I'd already be contributing to the documentation, because
> the things that need improvement aren't hard to find.
>
> Unfortunately I have no idea how to get started.


http://www.digitalmars.com/d/archives/digitalmars/D/Phobos_Documentation_-_call_to_action_258777.html

On 4/16/2015 10:47 AM, Michel Fortin wrote:
> On 2015-04-16 06:50:35 +0000, Jacob Carlborg <doob@me.com> said:
>
>> I've been working on the Objective-C support for quite a while. I'm on my
>> third rewrite due to comments in previous pull requests. The latest pull
>> request [1] was created in January, it's basically been stalled since February
>> due to lack of review and Walter has not made a single comment at all in this
>> pull request.
>>
>> I did the rewrites to comply with the requests Walter made in previous pull
>> requests. Although not present as a bugzilla issue with the "preapproved" tag,
>> I did interpreted it as preapproved based on a forum post made by you [2].
>>
>> I know that focus has shifted to GC, reference counting, C++ and so on, but
>> you're not making it easy for someone to contribute.
>>
>> [1] https://github.com/D-Programming-Language/dmd/pull/4321
>> [2] http://forum.dlang.org/post/lfoe82$17c0$1@digitalmars.com
>
> Back at the time I was working on D/Objective-C, my separate work on a feature
> proposed in pull #3 (that const(Object)ref thing) got a similar treatment: no
> comment from Walter in months. It's time-consuming to maintain a complex pull
> request against a changing master branch, and it was abandoned at some point
> because I got tired of maintaining it with no review in sight.
>
> Using Github was a new thing back then, so I didn't necessarily expect the
> review to go smoothly given #3 isn't a trivial change. But getting no comment at
> all made me rethink things. It made me dread a similar fate would await
> D/Objective-C. It was one of the reasons I stopped working on it. Now that Jacob
> has taken over the Herculean task of making it work with current DMD after a few
> years of falling behind and of refactoring it as a series of pull requests by
> sub-feature to make it easier to review, I fear more and more it'll get the same
> treatment as #3, ignored by Walter for several months (that's where we are now)
> and then abandoned (when Jacob patience and/or spare time runs out).
>
> It would be sad to see all those efforts wasted.

Yes it would. The problem is I have a hard time reviewing complex things I don't understand, so I procrastinate. The fault is mine, not with your work.

On Thursday, 16 April 2015 at 04:05:19 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
> Forgive my being skeptical but my repeated appeals to contributions - most of them important, urgent, and of high impact - sometimes labeled with [WORK] in this forum, have been answered by the same very small kernel of contributors (including Walter and myself), regardless of their difficulty (sometimes trivial). Lists, labels, management techniques that are touted in this forum every few months or so - no avail. The vision document that everybody asked about? Read and dutifully ignored - back to the next naming debate. The sad reality is that if one of about a handful of core folks doesn't do it, it won't get done. My resolution is to do more of everything; that way more of everything will get done. -- Andrei

I use the vision document to prioritize my work; I currently have open PRs solving non-trivial safety (actually attribute inference in general) and manual memory management issues. I'd be really glad if the vision document saw continued life in the future.

On Thursday, 16 April 2015 at 06:02:19 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
> 1. Challenging Walter on anything and everything seems to have become a rite of passage in our community. Some of the reviews of his code are the most petty and meaningless I've seen in my career, bar none. It doesn't help that he doesn't budge on some of the petty issues, thus a vicious circle gets created. In a recent review, after his code had been pecked within an inch of its death, it took me minutes to find two bugs that nobody had the eyes for in spite of every token of his code having been scrutinized.

It has to be said that Walter's recent work on Phobos has wide appeal, is highly interesting (who doesn't like generic algorithms?) and relatively easy to review (requires no domain-specific knowledge apart from advanced D, perhaps some Unicode). In my experience, similarly themed PRs by other authors receive a similar amount of scrutiny. I'm hesitant to believe Walter's work is being heavily scrutinized just because it's Walter.

On Friday, 17 April 2015 at 01:53:47 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
> On 4/15/2015 10:07 PM, Joakim wrote:
>> I understand that it's frustrating to get stuff done on a decentralized open
>> source project, but you have to help contributors a bit in order for them to
>> help you.  Your [WORK] appeals have been a great step- I had one of them open in
>> my browser to remind me to get to it, but Walter beat me to it- but the forum is
>> not easy to keep track of and navigate for newbies. How much harder would it be
>> for you to stick all those in a single wiki page, to make it easier for noobs to
>> find and easy for us to point them at?  That's all I'm asking for.
>
> Ask and ye shall receive:
>
> https://issues.dlang.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED&bugidtype=include&list_id=200235&order=Bug%20Number&query_format=advanced

That's precisely _not_ what I asked for.  The full results for that query numbers 3801 issues:

https://issues.dlang.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED&bugidtype=include&limit=0&list_id=200235&order=bug_id&query_format=advanced

How is somebody new supposed to figure out where to start?  Set some priorities and people will follow your lead, ie flag issues that you think should be prioritized, given your greater understanding of the project, and make it easy for those who want to pitch in to find your list, as deadalnix just did.

On 4/16/2015 8:20 PM, Joakim wrote:
> How is somebody new supposed to figure out where to start?  Set some priorities
> and people will follow your lead, ie flag issues that you think should be
> prioritized,

All the bugzilla issues are marked with a severity level. On the display, the red ones are more serious. Anyhow, with bugzilla's search page, the list can be sliced and crosscut all sorts of ways.


> given your greater understanding of the project, and make it easy
> for those who want to pitch in to find your list, as deadalnix just did.

Just address anything that looks interesting and is within one's abilities. There's plenty to choose from!

On 17/04/2015 2:19 p.m., Walter Bright wrote:
> On 4/16/2015 10:47 AM, Michel Fortin wrote:
>> On 2015-04-16 06:50:35 +0000, Jacob Carlborg <doob@me.com> said:
>>
>>> I've been working on the Objective-C support for quite a while. I'm
>>> on my
>>> third rewrite due to comments in previous pull requests. The latest pull
>>> request [1] was created in January, it's basically been stalled since
>>> February
>>> due to lack of review and Walter has not made a single comment at all
>>> in this
>>> pull request.
>>>
>>> I did the rewrites to comply with the requests Walter made in
>>> previous pull
>>> requests. Although not present as a bugzilla issue with the
>>> "preapproved" tag,
>>> I did interpreted it as preapproved based on a forum post made by you
>>> [2].
>>>
>>> I know that focus has shifted to GC, reference counting, C++ and so
>>> on, but
>>> you're not making it easy for someone to contribute.
>>>
>>> [1] https://github.com/D-Programming-Language/dmd/pull/4321
>>> [2] http://forum.dlang.org/post/lfoe82$17c0$1@digitalmars.com
>>
>> Back at the time I was working on D/Objective-C, my separate work on a
>> feature
>> proposed in pull #3 (that const(Object)ref thing) got a similar
>> treatment: no
>> comment from Walter in months. It's time-consuming to maintain a
>> complex pull
>> request against a changing master branch, and it was abandoned at some
>> point
>> because I got tired of maintaining it with no review in sight.
>>
>> Using Github was a new thing back then, so I didn't necessarily expect
>> the
>> review to go smoothly given #3 isn't a trivial change. But getting no
>> comment at
>> all made me rethink things. It made me dread a similar fate would await
>> D/Objective-C. It was one of the reasons I stopped working on it. Now
>> that Jacob
>> has taken over the Herculean task of making it work with current DMD
>> after a few
>> years of falling behind and of refactoring it as a series of pull
>> requests by
>> sub-feature to make it easier to review, I fear more and more it'll
>> get the same
>> treatment as #3, ignored by Walter for several months (that's where we
>> are now)
>> and then abandoned (when Jacob patience and/or spare time runs out).
>>
>> It would be sad to see all those efforts wasted.
>
> Yes it would. The problem is I have a hard time reviewing complex things
> I don't understand, so I procrastinate. The fault is mine, not with your
> work.

Even simpler things you quite often forget about.
Great example was my PR for __traits(allMembers, hint after two major releases it no longer passes the auto tester. And now I have no will to update it. As my environment was never kitted out for it.

I think from now on, we need to put in place some way to ping both of you and Andrei. Basically if you get messaged about a PR/issue you are required to respond.

On Thursday, 16 April 2015 at 04:05:19 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
>
> Forgive my being skeptical but my repeated appeals to contributions - most of them important, urgent, and of high impact - sometimes labeled with [WORK] in this forum, have been answered by the same very small kernel of contributors (including Walter and myself), regardless of their difficulty (sometimes trivial). Lists, labels, management techniques that are touted in this forum every few months or so - no avail. The vision document that everybody asked about? Read and dutifully ignored - back to the next naming debate. The sad reality is that if one of about a handful of core folks doesn't do it, it won't get done. My resolution is to do more of everything; that way more of everything will get done. -- Andrei

I think a significant part of the reason for this is that many people are simply happy with D now and tend to, aside from the core contributors, work on their own code rather than random issues from a list (even an organized one). I haven't submitted many pull requests, maybe a dozen or so in total, but when I have it was because there was something that simply prevented me from doing what I wanted to do. It's probably been several months since my last one because, simply put, I am not currently having issues that prevent me from moving forward. When I started using D (probably about four or five years ago), it felt like bugs were constant and you could either work around them or fix them. Now, there are much fewer bugs, let alone ones without a trivial workaround, making it less likely for people to contribute towards fixing these.