[boost] Process discussions

Subject: [boost] Process discussions
From: Christophe Henry (christophe.j.henry_at_[hidden])
Date: 2011-01-31 08:46:04

> As of recent, we had quite a lot of discussion about process. In true
> open-source spirit, it was a fairly open discussion, with everybody
> offering their perspectives and experience. However, while we surely
> learned many things, it does not seem like we're going anywhere.
>
> For a quick experiment, I tried to assess whether the discussion actually
> reflects the needs of Boost developers, so I created a table of Boost
> developers sorted by the number of commits in 2010. It is here:
>
>        http://tinyurl.com/5suwfbn
>
> It seems that 5 top Boost comitters did not participate much in recent
> discussions. And going down the list, it seems like many of active developers
> did not say anything, while most of discussions is fueled by folks who
> don't commit much.
>
> Of course, everybody can offer valuable thoughts, but if the goal is to fix
> things for Boost developers, it would make sense if developers say that needs
> fixing, as opposed to other people doing it for them.
>
> Maybe I suggest that for some time, we outright ban freeform discussion about
> process, and instead, we restrict them to threads started by a Boost developers
> and saying this: "I am maintainer of X, and had N commits and M trac changes
> in the last year. I most hate P1, P2 and P3. I would propose that we use T1,
> T2, and T3 to fix that". Then, everybody could join to suggest better
> way of fixing P1, P2 and P3 -- without making up other supposed problems.
>
> Thoughts?

*sigh*
I usually try to stay out of this kind of discussions like svn vs git
for 3 reasons:
- I very fast stop following what it is about as it goes into depth
without explanations. Actually I have the feeling it is more about
"being right" than explaining for dolts like me.
- I have no problem with svn
- I have no time. Really. I don't.

But it seems I have to say my word to avoid being faced with a matter
decided without me.
So my situation is simple. I have no time (I might have mentioned that
already ;-) ). And the time I have is costly because any distraction
goes at the cost of MSM. I use all my free time to code or imagine
cool new features I can add. So either someone can make me get what
I'd gain by investing time in switching to git (I repeat, I have no
problem with svn, it does what I need with little cost) or for all
practical matters, count me against switching.
Right now, all I do is commit my development changes into the trunk,
then once every 3 months start a long merge operation (which I do in
the background, so no cost). How simpler than that can it be?
If all I gain is avoiding getting all of boost on my (big) hard disk,
then I will happily prefer paying the 1$ / 10GB and keep the time,
thanks.