Re: [boost] Process discussions

Subject: Re: [boost] Process discussions
From: Matthias Schabel (boost_at_[hidden])
Date: 2011-01-31 20:10:55

>> One should recognize here that there is a strong form of self-selection
>> happening; the "top committers" are those individuals who have the
>> desire/motivation/incentive to spend a substantial fraction of their
>> professional and/or personal time refining their knowledge of the
>> details of Boost. For someone who is a Boost consultant (several of
>> whom appear at the top of the aforementioned list) this is clearly
>> a worthwhile investment and, in fact, having a complex tool chain
>> and difficult to master systems is advantageous in that it increases
>> the potential demand for consulting work. A simpler and easier-to-
>> understand tool chain would presumably lower barriers to entry and
>> increase participation from individuals
> 
> And I am talking mostly about transitioning to git here. You can't
> be seriously saying that git is a simpler and easier-to-understand
> tool?

No. What I'm saying is that using the "top committers" to determine if the
toolchain is working well is only a reasonable thing to do if you want to
exclude everyone with less time to spend mastering said toolchain from
contributing. Mastery of the toolchain or, more importantly, lack thereof, 
doesn't necessarily say much about someone's knowledge of a problem
domain that would benefit Boost. 

I really have no opinion on git vis-a-vis any of the myriad 
other version control systems out there. In general, I agree that it is best
to err on the side of sticking with tried and true rather than hopping on 
the latest bandwagon, but only if the latest bandwagon doesn't represent
a real and significant step forward in simplicity/transparency/usability...
And I feel that Boost would benefit from such steps. 

I guess, as a physicist who uses computational/software tools as a means
to an end, I feel the same way about complex and arcane software build 
systems as a software engineer would feel about having to open up their 
computer and solder stuff on the motherboard in order to get the compiler
to work...

Matthias