search

dask / community

For general discussion and community planning. Discussion issues welcome.
20 stars 3 forks source link

Support on weekends and holidays #59

Open jacobtomlinson opened 4 years ago

jacobtomlinson commented 4 years ago

There have been various discussions lately about how quickly support should be provided by the Dask Czar.

The general rule of thumb that we currently work with is that new issues and PRs should get some response within 24 hours. There is currently an expectation that this includes weekends.

Based on my own feelings and discussions with others I would like to propose that we endeavour to respond to issues and PRs within one working day. And therefore exclude weekends and holidays.

My employer does not expect me to work during the weekends, and working on Dask is part of my employment duties and should carry the same expectations.

If we have users who want support on shorter timescales and on weekends then this is an area that consultancies could provide value to the community. Dask support with an SLA in exchange for money.

I would be really keen to hear from others on this.

mrocklin commented 4 years ago

Personally I would like for Dask to retain the feeling of a community project, rather than an industry consortium project. We have a number of volunteer contributors who enjoy working on OSS, but don't do so as part of their day job. By only providing response on week days we partially exclude these people from participating.

I think that no individual should be expected to work on the weekends, but that among us we can probably find a person or two who doesn't mind, and we can use them for this.

In other industries (like healthcare, groceries) having weekend shifts is normal. Typically there is reduced expectations then, but the lights are still on. It's typically possible to find a person in a larger group that is comfortable taking the occasional weekend shift.

So before we say "we're not doing weekends" I think that we should first ask "are there people that are comfortable participating on weekends".

mrocklin commented 4 years ago

I think that people who have expressed concerns about weekend work are mostly in the camp "I don't want to be expected to work on weekends". I'm entirely in favor of supporting them in this endeavor. However, I hope that this desire doesn't translate into "I don't think that Dask should support weekend contributors".

TomAugspurger commented 4 years ago

I can't (reliably) help on weekends.

On Wed, May 27, 2020 at 11:14 AM Matthew Rocklin notifications@github.com wrote:

I think that people who have expressed concerns about weekend work are mostly in the camp "I don't want to be expected to work on weekends". I'm entirely in favor of supporting them in this endeavor. However, I hope that this desire doesn't translate into "I don't think that Dask should support weekend contributors".

— You are receiving this because you are subscribed to this thread. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/dask/community/issues/59#issuecomment-634774258, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AAKAOIVUPJ4ESXTC7W4JDEDRTU36JANCNFSM4NMH3C2A .

mrocklin commented 4 years ago

What does reliably mean in this case?

For example, for me there are actually some weeks where doing a few hours of work on the weekends would be welcome. (My work-weeks are often packed tight). Spending a couple of hours each day is actually kind of nice for me. I wouldn't want to be on the hook for this all the time, but it's definitely something that is comfortable occasionally.

jacobtomlinson commented 4 years ago

I agree with the points you have made @mrocklin.

I personally find working on OSS a pleasant and fun activity and do it in my spare time as a hobby. However I am careful to work on things which are different to my day job in order to maintain some semblance of a work/life balance.

I understand that there are folks out there for whom Dask is their hobby project and something else is their work project. And I agree that they deserve some kind of community feeling on the weekends.

I think this conversation has come up because all of the folks on the maintenance team who take on the role of Czar are employed to work on Dask. So that group of people are not going to be the same group who want to work on Dask outside of their jobs and on the weekends.

Many of those folks also enjoy very flexible working, so perhaps would choose to work on Dask a bit on the weekend in exchange for some flexibility during the week. But that is between them and their employer and we can't put expectations on them.

I guess that's my point here is that support on weekends shouldn't be expected. But I agree that if folks choose to Czar on the weekend then it will support a different group of people.

TomAugspurger commented 4 years ago

By "reliably" means I wouldn't / can't volunteer to be on the crew that's expected to check the issue tracker. Sometimes I have time and am in the right space to do something on the weekends, but it's rare.

On Wed, May 27, 2020 at 11:21 AM Matthew Rocklin notifications@github.com wrote:

What does reliably mean in this case?

For example, for me there are actually some weeks where doing a few hours of work on the weekends would be welcome. (My work-weeks are often packed tight). Spending a couple of hours each day is actually kind of nice for me. I wouldn't want to be on the hook for this all the time, but it's definitely something that is comfortable occasionally.

— You are receiving this because you commented. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/dask/community/issues/59#issuecomment-634778036, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AAKAOITHTSPJ2YPK4QSHKR3RTU4XBANCNFSM4NMH3C2A .

jacobtomlinson commented 4 years ago

I also expect the tasks that we want done on the weekend in order to support the community are the boring thankless tasks that we don't really enjoy doing during the work week either.

I have been known in the past to get so excited about building a feature that I work on a weekend because I can't stop obsessing over it. But I don't think that is the kind of activity we are discussing.

jsignell commented 4 years ago

It seems like we agree that no individual should be expected to work on weekend. So if there is a person or two who doesn't mind monitoring dask over the weekend then we should try to make sure that they are on the maintenance team on an alternating schedule. Perhaps we should get a count of how many of such people we have in the next Tuesday meeting and then we can make a more concrete plan.