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gittup / tup

Tup is a file-based build system.
http://gittup.org/tup/
GNU General Public License v2.0
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tup-users exists. #136

Open ppannuto opened 11 years ago

ppannuto commented 11 years ago

Currently, there are two disparate locations for discussions and issues related to tup. Github and the tup-users mailing list on google groups. This fragments the community and is confusing from a user perspective. It leads to problems, such as Issue #135 being raised when the problem was discussed and solved on the mailing list only 3 days before.

Given that the feature set of github is a superset of that exposed by a simple mailing list, I would propose that the tup-users list be shut down and future tup discussion be centralized to one location: github.

I have cross-posted this in both places, but ask that discussion be held on the github issue such that the discussion is not lost to the very problem it is seeking to solve.

mathstuf commented 11 years ago

-1.

Watching things on mailing lists/via email is much easier than on GitHub. Watching projects on here is way too much most of the time and I only watch projects I really care about (I write lots of patches or maintain it for Fedora; daily use is not enough). Plus, interacting with these things via email is a pain (yes, you can, but if you don't get the email, off to the webform you go).

Some things for which GitHub sucks at:

Now, I have no love for Google Groups, but at least I can get email from it for my own comments so I'm not left with half of a conversation. GitHub is great, but it is not a panacea.

I think the way to fix this is to make the mailing list more prevalent, not to shut it down.

ppannuto commented 11 years ago

-1.

Watching things on mailing lists/via email is much easier than on GitHub. Watching projects on here is way too much most of the time and I only watch projects I really care about (I write lots of patches or maintain it for Fedora; daily use is not enough). Plus, interacting with these things via email is a pain (yes, you can, but if you don't get the email, off to the webform you go).

I think this argument is kind of specious. Watching a github repo notifies you when new issues are raised and when they're resolved; currently half the issues are raised on github and half of them on tup-users. The e-mail volume is a function of the fact that you're only getting half of the updates that you are (nominally) interested in. An incomplete picture is not a "feature"

Some things for which GitHub sucks at:

  • Release announcements. Where would this go? An issue makes 0 sense and a wiki page is not really inviting for a discussion.

Github milestones solve this problem well, and help organize features as an added bonus.

  • Threading. GitHub doesn't do it.

Disagree. Issues are equivalent to threads in a mailing list discussion.

Now, I have no love for Google Groups, but at least I can get email from it for my own comments so I'm not left with half of a conversation.

I'm not sure what you mean by this?

GitHub is great, but it is not a panacea.

Of course not, perhaps my initial message was a little strong :)

I think the way to fix this is to make the mailing list more prevalent, not to shut it down.

How does that fix things like a unified search for issues / discussions? How does that help migrate feature discussions that started on a mailing list thread make it to the resulting pull request without large amounts of copy-pasting?

As a user, how do I decide what's appropriate for the mailing list versus github? Indeed: What would be posted to a mailing list that doesn't simply belong on github?

mathstuf commented 11 years ago

[Your quoting was broken. Fixing.]

On Mon, Aug 19, 2013 at 16:44:54 -0700, Pat Pannuto wrote:

I think this argument is kind of specious. Watching a github repo notifies you when new issues are raised and when they're resolved; currently half the issues are raised on github and half of them on tup-users. The e-mail volume is a function of the fact that you're only getting half of the updates that you are (nominally) interested in. An incomplete picture is not a "feature"

Yeah, I get the notification for the repo, but it's in the same stream as the other 100+ repositories I have starred and a dozen or so on watch. Mucking around with the web interface is something I already find tedious and adding more to the firehose is not a solution.

Some things for which GitHub sucks at:

  • Release announcements. Where would this go? An issue makes 0 sense and a wiki page is not really inviting for a discussion. Github milestones solve this problem well, and help organize features as an added bonus.

After finally finding a repo which actually uses them, I don't see any way to comment on the milestone itself. There are legitimate reasons for a meta-conversation on a release.

  • Threading. GitHub doesn't do it. Disagree. Issues are equivalent to threads in a mailing list discussion.

No, GitHub doesn't do threading. It has threads, but they're very linear and a pain to read if multiple subthreads get spawned from it. Basically it's missing the "this comment was in reply to this other comment" link. The GMail and Google Groups interfaces both have this issues and are the main reason I hate them.

Now, I have no love for Google Groups, but at least I can get email from it for my own comments so I'm not left with half of a conversation. I'm not sure what you mean by this?

In mutt, I see threads about a topic like:

1076   F Jun 12 To tmux-users@l (0.6K) [PATCH] Disable 'normal' mode in copy-mode's prompt
1077 r T Jul 05 Nicholas Marrio (1.3K) └─>
1078   F Jul 05 To Nicholas Mar (0.6K)   └─>
1079 r T Jul 05 Nicholas Marrio (0.9K)     └─>
1080   F Jul 05 To Nicholas Mar (1.3K)       └─>
1081 r T Jul 12 Nicholas Marrio (1.6K)         └─>
1082   F Jul 12 To Nicholas Mar (0.5K)           └─>
1083   T Jul 12 Nicholas Marrio (0.8K)             └─>

Here's what I see for a github issue:

358   + Apr 01 jtdaugherty     (0.2K) ?─>Re: [GitHub] Add Tree widget [jtdaugherty/vty-ui GH-5]
359   + Apr 03 jtdaugherty     (0.5K) ├─>Re: [GitHub] Add Tree widget [jtdaugherty/vty-ui GH-5]
360   + Jul 19 jtdaugherty     (0.2K) ├─>Re: [vty-ui] Add Tree widget (#5)
361   + Jul 20 jtdaugherty     (0.3K) ├─>Re: [vty-ui] Add Tree widget (#5)
362   + Jul 20 jtdaugherty     (1.5K) ├─>Re: [vty-ui] Add Tree widget (#5)
363 r + Jul 20 jtdaugherty     (1.0K) ├─>Re: [vty-ui] Add Tree widget (#5)
365   + Jul 22 jtdaugherty     (1.4K) └─>Re: [vty-ui] Add Tree widget (#5)

I don't get any emails for my comments; I have to either look for quoting or go to the web page. I imagine that GitHub is likely to ruin the pretty arrows, but whatever.

I think the way to fix this is to make the mailing list more prevalent, not to shut it down. How does that fix things like a unified search for issues / discussions?

You already lose this if someone emails the maintainer directly or IRC logs or whatever else. A paper trail is great and all, but I won't stop the world to keep one if things are resolved over IRC, IM, or face-to-face.

How does that help migrate feature discussions that started on a mailing list thread make it to the resulting pull request without large amounts of copy-pasting?

Link to gmane? Or Groups directly if it's not mirrored on gmane.

As a user, how do I decide what's appropriate for the mailing list versus github? Indeed: What would be posted to a mailing list that doesn't simply belong on github?

I'd default to the mailing list for anything that's not obviously a bug because it is almost certainly going to reach more people. Features usually have more discussion around them since there may be use cases left out. Really, this is more a call for Mike though.

ppannuto commented 11 years ago

I agree, definitely Mike's call, but you have one comment I can't let slide:

I'd default to the mailing list for anything that's not obviously a bug because it is almost certainly going to reach more people.

Ahh!!! This is the reason that I hate mailing lists. Why is this the case? Why is there some separate, private community of "other developers" off on this "other tool"? It is so frustrating to try to join / contribute to a project and then discover, sometimes months later that there was a whole different set of people who work with / on / etc the project that were hiding in a different mailing list (you needed project-test-devel, obviously) or a set of developers that "only participate via IRC".

Mailing lists are fine if that's what your project uses -- I have a handful of patches in Linux, etc. I have no problem with using a mailing list to manage a project. What is unacceptable is having multiple simultaneous project management platforms that are unsynchronized. If you want to keep the mailing list around for meta-issues (e.g. release announcements), fine, whatever, but it should not field any kinds of questions about bugs, issues, feature requests, etc, and at that point you're basically keeping a mailing list around only to announce releases.

gittup commented 11 years ago

On Mon, Aug 19, 2013 at 8:45 PM, Pat Pannuto notifications@github.comwrote:

I agree, definitely Mike's call, but you have one comment I can't let slide:

I'd default to the mailing list for anything that's not obviously a bug because it is almost certainly going to reach more people.

Ahh!!! This is the reason that I hate mailing lists. Why is this the case? Why is there some separate, private community of "other developers" off on this "other tool"? It is so frustrating to try to join / contribute to a project and then discover, sometimes months later that there was a whole different set of people who work with / on / etc the project that were hiding in a different mailing list (you needed project-test-devel, obviously) or a set of developers that "only participate via IRC".

Mailing lists are fine if that's what your project uses -- I have a handful of patches in Linux, etc. I have no problem with using a mailing list to manage a project. What is unacceptable is having multiple simultaneous project management platforms that are unsynchronized. If you want to keep the mailing list around for meta-issues (e.g. release announcements), fine, whatever, but it should not field any kinds of questions about bugs, issues, feature requests, etc, and at that point you're basically keeping a mailing list around only to announce releases.

The mailing list is the only thing listed on the main http://gittup.org/tup/ website. The only mention of github is in the 'git clone' line. Do people take that as an indication that discussion should happen on github? I just have it setup to email me when issues are written, so I treat them the same as emails from the mailing list.

To be honest I don't use the github interface all that much - I just put the repo there because other people requested it and are more used to it. I don't use the issue tracker, and I don't use it to merge pull requests (I add the dev's remote and merge/cherry-pick as appropriate so I can run it through the gauntlet of testing).

I agree that having two places for the information is bad, but I primarily interact with both through email so I guess I haven't noticed the problem :/. How do other projects handle this? Do they either just use github, or disable github issues and just use a mailing list?

Thanks, -Mike