On 11/24/10 7:13 PM, Noel J. Bergman wrote:
The premise of this discussion is that running Apache projects are
*permitted* to engage in real-time communications, so long as they
take due care to avoid community problems of exclusion and closed
decision making.
Did you see Greg's e-mail?
"Just bring a summary of discussion points back to the list, along with any
recommendations. The list can then sort through it and make decisions."
Decisions are not made except on the mailing lists. If it starts to seem that
people are being excluded from being an effective part of a decision process,
curtail or modify the back-channel communications.
We all want strong communities that are inclusive and open. We all recognize
that real-time communications pose risks to that.
+1
FWIW, ApacheDS and Geronimo had (possibly still have) *very* active IRC
channels (logged) where people talked in real-time, just as they might at a
Hack-a-Thon.
Talking about ApacheDS, yes, we *do* use IRC actively. This is for us
the main stream when we are working on some part of the server, plus a
way to have a semi-F2F discussion about technical points. But this is
like if you are working in an office in front of a collegue : most of
the time, you don't chit-chat, you work. And when it comes to make a
decision impacting the whole project, then the discussion is moved to
the ML.
So why are we using IRC for ? Mainly for technical discussions. As an
example, here is a short snippet :
...
elecharny: kayyagari: I'm wondering if we coudn't describe the tests
using JSON
[6:38pm] kayyagari: hmm, am thinking of automatic pdu generation in
tests for sequences that use components
[6:38pm] kayyagari: so only the lowest components need to be tested with
hand crafted PDUs
[6:40pm] kayyagari: and cause lowest components definitely be small in size
[6:40pm] kayyagari: (atleast that is the case so far)
[6:45pm] elecharny: what is important is to test that PDU don't crash
when there are some missing optional elements
[6:45pm] elecharny: the lower components have been quite well tested
[6:46pm] elecharny: the main problem with test generation is to write
the PUD by hand,
[6:46pm] elecharny: and to compute the lengths
[6:46pm] elecharny: one thing we can do is to use the DERxxx classes we
have in the project
[6:47pm] elecharny: you can create a PDU using them, with no issues like
creating the lengths
[6:47pm] kayyagari: ahah
[6:47pm] kayyagari: am trying to computelength() and then encode them to
a temporary buffer and later push it to the main buf
[6:47pm] elecharny: you can do that
[6:47pm] elecharny: otherwise, you can also do :
[6:48pm] elecharny: seq = new DERSequence();
[6:49pm] elecharny: seq.add( DerInteger.valueOf( 5 ) );
[6:49pm] elecharny: etc...
[6:49pm] kayyagari: aha, will try it, this is helpful
[6:49pm] elecharny: and at the end do a seq.encode( outputStream );
[6:49pm] elecharny: you'll get the PDU
[6:49pm] kayyagari: cool
[6:50pm] kayyagari: this is the class present in shared-ldap?
[6:50pm] elecharny: but you won't be able to test cornercase like
Integer with no values
[6:50pm] elecharny: yes
[6:50pm] kayyagari: ok
[6:50pm] elecharny: in asn1.der
[6:50pm] kayyagari: yeah
[6:51pm] elecharny: ok, I have to run, some friends have flown from
Boston to paris
Nothing fancy, just raw technical convos. But very useful when you have
a huge code base and you want to share some informations IRT.
We tried to organize Skype sessions 4 years ago, but we never succeeded
to get them lasting more than 2 or 3 weeks. The reasons are simple :
- with people in South Korea, France and Florida, the TZ pb is almost
impossible to solve
- as the schedule was very tight, being 15 minutes late just blows the
session
- surprisingly, no more than 15% of the world population is speaking a
fluent english. That does not help when on skype
- You always have to find someone to report what has been said, and
trust me, a lot of input is lost in the process
We decided that it was a waste of time. I still think it's a waste of
time, and also a perfect way to split the community in 2 groups :
- those who participate
- those who are left behind and get frustrated.
IRC solve some of those issues : it's easier to understand what a poor
english speaker like me is typing, it's easier to get a report and move
it back to the ML, and also it's easier to get the discussion on track,
without the one who speak louder talking most of the time.
--
Regards,
Cordialement,
Emmanuel Lécharny
www.iktek.com
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