Hello Lazarus developers! My issue #0015641 + patch for improving converter is seemingly waiting for approval from Mattias Gärtner (as do some other patches of mine).
Now, is Mattias really the right person to check such a patch? He is busy. His main focus is not in Delphi converter. I perfectly understand he has better things to do than check my patches. Better candidates for checking my code are the ones who want to use and test Delphi converter and then give feedback. There are many such people compiling Lazarus trunk and waiting to see improved features. How many people use and test the trunk version? I guess hundreds. That means I would certainly get feedback for my patches and would be motivated to work on any issues and improve it more. I know the patches themselves can be tested by anyone but it needs more effort and usually people just follow the trunk. That's what I do also. A separate branch is good for new experimental features which would break the main project somehow. However, my patches clearly fix issues of an existing Lazarus feature. Is this part of "growth pain" of Lazarus? There is a sentence in About dialog: "As Lazarus is growing we need more developers." but nobody though of what it means in practice. How do you plan to attract new developers? By ignoring their patches? Rejecting a patch is one thing but ignoring it means there is a problem in the project's process and policy. They should be fixed. Some other projects have much more unstable trunk versions. There are many developers submitting and it can cause clashes and crashes and tension and irritation and negative feedback and whatever but it also speeds up development. Usually the author is very motivated to fix a problem in his code if many people complain about it. I would be motivated in such situations at least. So I suggest you to pass patches in more easily! There is a danger that some poor patches go through but it is much better than ignoring (mostly good) patches. I have read that the power of open source is that hundreds of eyes can find problems in code better than 2 eyes. It works only if the code ends up into a place where those eyes can see it. So if this new "loose" policy lets a problematic patch in, it will be spotted quickly. And, revision control lets you reverse any change, doesn't it? Nothing dramatic would happen. About my original problem: How to get my converter patches to trunk? I understand you are careful with core features like the form designer. It interacts with other parts in complex ways. Delphi converter is different. It is rather isolated and easier to manage. Nobody else works on it now. And my code is mostly good... If you accept my patches strictly related to converter I promise to work on it based on feedback and bug reports, essentially maintaining that piece of code. What you say? Regards, Juha Manninen -- _______________________________________________ Lazarus mailing list Lazarus@lists.lazarus.freepascal.org http://lists.lazarus.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/lazarus
