Re: [darktable-dev] where to discuss big changes

2019-04-16 Thread Moritz Moeller
There is this thing called 'a news server' which has all of below but 
has infinite history (for free) and you can actually see who replied to 
whom before even opening/deciding to read a message.


That feature alone makes a news server with a decent client (e.g. 
Thunderbird) a thousand times superior to something like e.g. Slack.


And this stuff has been available since the 70's. For free.
Maybe I'm just getting old. Just my two c.


Beers.

.mm
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Re: [darktable-dev] where to discuss big changes

2019-04-16 Thread Juha Lintula
Hi,

I have one addition to the list.

I haven't been part of the dev team so I'm not offended, if my proposal
won't be considered.

We have been using in our company's context slack for discussions and
information exchange. There are also other similar alternatives available.

pros:
– discussions organized by topic and could be even organized around wider
topics (e.g. channel for UI, pixelpipe, different OSes, ...)
– people can see the message when they want, and reply when they want,
wherever they are on the planet
– integrates with GitHub
– free of charge (if 10k searchable history is enough)
cons:
– requires some admin to grant access
– a philosophical question that can an open source project use a commercial
tool :)

-Juha

On Tue, 16 Apr 2019 at 20:51, rawfiner  wrote:

> Dear all,
>
> Currently, the place where big changes should be discussed is IRC
> (according to houz, as I have not seen this information anywhere, which is
> problematic as new contributors may make big changes, so they have at least
> to be able to know where is the place to discuss things).
> I think IRC is not convenient at all.
>
> I would like to discuss why I think making these discussion on IRC is bad,
> and what alternatives we have.
>
> IRC:
> pros: honestly, I don't see any (it is nice for casual talk, but
> discussing important changes is very different than casual talk...)
> cons:
> - no logs. Basically, if you are not connected at the right time to
> discuss about the changes, you cannot catch up, and you cannot even know
> what decision was taken!
> - instantaneous chatting. While it is nice for casual talk, it forces to
> write answer fastly. For making important decision, we should have least
> have a platform were anyone can take time to write argumented answers. In
> addition, answering quickly does leave enough time to think about the way
> to say things, which can result in misunderstandings, under-thought
> answers, potentially even anger.
> - people at different places in the planet just can't be all at the same
> time connected
> - all topics are messed up in the discussion, thus even if we had a
> logging system it would be hard to find a particular topic easily
>
> Existing dev mailing list:
> pros:
> - it is logical for new devs to join the mailing list (way more logical
> than connecting 24h/24h to an IRC channel in my opinion)
> - people can see the message when they want, and reply when they want,
> wherever they are on the planet
> - we can have conversations organised by topics
> cons:
> - the mailing list is used for several purpose (help requested to develop
> a module, bugs, interaction between user and devs, and information about
> ongoing developments). This con could be compensated by using a tag in
> subjects related to big changes, like [big-changes] or whatever you prefer.
> This way, even devs which are overwhelmed with emails would have a way to
> filter out email that may involve important decision.
>
> Creating another mailing list:
> Basically the same pros than using the existing mailing list. The only
> difference I see is that we wouldn't need to put a tag in the email topic.
>
> Using discuss.pixls.us with a category with limited access:
> pros:
> - we could benefit from the forum's math support to discuss while showing
> math stuff if needed
> - people can see the message when they want, and reply when they want,
> wherever they are on the planet
> - we can have conversations organised by topics
> cons:
> - a limited access would exclude new contributors from the conversation,
> whereas in my opinion any contributor should be able to defend his ideas
>
> Using github by commenting directly on PRs
> pros:
> - we can comment directly near the code, and we can comment code details
> - people can see the message when they want, and reply when they want,
> wherever they are on the planet
> - we can have conversations organised by topics (PRs)
> cons:
> - devs will have to check new PRs regularly to give their opinion, and a
> big-change PR may "hide" in between small ones. However, we could easily
> have a tag "big-change" to request devs to pay attention to particular PRs,
> or use the PRs names to indicate such big changes
> - big changes should be discussed before making them. Yet, I think this
> drawback can be compensated by making PRs really early, which is already
> done by several of us (see PRs with [WIP] in the title)
>
> What do you think?
> Please, give your opinion on all options, and select at least 2 solutions
> that could be ok for you, so that we can make a decision at the end.
> Also, if you don't like a solution, please explain why.
>
> I personally prefer the use of current mailing list with tags in the topic
> names, or to use github and comment directly on PRs. It would be ok for me
> as well if we use discuss.pixls.us. I think creating a new mailing list
> is a bit overkill, but I would be ok with it if others prefer this. Last, I
> think continuing using IRC for 

[darktable-dev] where to discuss big changes

2019-04-16 Thread rawfiner
Dear all,

Currently, the place where big changes should be discussed is IRC
(according to houz, as I have not seen this information anywhere, which is
problematic as new contributors may make big changes, so they have at least
to be able to know where is the place to discuss things).
I think IRC is not convenient at all.

I would like to discuss why I think making these discussion on IRC is bad,
and what alternatives we have.

IRC:
pros: honestly, I don't see any (it is nice for casual talk, but discussing
important changes is very different than casual talk...)
cons:
- no logs. Basically, if you are not connected at the right time to discuss
about the changes, you cannot catch up, and you cannot even know what
decision was taken!
- instantaneous chatting. While it is nice for casual talk, it forces to
write answer fastly. For making important decision, we should have least
have a platform were anyone can take time to write argumented answers. In
addition, answering quickly does leave enough time to think about the way
to say things, which can result in misunderstandings, under-thought
answers, potentially even anger.
- people at different places in the planet just can't be all at the same
time connected
- all topics are messed up in the discussion, thus even if we had a logging
system it would be hard to find a particular topic easily

Existing dev mailing list:
pros:
- it is logical for new devs to join the mailing list (way more logical
than connecting 24h/24h to an IRC channel in my opinion)
- people can see the message when they want, and reply when they want,
wherever they are on the planet
- we can have conversations organised by topics
cons:
- the mailing list is used for several purpose (help requested to develop a
module, bugs, interaction between user and devs, and information about
ongoing developments). This con could be compensated by using a tag in
subjects related to big changes, like [big-changes] or whatever you prefer.
This way, even devs which are overwhelmed with emails would have a way to
filter out email that may involve important decision.

Creating another mailing list:
Basically the same pros than using the existing mailing list. The only
difference I see is that we wouldn't need to put a tag in the email topic.

Using discuss.pixls.us with a category with limited access:
pros:
- we could benefit from the forum's math support to discuss while showing
math stuff if needed
- people can see the message when they want, and reply when they want,
wherever they are on the planet
- we can have conversations organised by topics
cons:
- a limited access would exclude new contributors from the conversation,
whereas in my opinion any contributor should be able to defend his ideas

Using github by commenting directly on PRs
pros:
- we can comment directly near the code, and we can comment code details
- people can see the message when they want, and reply when they want,
wherever they are on the planet
- we can have conversations organised by topics (PRs)
cons:
- devs will have to check new PRs regularly to give their opinion, and a
big-change PR may "hide" in between small ones. However, we could easily
have a tag "big-change" to request devs to pay attention to particular PRs,
or use the PRs names to indicate such big changes
- big changes should be discussed before making them. Yet, I think this
drawback can be compensated by making PRs really early, which is already
done by several of us (see PRs with [WIP] in the title)

What do you think?
Please, give your opinion on all options, and select at least 2 solutions
that could be ok for you, so that we can make a decision at the end.
Also, if you don't like a solution, please explain why.

I personally prefer the use of current mailing list with tags in the topic
names, or to use github and comment directly on PRs. It would be ok for me
as well if we use discuss.pixls.us. I think creating a new mailing list is
a bit overkill, but I would be ok with it if others prefer this. Last, I
think continuing using IRC for this purpose would be a big mistake, that
will lead to more communication issues, so I am totally against this
solution.

I hope we will find a solution so that amazing changes to this amazing
software can be peacefully discussed in the future.

Cheers,
rawfiner

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