[OSM-dev] Odp: Re: Make Nominatim more dev friendly

[Mariusz Rogowski]

Dnia Czwartek, 2 Lutego 2017 00:14 Frederik Ramm  
napisał(a)

>I'm not a Nominatim developer but I've followed Nominatim development
> and issues for a while. One thing that contributes to the impression
> that "pull requests/issues are ignored" is that Nominatim aims to be a
> good, or at least a functioning, geocoder for the whole planet.
> Contributors (understandably - that's how Open Source works) often
> scratch their own itch, they find a problem with Spanish addresses and
> submit a fix - but they don't notice (or care) that it breaks geocoding
> elsewhere (for example https://trac.openstreetmap.org/ticket/4895 where
> someone adds stop words).
>  

That's why it is important to prepare extensive test suite (also enabling some 
locale parameter for searches would be nice to have). Than just don't allow 
pull requests which don't pass existing tests. Easy ;)

>  
> You said you're a developer, have you actually tried to participate in
> the Nominatim devlopment?

Not yet. Lack of guide, architere descriptions, mentioned pull requests and 
lack of knowledge of some kind of big picture is not encouraging.

>  
> > [4] - https://github.com/twain47/Nominatim/issues/467
>  
> Are you the user "sanitas2" from this issue? I've read through it and I
> must say that I find the reaction of the developers absolutely
> understandable. I don't think you have been helpful, respectful, or
> polite in that issue.
>  

I think both sides could have behave better.

> > Anyway, I think the solutions to the problems are quite obvious. How can I 
> > convince someone to make the project open and friendly to new collaborators?
>  
> I think this public claim that the current developers ignore "obvious
> solutions" won't do much good to improve their enthusiasm. What is your
> suggestion? Chuck out the "unfriendly" developers and replace them with
> whom? Or force the developers to spend more of their spare time trying
> to understand your issue?
>  

By obvious steps I mean:
1. Make current maintainers stop working on existing issues (if they don't have 
time). The biggest issue right now is the project is not attractive to new 
developers. Fix that first. What I mean in details e.g. is: 
 - Close pending (for years) pull requests.
 - Prepare nice project readme which mentions contributors are needed and 
welcomed.
 - Prepare documentation of existing code base. Things like architecture, 
languages used, test approach etc.
 - Prepare some contribution guidelines.
 - Prepare some big picture. Project is quite old, I guess technologies and 
architecture chosen might be quite obsolete. Maybe someone should review the 
current approach and decide on some bigger targets than fixing single small 
issues. E.g. sometimes I feel that that putting address data to some search 
engine could get rid of lots of logic in Nominatim code.

Anyway, make the project as attractive as possible for new people. There are 
people who want to contribute to open source projects. You could get 
contributors from Google Summer of Code, Hacktoberfest, Hackathons and Code 
Retreats. But you need to make project look like it's worth ones time.

2. Ask for help/feedback OSM partners or universities. E.g. mapquest provides 
Nominatim service. Maybe they won't be able to do any coding, but maybe they 
might have some thoughts about direction project should go. As of universities, 
every year hundreds of people are looking for project for master thesis, making 
them know there is interesting topic available may attract them to Nominatim.

3. Announce the project needs contributors on OSM blog/website.

4. Maybe OSM fundations should consider hiring people to work on OSM projects?

Those are ideas from top of my mind. Maybe not the best ones, but still those 
are better things to do than complain about being understaffed ;)




 




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[OSM-dev] Odp: Re: [OSM-talk] Make Nominatim more dev friendly

[Mariusz Rogowski]

Hi,You kind of proving my point. In my opinion the project should provide all those information on its github pages. I think conclusion that someone cares and actively maintains the project should be visible without asking any questions.As for pull requests, I would say after waiting reasonable time, they should be closed. I don't think you are seriously awaiting for someone to respond to a comment after 5 years. Closing inactive ones after some time would not send message 
that the project is not maintained. Anyway, thanks for giving me some starting points. I'll look into that.
 
Dnia Środa, 1 Lutego 2017 21:53 Sarah Hoffmann <lon...@denofr.de> napisał(a)

Hi Mariusz,
 
(cross-posting to talk removed, as this is essentially a dev mail)
 
I'm glad to hear that you are concerned about Nominatim development.
That makes two of us. As a software developer, the most effective
way to change things is to start contributing code. So here are a few
pointers for that.
 
The outstanding pull requests you mention are a very good place to start.
There are quite a few which have not been merged because there are
outstanding comments from me which the original authors never addressed.
In particular, I'd like to point to:
 
https://github.com/twain47/Nominatim/pull/552
https://github.com/twain47/Nominatim/pull/439
https://github.com/twain47/Nominatim/pull/429
 
They are pretty far along. They would need to be updated to the current
master version and have the remaining issues fixed.
 
If that's not to your liking you can also look through the issues.
Anything marked 'enhancement' is particularly suited for external
contributions. I haven't marked the difficulty level but here are
a few examples, I'd consider good starting points for first time
code contributors:
 
https://github.com/twain47/Nominatim/issues/562
https://github.com/twain47/Nominatim/issues/135
https://github.com/twain47/Nominatim/issues/171
https://github.com/twain47/Nominatim/issues/255
https://github.com/twain47/Nominatim/issues/344
https://github.com/twain47/Nominatim/issues/311
 
The comments on the issues can be sparse at times, so feel free to ask
for clarifications. As a general rule, it is also a good idea to quickly
outline your implementation idea first, in particular where the solution
is not obvious or where larger changes are required. That helps avoid
disappointment during PR review.
 
If you have general questions about the source code, the geocoding@
mailing list is the right place to ask.
 
Sarah
(Nominatim lead developer)
 
 
On Wed, Feb 01, 2017 at 07:34:53PM +0100, Mariusz Rogowski wrote:
> blockquote {padding-left: 1ex; margin: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; border-left: #cc 1px solid;} p {margin: 0px;padding: 0px;} 
> Hi,I am not sure if this is right pleace to rise my concerns or if they are welcomed here. But I will give it a try.I am not an active member of community, I am software developer who sporadically has to geocode some addresses. For some regions of the world OSM is the best source of data and it is a shame tools for searching the data fall behind. In my opinion Nominatim could have been very useful service which would promote OSM usage. 
Seriously, for many applications
> searching addresses is very important feature. Nominatim should be like second most important service given to the world by OSM. Unfortunately it seems to be far away from the spotlight and people might not be aware of its problems. What I mean is:1. There are pull requests (i.e. probably finished features ready to integrate with project) starting from year 2012. Yes - somebody contributed to the project and is wating 5 years to have his contribution accepted. [1]2. There are over
> 100 issues opened starting from 2013. [2]3. Project is understaffed (which I guess can happen). But its maintainers are aware of it and do not do anything to change it. [3]Anyway, I work in software development and I could be contributing to the project. But fact the contributions are ignored, maintainers are frustrated (and it shows) make me thing it is a waste of time. Even providing real life examples of wrong geocoding (so the test cases could be 
extended) ends with some
> unfriendliness and ignorance. [4] I understand there are probably valid reasons for current state and atitude. But discussing it does not really interests me. I wish to change things ;) Unfortunately there's not much I can do about it apart from pointing the problems to wider audience. Anyway, I think the solutions to the problems are quite obvious. How can I convince someone to make the project 
open and friendly to new collaborators?<br
> />Mariusz[1] - https://github.com/twain47/Nominatim/pulls[2] - https://github.com/twain47/Nominatim/issues[3] - https://github.com/twain47/Nominatim/issues/316#issuecomment-147111016[4] - https://github.com/twain47/Nominatim/issues/467
>
>
>
 
> ___
> talk mailing list
> t...@ope

[OSM-dev] Make Nominatim more dev friendly

[Mariusz Rogowski]

Hi,I am not sure if this is right pleace to rise my concerns or if they are welcomed here. But I will give it a try.I am not an active member of community, I am software developer who sporadically has to geocode some addresses. For some regions of the world OSM is the best source of data and it is a shame tools for searching the data fall behind. In my opinion Nominatim could have been very useful service which would promote OSM usage. Seriously, for many applications 
searching addresses is very important feature. Nominatim should be like second most important service given to the world by OSM. Unfortunately it seems to be far away from the spotlight and people might not be aware of its problems. What I mean is:1. There are pull requests (i.e. probably finished features ready to integrate with project) starting from year 2012. Yes - somebody contributed to the project and is wating 5 years to have his contribution accepted. [1]2. There are over 
100 issues opened starting from 2013. [2]3. Project is understaffed (which I guess can happen). But its maintainers are aware of it and do not do anything to change it. [3]Anyway, I work in software development and I could be contributing to the project. But fact the contributions are ignored, maintainers are frustrated (and it shows) make me thing it is a waste of time. Even providing real life examples of wrong geocoding (so the test cases could be extended) ends with some 
unfriendliness and ignorance. [4] I understand there are probably valid reasons for current state and atitude. But discussing it does not really interests me. I wish to change things ;) Unfortunately there's not much I can do about it apart from pointing the problems to wider audience. Anyway, I think the solutions to the problems are quite obvious. How can I convince someone to make the project open and friendly to new collaborators?Mariusz[1] - https://github.com/twain47/Nominatim/pulls[2] - https://github.com/twain47/Nominatim/issues[3] - https://github.com/twain47/Nominatim/issues/316#issuecomment-147111016[4] - https://github.com/twain47/Nominatim/issues/467



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