Ronan wrote:
> It's an unfair comment.
OK, sorry. I had a big rant the last time things got broken for me,
and they were fixed quite quickly. That was months ago, and I haven't
upgraded since, but more because of the stream of postings about
basic-sounding problems with recent versions than anything else.
> BBDB spent about 2 years in stasis before I decided that someone
> should take it over.
Please don't think I don't realise this, and that without your
efforts, high bandwidth and good humour (not to mention the
contributions you have fostered from Robert, Colin, and several
others) we wouldn't even be having this conversation - all the
complaints would be old ones and there wouldn't be any point in making
them. The rate of BBDB progress is higher than it's ever been in my
time (pre 1.58, judging from the comments in my .emacs file about init
changes - could it have been 1.52? I can't remember) and many of the
new features are things people have asked for all the way along; I
didn't say I thought it was too hasty.
> Patrick, by all means feel free to go ahead and create your own
> BBDB; however, I'd much prefer if you contributed fixes or changes
> to the current codebase.
In the best of all possible worlds with everything for the best all I
want to do (lazy mug punter hat firmly pressed over brow) is update my
system with the latest BBDB (from the Debian testing distribution) as
often as possible, think slowly about new functionality I want,
discuss my ideas on the list, and either get a one-liner (from Colin,
usually) solving my problem entirely using existing BBDB functionality
with a little lateral thinking, or get the encouragement to go away
and build something bug-free and easy to use at my own pace which can
be slotted in.
I am also quite prepared to try and help test new BBDB versions before
release if this means the downstream packaged versions can become more
stable; I think it's important potential new users don't get
unnecessarily put off by gratuitous breakage.
After reading your reply I thought I'd better try to upgrade again
(for the first time since March), and on the strength of half a day's
use have found no problems. Although the date on the Debian changelog
is 25 Aug 2001 I suspect I'm still a bit of a way from the bleeding
edge; perhaps the Debian maintainer knows?
> The original intention of the code layout was that you only used as much as
> was appropriate to your setup, and I'm trying to coerce things back in
> that direction. But, I am constrained by time, and also by the fact that
> BBDB cannot be all things to all people, so I gotta make choices somewhere.
I do not think two branches is worthwhile; basic testing to avoid
howlers would take a lot less time. By the same token it is probably
not worth having two separate packages, either - better interfaces and
separation of code are always worth having, though. So long as you
make the plan clear, and no-one else whose patches are going in is
swimming in the wrong direction, things should continue to improve
steadily. I might even deign to submit some patches myself, if that's
what it takes...
> If you have a specific beef with some feature or another, then please limit
> your complaints to that
I have managed this in the past and will try to do it again in the
future. Robert's comment set me off, that's all.
> rather than complaining about the codebase in
> general, as that's unhelpful and simply makes us developer folk feel
> unappreciated.
Well, I wouldn't want to do that, honest!
Patrick
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