Re: Emacs-Guix released outside from Guix - or why I am not sending patches in

[Pjotr Prins]

On Sun, Dec 18, 2016 at 01:47:18PM -0200, Adonay Felipe Nogueira wrote:
> I suspect that he's more used to have "push" permissions to repositories
> instead of submitting patches.

In principle that should not stop working you on your own branch. You
can push and collect your commits into a compiled patch later. That
does not stop the flow of work.

> I, personally, like to work with patches because this allows me to
> submit them directly to people involved in the project in cases the
> project in question requires non-(free/libre) software (written in
> JavaScript) in order to submit things (of course, I'm **not** talking
> about Guix). Also, patch submissions don't require accounts in such
> places as long as you have a way to contact at least one developer by
> email.
> 
> Also, I also like patches because people can state their opinions about
> what I do and even give me some improvement hints instead of having to
> do various push requests in order to make such improvements.

Sure. It can be a learning process which is great. I tried. There are
three problems (also with patches committed for packages):

1. The author may not agree with the imposed strictness or rules of
   patches

2. The turnaround of accepting patches can be a long time

3. Fixing patches on things you don't agree on (or see the importance
   of) is tedious. Very tedious.

That is why I stopped. I rather spend my time coding and documenting.
Personally I also think the threshold is too high to newcomers. 

Obviously others disagree with the above. I may be more sloppy in my
way of coding. I think that if code reads well it is acceptable. I
don't reject things because of spacing or lack comments. I don't
reject things because they are suboptimal (I should stop being a GSoC
mentor if that was the case). I believe that code can be changed and
improved incrementally both by the author and by others. I don't care
others see my short comings. In other words, I am one who plays by his
own rules.

In short, *I* know why *I* am not sending patches in. Even though I
have a long list of packages that *could* go in and arguably should.

This is my annual message on why I think the process may be
improved ;). Maybe we should have a 'sloppy' branch for people like
me. guix channels may help people like me too. I am convinced we could
have double the growth if we were good at attracting and retaining
contributions.

Guix will succeed. I am not arguing we should compromise for
correctness on trunk. But there ought to be ways to help sloppy
contributors ;). Otherwise I'll never contribute to a GNU project. If
the project does not care - who am I to care?

Pj.

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