Re: improving our contributing tools and workflow

[Phil Holmes]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Janek Warchoł" <address@hidden>
To: "Phil Holmes" <address@hidden>
Cc: "LilyPond Development Team" <address@hidden>; "David Kastrup" 
<address@hidden>; "Joseph Wakeling" <address@hidden>; "Graham 
Percival" <address@hidden>
Sent: Thursday, September 26, 2013 1:06 PM
Subject: Re: improving our contributing tools and workflow


> Hi,
>
> to make things clear: i do not intend to attack anyone personally, or
> imply that anyone has bad will or malicious intentions.  I only want
> to explain how the situation looks like from my point of view.
>
> 2013/9/26 Phil Holmes <address@hidden>:
> > Janek wrote:
> > > 2013/9/26 Phil Holmes <address@hidden>:
> > > > Good luck.  Let me give a Graham-style warning.  Don't invest any more
> > > > time
> > > > and effort initially than the amount you can discard without problem.
> > > > That's
> > > > to say - don't put months of work with the risk that the other
> > > > contributors
> > > > won't accept the change and all that valuable work is junked.
> > >
> > > This sounds like you're not going to participate in this.  Do i
> > > understand correctly?  It also sounds very discouraging to me.
> > > Janek
> >
> > I don't see why you would get that impression.
>
> Because your message sounds pessimistic.  It sounds like you consider
> it likely that my attempt to do something good will fail.  It sounds
> like you are not concerned with ensuring that this initiative suceeds
> and brings benefit to all, but rather you are thinking about the
> damage and problems it can bring.


I thought I made this clear - I was repeating something Graham said to me on 
a number of occasions.  He would argue it was realistic, not pessimistic. 
You have to be aware of the fact that, simply by working hard on a problem 
does not guarantee that the effort expended will be rewarded.

Here's a direct quote from him - clearly you don't fall into the category of 
new contributor, but the warning still applies:

"We've had bad experiences where a helpful and enthusiastic new
contributor misunderstood the instructions, ran off and did 5 hours of
work instead of 10 minutes, and none of the main developers wanted to
take the time to deal with the results of the 5-hour work, so the
whole thing was wasted. (literally wasted, as in "the project would
have received more benefit from the 10-minute job instead of the
5-hour work")"

Check the results of the grand regression test review.

--
Phil Holmes