[squeak-dev] The Inbox: Monticello-mva.648.mcz

David T. Lewis lewis at mail.msen.com
Sun Feb 5 16:29:14 UTC 2017


Hello Milan,

Well done! It is great to see new people contributing to Squeak development.

I'll add a few thoughts in line below:

On Sun, Feb 05, 2017 at 07:27:11AM -0800, Milan Vavra wrote:
> Hello Dave,
> 
> My name is Milan Vavra.
> 
> Thank you for replying.
> 
> This is another step on my quest to figure out how to contribute to Squeak.
> 
> I had a fix for the 'order by filename' in Squeak.
> 
> I did not know how to contribute it, so...
> 
> I have registered my developer initials mva on SqueakMap
> http://map.squeak.org/accountbyid/92d7a8f5-9d00-4951-8d19-0c0ae0b8a3f3
> So mva should not conflict with anyone else contriubuting to Squeak.
> Something went wrong and I can not log in to SqueakMap but the initials
> got registered.

That is fine, and I was only confused because I did not see 'mva' when I
searched through the members on http://source.squeak.org. You may want to
add yourself to that site using "Register Member".

> 
> I googled in on
> https://squeakboard.wordpress.com/2009/07/02/a-new-community-development-model/
> which seems to suggest that Inbox is open for contributions.

Yes!

> 
> I have been looking at what is happening in the
> squeak-dev list on Nabble
> http://forum.world.st/Squeak-Dev-f45488.html
> or in the archives
> http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/pipermail/squeak-dev/
> .
> 
> Then I noticed that under what seemed like automatically generated posts
> posts from commits-2 like this one on Nabble
> 
> http://forum.world.st/The-Inbox-Multilingual-jr-218-mcz-td4929936.html
> or in the archives
> http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/pipermail/squeak-dev/2017-January/192888.html
> there were responses from real people.

That is exactly right. When someone saves something to the inbox (or to trunk),
a commit message is automatically sent to the list. Often people will reply to
one of these commit messages to discuss the change, or to provide more explanation
about why the change is made. This works well, because the commit message just
says what was changed, and the mailing list is used for discussions.

> 
> Then there was this post on Stack Overflow
> http://stackoverflow.com/questions/26445182/how-to-check-out-test-code-in-squeak-for-the-inbox
> where Bert Freudenberg mentioned the Inbox again.
> 
> Then I found Bert's video
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QKmfI4taGo
> on contributing to etoys.
> 
> Then I thought: "lets's give it a try and see what happens".
> 
> So I took the latest Squeak 5.1 release
> http://files.squeak.org/5.1/Squeak5.1-16548-32bit/Squeak5.1-16548-32bit-All-in-One.zip
> and looked for the latest version of the package I had a fix for -
> Monticello - in the repository
> http://source.squeak.org/squeak51
> to see if there were any more recent versions.
> 
> It turned out Monticello-mt.647 is the latest version there.

Ah, I see now. The squeak51 repository is actually a maintenance branch for
the Squeak 5.1 release, while the active new development is proceeding in
the trunk, http://source.squeak.org/trunk. So now I understand why your inbox
submission was a few versions behind the latest trunk :-)

That is the reason that I manually merged your fix into trunk, rather than
simply moving Monticello-mva.648 directly from inbox to trunk.

I would encourage you to also try updating your image to the latest trunk.
Most Squeak developers are doing that, and even though it is the "bleeding
edge" development version, it is almost always stable in my experience.

We should discuss how to update your image to trunk in a separate email if
you do not yet know the details (I wonder if we are doing a good enough job
explaining this? probably no I suspect).


> 
> So I applied my fix for the 'order by filename', saved my version
> of the package as Monticello-mva.648 then copied it into
> MCHttpRepository
> 	location: 'http://source.squeak.org/inbox'
> 	user: ''
> 	password: ''
> .
> 
> Then I saw this automatically generated the
> http://forum.world.st/The-Inbox-Monticello-mva-648-mcz-td4932946.html
> or
> http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/pipermail/squeak-dev/2017-February/193017.html
> post on squeak-dev.
> 
> Then I saw you reply.
> 
> You said you have moved my package to 'treated inbox'.
> 
> So I went on looking for that and I can see my package in
> http://source.squeak.org/treated.html
> .
> 
> 
> I can see that in
> http://source.squeak.org/trunk
> there is now the Monticello-dtl.660 version that incorporates my fix.
> 
> And finally, I can see the fix merged on Nabble
> http://forum.world.st/The-Trunk-Monticello-dtl-660-mcz-td4932981.html
> or in the archives
> http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/pipermail/squeak-dev/2017-February/193016.html
> .
> 
> ...so I guess when I have a fix and/or enhancement I want to contribute:
> 
> - I can Save and/or Copy a fixed version of the package in 'inbox' and
> in the log message describe what I have changed and why,

Yes, that is right. And you can also provide further explanation on the
squeak-dev list.

> - I can use my author initials 'mva' from SqueakMap
> (and/or should I use my email address in the log message instead?)

Yes, use your 'mva' initials, that is fine. I suggest also registering
yourself with those same initials on http://source.squeak.org.


> - some developer will take a look like you just did and
> - if my contribution is considered useful,

Well to be honest, many good contributions get overlooked, and we need
to do a better job of treating them. So please do use the squeak-dev
list to reply to your own commit notice and make sure someone pays
attention!

> it will be moved from 'inbox' into 'treated' and merged into 'trunk'.
> - if discussion is needed, there will be replies from humans
> to the automatically generated post in squeak-dev.

Yes. Sometimes a contribution can be moved directly from inbox to trunk,
and sometimes it needs to be merged. Often the author and/or developer
will decide that an inbox contribution is not such a good idea after
all, and then it should be moved to treated. That preserves the actual
contribution, and moves it out of inbox so that people will know that
it does not require further action.

> 
> Best Regards,
> 
> Milan Vavra
>

Thanks again and welcome to Squeak development!

Dave
 


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