[squeak-dev] tedious programming-in-the-debugger error needs fixing

Chris Muller asqueaker at gmail.com
Mon Sep 28 23:00:27 UTC 2020


On Mon, Sep 28, 2020 at 10:07 AM Eliot Miranda <eliot.miranda at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Hi Christoph,
>
> On Fri, Sep 25, 2020 at 7:58 AM Thiede, Christoph <
> Christoph.Thiede at student.hpi.uni-potsdam.de> wrote:
>
>> Hi Eliot,
>>
>>
>> I'm very sorry for this bug, which was so unnecessary because my image
>> has still a gigantic working copy ...! Tools-ct.988 should fix the
>> issue, I tested it in a fresh trunk image. But it would be probably better
>> if you could test it yourself, too. ;-)
>>
>
> No need to apologise.  It's an easy mistake, and you fixed it.  As long as
> we're all patient with each other and take responsibility (Andreas said "if
> you break it, you fix it") we're going to get along fine and be
> collectively productive.
>

The following is not addressed to Christoph or his commit, but to Eliots
comment, above:  Patience should begin within our development methodology.
The words above are correct and sweet, and I agree with them, but I feel
the need to caution against the implication that "everything's great as
long as you fix it *afterward*."  Maybe for git-based projects, a
*commit-first,
fix-later* strategy is what that culture likes and that system can support,
but it's not a good fit for Squeak's trunk.  I believe Andreas understood
this, and he indicated that "breaking the trunk is generally frowned upon."

When it comes to code less than 24 hours old, no matter how simple it
seems, chances are about 80% that a subsequent "oops, sorry" commit will
need to follow.  With "older," (e.g., even only just 48 hours!) *tested*
code, that chance drops significantly.  Patience.  Restraint.  Please.  :)
Let our methodology put time to work *for* us, by living with our changes
for a bit (as, it sounds like, Christoph did!) and witness them work in
context.  Maybe not this time, but *generally, *you'll have a gist enough
to know whether it should be loaded and tested separately in a clean trunk
first.

Cheers,
  Chris
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