[squeak-dev] Inbox cleaning

Chris Muller asqueaker at gmail.com
Wed Apr 13 15:23:44 UTC 2011


My only question is:  how does Mantis keep things from getting lost?

I use gmail, which serves as the primary interface to communicating
with all Squeak lists and a Google-backed search capability.  I can
just search for the version-name and instantly have a list of "all the
information" available about that version?

Now I would have to have an additional place to check for information?

I appreciate trying to keep our inbox clean, but the treated Inbox is
meant to "keep things around".  So if we simply reply to the original
submission with something like,

    "No activity on this for 6 months, moving to Treated."

Then that goes into the mail archive, which is searchable, and no need
to bring in another tool..??

Regards,
  Chris


On Mon, Apr 11, 2011 at 8:12 PM, Levente Uzonyi <leves at elte.hu> wrote:
> On Mon, 11 Apr 2011, Casey Ransberger wrote:
>
>> I disagree. The thing that gets my inbox contribution into Squeak isn't
>> waiting on a Mantis ticket (this is the problem that the Inbox addresses.)
>> What gets my commits into Squeak is *communicating* with other people on the
>> list about why my stuff should go in.
>>
>> If the problem is folks are checking in and the commits are being
>> overlooked, I'd suggest that people ask someone to move the changes to
>> trunk. Just about every time I've done this, it's worked. The sole
>> exceptions were two cases where my commits were bad, and another where I
>> commited to the inbox and forgot to follow up.
>>
>> I don't believe installing Mantis in the center of the feedback loop is
>> going to do anything beyond make it harder for non-core developers to
>> contribute and slow down the overall community development process.
>>
>> I could be wrong but I bet I'm not.
>
> I guess I didn't express my idea properly. It's not about new contributions,
> but those which are lingering in the Inbox for months. As time passes we're
> losing information about them. It takes a lot of time to find the lost
> information out again. The code in the Trunk is also evolving, so the
> contribution may become obsolete. AFAIK some contributors left the community
> (even temporarily), so we won't be able to ask them about the contribution.
>
> For new contributions you're right, communication is the key if you want
> your changes to go into the Trunk. It doesn't have to be mail (though it's
> always welcome), well written commit message and tests are fine too. :)
>
>
> Levente
>
>>
>> On Apr 11, 2011, at 4:00 PM, Levente Uzonyi <leves at elte.hu> wrote:
>>
>>> On Mon, 11 Apr 2011, Nicolas Cellier wrote:
>>>
>>>> I rejected System-djr.305.mcz to the TreatedInbox
>>>> (
>>>> Move (and delegate) Smalltalk>>hasSpecialSelector:ifTrueSetByte: and
>>>> friends to SystemDictionary.
>>>> The Refactoring Browser' tests expects it there and it makes more sense
>>>> to me.
>>>> )
>>>>
>>>> Rationale: specialSelectors & co are system attributes.
>>>> Thus it seems to me more natural to ask the System (Smalltalk) than to
>>>> ask a namespace (Smalltalk globals).
>>>>
>>>> Sorry, we can't wait for an hypothetic democratic decision forever,
>>>> someone has to play the dictator :(
>>>
>>> Another solution is to open an issue for each pending contribution on
>>> mantis and discuss them there.
>>>
>>> Pros:
>>> - all previous thoughts/ideas are available at the same place, nothing
>>> will be lost in the mail archive
>>> - it will be known which packages are for which contribution
>>> Cons:
>>> - not all developers follow mantis issues
>>>
>>> But if we decide to use an issue tracker - which would be great - then
>>> the cons will be gone. So the question is: will mantis be accepted and used
>>> by all developers or should we look for another issue tracker?
>>>
>>> I know some people don't like mantis and I think I know why, but mantis
>>> is good enough for our needs IMHO. Even though it seems to be complicated,
>>> it's pretty easy to use it, if you're willing to spend a few minutes on
>>> learning the basic features.
>>>
>>>
>>> Levente
>>>
>>>>
>>>> Nicolas
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>
>



More information about the Squeak-dev mailing list