Il giorno ven, 09/11/2007 alle 16.58 -0600, Jonathon Jongsma ha scritto: > On 11/9/07, Lucas Rocha <lucasr gnome org> wrote: > > - Are the current drawbacks of using autotools in GNOME so so so > > annoying that it would be really worth the effort of migrating to > > something else? > > The only reason I could imagine migrating to something else at the > moment would be if it lowered the barrier to contribution so that we > got enough new contributors to offset the amount of work it required. > I'm doubtful that this would actually happen though, and we'd need to > be 100% sure that the system we were moving to was an improvement. > Changing subject since I think that the problem of lowering the barrier of contribution is crucial to the success of any free software project. I would like to discuss with you where we could act seriously in this direction. I've got some comments to make: * The GNOME love bugs weren't a bad idea, the only problem with some of them was they were boring and you didn't learn a lot from fixing them. For example, fixing include file order in headers isn't exactly what I'd consider exciting if I were to hack on some part of GNOME. I want action! Challenging ideas (but still, feasible ideas)! Furry little bugs squashed! Anyway, I'd like to see more bugs marked with the gnome-love keyword, and the most popular/new ones should deserve a window in the wiki, updated every week for major visibility. Make it a challenge, let the agonism arise between teenagers with too much testosterone! * The first time I tried to write something with the GNOME stack of libraries, I was baffled by ORBit. I simply wasn't able to get anything clear out from its documentation. I even didn't understand exactly what it was for. Three years, my first year as a CS student, and some beers later, I stumbled upon the DBUS specification. It was clear, concise, and explained very well to me what DBUS was for. After reading the *DBUS* document, I started understanding *ORBit* (which is different, obviously, but that gave me the insight). Following Murphy's law, now ORBit is being put in a corner :-). What I'm trying to say, is that we need some proper documentation explaining how the GNOME stack is built, and what components fulfill what need, bringing in concrete examples in the discussion. New hackers, especially if young and inexperienced like me, really need this sort of things to avoid going on a wrong path for months and then discovering that what you wrote was already there. That discourages anyone to continue. * Proper API documentation is still more important. I think that having 100% symbols documentation should be a priority. I know that no-one likes writing it, but it's necessary for all the people out there who don't have the willingness to read the code. By the way, the Mono library documentation is frankly quite incomplete. Also the Gtkmm one. I know of at least three separate CS programming courses in C++ at university that chose to use wxWidgets over Gtkmm just because of their better documentation (I prefer Gtkmm, but I don't have a problem to search also the Gtk+ docs as a fallback). * Code a lot of times isn't commented enough. Also static functions in a compilation unit should have at least a line explaining why they're there and what they're about. As you see, most of my problems go with the documentation, and not with the code, which usually I find well written - at least, the code *I* have read. A more strict policy about API documentation would be good news, and more abstract (vision, architectural) documentation 'd be wonderful news. Cheers, -- Matteo Settenvini FSF Associated Member Email : matteo member fsf org -----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK----- Version: 3.12 GCS d--(-) s+:- a-- C++ UL+++ P?>++ L+++>$ E+>+++ W+++ N++ o? w--- O- M++ PS++ PE- Y+>++ PGP+++ t+ 5 X- R tv-- b+++ DI+ D++ G++ e h+ r-- y? ------END GEEK CODE BLOCK------
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