Is there anything *enjoyable* about our development process?

[Josh Sled]

On Sun, 2005-10-16 at 15:11 -0400, Chris Shoemaker wrote:
> I agree about the negative feedback, and about striving for quality.
> But generating code that results in negative feedback is way better
> than generating no code, and is beneficial.  And if the feedback loop
> is such that code development is damped to a trickle, everyone loses.

True.

> > Breaking the build is still a waste of time and
> > resources, even if not as much as before.
> 
> But in the total analysis, breaking the build because people are
> actually writing code but making mistakes is much better than never
> breaking the build because no one wants to write any code.

So long as it gets corrected.

> > > 1) A small handful of developers who know all the conventions, never
> > > break the single build, only do things everybody agrees on, and can't
> > > keep their project from being dropped by distros - and no one dares to
> > > join in.
> > > 
> > > or 
> > > 
> > > 2) Several handfuls of developers who have to regularly be corrected
> > > in their breaking of conventions, regularly share code that doesn't
> > > work and has to be fixed, do things that nobody agrees on, but there
> > > are casual developers dropping in all the time and code keeps flowing.
> > 
> > [It distracts from your argument to parallel gnucash's recent history in
> > (1), because that's not what we're talking about.  
> 
> I'm not just arguing abstractly; I'm talking about gnucash.  (1) is
> basically the current state of gnucash.

I know you are, and that it is, but I think it distracts from an
discussion about how development should work; consider how the proposals
change:

1) A small handful of developers who know all the conventions, never
break the build, only do things everybody agrees on, and release regular
versions.  The code is simple enough for casual contributors to
regularly submit patches.

or

2) Several handfuls of developers who have to regularly be corrected in
their breaking of conventions, regularly share code that doesn't work
and has to be fixed, do things that nobody agrees on, but there are
casual developers dropping in all the time and code keeps flowing.

... (2) doesn't sound as fun as (1) to me.  It doesn't sound as healthy
either.  I hope the future lies somewhere between the two.


> > In any case, I think we're mostly in agreement about this, and I look
> > forward to making this a better project for ourselves and others to work
> > on. :)
> 
> You're right - we agree more than we disagree, but what fun is it to
> talk about what's in agreement?  :P

:) It's a bit of fun, but I'd rather be coding. 

...jsled
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