Re: contributing to Emacs

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Konstantin Kharlamov <hi-angel@yandex.ru>
> Cc: ams@gnu.org, emacs-devel@gnu.org
> Date: Sun, 18 Jun 2023 12:18:09 +0300
> 
> > > You can't send a patch if you don't know how and where to send it 😊 So you
> > > can't avoid reading that section.
> > 
> > False.  People know how to reach us even without reading.  The few
> > Emacs mailing lists are common knowledge, and are just an Internet
> > search away if someone needs that.
> 
> Okay, let's conduct an experiment. Suppose I am a new contributor who never
> contributed via MLs. So first I search for "Emacs contribute". I get this URL
> https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/Contributing.html
> There I see a suggestion to implement a new feature and submit a patch. So 
> then
> I use page search for word "patch" to see where are details on how to do 
> that. I
> find a link "Sending Patches". There I find a suggestion to send it to
> bugtracker, and then various points about MIME types, what needs to be done,
> etc.
> 
> In what case do you imagine such new developer would not need to read that
> section and still will successfully send a patch? 🤷‍♂️

All of them.  I never had anyone asking where to send a patch.  People
sometimes say they are not sure whether they send them to a correct
forum, but they do send them to the right place nonetheless.

> > > I've been contributing patches from time to time and back when I had my
> > > first
> > > ones I've been multiple times pointed to CONTRIBUTE file due to getting
> > > either
> > > formatting or something else wrong. Which is why I'm saying there's an
> > > expectation to read that file as well.
> > 
> > There's no such expectation.  We live in the real world, not in some
> > fantasy.  When the patch doesn't follow our conventions, we either
> > correct that by hand when installing it or (if the deviations are too
> > significant) ask the contributor to make those changes and resubmit.
> 
> Okay, maybe something changed. I am saying from my experience of contributing
> patches.

AFAIR, you insisted to know, for each comment during the patch review,
where is that requirement documented.  So you were pointed to those
places.  You could have simply done what you were asked, in which case
you wouldn't need to read on that.

> > > > Yes, many other projects do it differently.  By and large, they are
> > > > toy projects whose median life time is about 1/10th that of Emacs, and
> > > > the size is accordingly small.  
> > > 
> > > Mesa isn't small. Neither is systemd, docker, podman.
> > 
> > I said "by and large".
> 
> Well, in this case I might be missing what you meant to say. You pointed out
> there are small projects with different workflow, I pointed out there are 
> large
> ones.

Your large ones are still smaller than Emacs by a factor of 3.  You
also forgot the point about the age of each project.

> So I guess that cancels out.

It doesn't.  Your argument was about 90% of projects, and my response
about most of them being small was about that majority.  Showing a few
examples that are in the same order of magnitude as Emacs doesn't
substantiate your claim, which basically is: it's easy and obvious
that Emacs should switch, but a few old-timers block that for
laughable reasons.