Re: contributing to Emacs

[Dmitry Gutov]

On 18/06/2023 12:35, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
> > 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.

You don't see people asking where to send the patch because they simply 
stop at that point. Or they spend some time searching the web and trying.

Most people who know where to send the question, will probably have 
found the bug tracker as well by that point.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias#/media/File:Survivorship-bias.svg