[TYPO3-dev] I blame Git [was:Slow BE since 4.5.x]

[Jigal van Hemert]

Hi,

On 25-4-2011 16:00, Patrick Gaumond wrote:
> On 2011-04-21 16:45, Steffen Kamper wrote:
>> i complained a lot about too less action from the devs, and the action
>> doesn't raise at the moment, i have the feeling it lowers more ...
>
> I would blame Git at the moment. And no, there's no smiley to my remark.
>
> Git may be more efficient from a CoreDev point of view but it also
> killed an essential part of CoreList spirit... Discussions and
> interactions. Even if in theory it was prohibited, the lack of "human
> factor" cut out the fun.

Not to blame others (I am equally guilty), but I also believe that:
- lots of people check the newsgroups (formerly mailinglists ;-) ) and 
forget to go to Gerrit.
- it's not easy to see which patches you already voted for (I used tags 
in Thunderbird to keep track of RFCs).
- people tend to forget the patch-for-a-patch "rule" (if you want to see 
improvements in a patch make an improved version)
- votes are lost when a new change set is pushed to Gerrit (technically 
maybe correct, but not functional if only the commit message is changed)
- if a core dev votes first his/her vote isn't really counted as the +2 
which is needed (it has been explained, but it is harder to go back and 
vote again once the other positive vote is there)
- testing for me (and maybe others too?) takes more time with git than 
it did with svn

And yes, while there was discussion in Mantis, the core list was more a 
community thing than Gerrit is now.

> Do I got to http://git.typo3.org/TYPO3v4/Core.git every day as I use to
> read CoreList? No. And I feel i'm not alone (François wrote something in
> that spirit if I recall).

I am afraid I have to agree. It's an extra step besides the mailing 
lists and it doesn't provide the easy overview as the newsgroup does. 
Review comments, inline comments, all scattered through different patch 
sets isn't really helpful.

> Let's be frank, Git is very effective but boring. It's mechanical, not
> organic. How are you going to bring new blood into Core with an
> efficient but cold system? I don't know either.

Is it effective? It has more features, but it's also way more 
complicated (in terms of things which can go wrong and need expert 
advise to get right). After about ten commits the whole svn recipe was 
almost second nature. This still isn't the case with Git/Gerrit. Why? I 
don't know.

> I'm not saying we should get back to SVN! I'm just trying to figure out
> why energy felt.

I wouldn't mind going back. It's rather frustrating when simple and easy 
patches are still not in after a month or so. It takes away the 
motivation of making new patches.

-- 
Kind regards / met vriendelijke groet,

Jigal van Hemert.