{"thread":{"id":"42791","subject":"[RFC] Questions for \"Git User's Survey 2016\"","startedAt":"2016-07-07T15:03:28Z","lastAt":"2016-07-07T17:28:38Z","messageCount":2,"participants":["Jakub Narębski","Stefan Beller"],"isPatch":false,"patchVersion":null,"patchTotal":null},"messages":[{"id":"290954","messageId":"577E6F32.7020007@gmail.com","threadId":"42791","inReplyTo":null,"subject":"[RFC] Questions for \"Git User's Survey 2016\"","fromName":"Jakub Narębski","fromEmail":"jnareb@gmail.com","sentAt":"2016-07-07T15:03:14Z","receivedAt":"2016-07-07T15:03:28Z","isPatch":false,"sender":{"key":"jnareb@gmail.com","avatar":"https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/2706?v=4"},"body":"I am thinking about returning to doing the Git User's Survey, and\nI'd like to ask for feedback.\n\nThanks to generocity of Survs.com, we have been gifted with premium\nannual plan (previous surveys always generated quite a large number\nof responses).  This plan will last (at least; it was usually\nautomatically renewed at no cost) till 26 October 2016, so I am\nplanning on having the survey for 1 month, in September:\n\n  1 September -- 30 September 2016\n\nFor now I would like to ask what types of questions would you want\nto see in the survey, and what you want to get from it (what would\nbe the survey purpose).\n\nIn my opinion, the survey has (at least) threefold purpose:\n\n1. INFORMATIONAL.  We can find out how people use Git, if the range\nof people answering the survey is wide enough and diverse enough.\nWe can find out what are their pain points.  It might be different\nfrom what we here on this mailing list think it is.  Hopefully\nthis would help direct Git development to make Git better for all.\n\n2. EDUCATIONAL.  For example a question about which features do\none uses, or how one gets help about Git, tends to be educational\nfor people taking the survey.\n\n3. ADVERTISEMENT.  Announcing Git User's Survey might be considered\nadvertisement for git mailing list.  Questions about hosting site\nor books can also be considered advertisement for the site in question\nor the book / the author, respectively.\n\n\nWhat I'd like to see is how people use Git, which features do they\nuse and which tools (maybe there is some great unknown tool there?),\nwhere they go to find help about Git.\n\nWhat types of questions should there be in this year survey?\n\n-- \nJakub Narębski\n"},{"id":"290967","messageId":"CAGZ79kZCbu4djv0j6WvgPO1Lr=FwFkNnECyBjweP-SsssY1J3w@mail.gmail.com","threadId":"42791","inReplyTo":"577E6F32.7020007@gmail.com","subject":"Re: [RFC] Questions for \"Git User's Survey 2016\"","fromName":"Stefan Beller","fromEmail":"sbeller@google.com","sentAt":"2016-07-07T17:28:32Z","receivedAt":"2016-07-07T17:28:38Z","isPatch":false,"sender":{"key":"stefanbeller@gmail.com","avatar":"https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/455868?v=4"},"body":"On Thu, Jul 7, 2016 at 8:03 AM, Jakub Narębski <jnareb@gmail.com> wrote:\n> I am thinking about returning to doing the Git User's Survey, and\n> I'd like to ask for feedback.\n\nThanks for doing the survey!\n\n>\n> What I'd like to see is how people use Git, which features do they\n> use and which tools (maybe there is some great unknown tool there?),\n> where they go to find help about Git.\n>\n> What types of questions should there be in this year survey?\n>\n\nAdditionally to the categories you listed, I'd like to propose\n\n4. TEMPORAL. We may get feedback if and how much\nsome pain points were addressed since the last survey.\nThis can be done by using the very same question we used in\nthe last questionnaire, and see how much the answers shifted\nor by doing more suggestive questions (\"Last survey showed,\nfeature X is not easy to use, how easy is it now? Think of X\nin v1.7.5\")\n\nAFAICT the last survey was 2012?\n\nAs for the content, I think submodules improved a lot\nsince then, however I do think they could be improved even more.\ne.g. one question could be:\n\nWhat would you think would improve submodules most\nif you could only pick one?\n\n* inclusion of submodules into more commands, e.g.\n  \"git checkout --recurse-submodules\"\n* support for direct clones of submodules from a host\n  (i.e. not going through the .gitmodules file, but trying\n  to obtain the submodule from that superprojects\n  .git/modules/<name>. This would only work for non\n  bare repos)\n* more fault tolerance for miss-configured submodules\n* more descriptive error messages for miss-configured\n  submodules\n* ...\n\nThis would help to gauge how to best spend developer time\nwhen trying to improve a feature (like submodules)\n\nThanks,\nStefan\n"}]}