Re: [RFC] Questions for "Git User's Survey 2011"

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Sep 23, 2012, 08:09 UTC
Message-ID: <7v39292mao.fsf@alter.siamese.dyndns.org>
In-Reply-To: <CANQwDwfVM+besf2if-z6UT6K1QYfj7A7jXsEgfyfxJ1Ww9oBdA@mail.gmail.com>

Jakub Narębski <jnareb@gmail.com> writes:

Show 15 quoted lines

> I have created short (well, at least shorter than previous ones)
> "Git User's Survey 2012" on Survs.com.  The test channel is
>
>   https://www.survs.com/survey/J87I3PDBU4
>
> Note that all answers in this channel would be deleted.
>
> I was thinking about running this survey for about three weeks, from
> 24 September to 14 October 2012.  The current premium unlimited plan,
> a gift from Survs.com admins, is valid till 26 October.  I don't know if it
> would be prolonged; it usually was.
>
> As to what is involved in running survey: if we want and would be able to
> use Survs.com, one should register there, and I can add them to "git"
> account as a member with admin rights.

Thanks for getting the ball rolling again this year.

A few comments.

  #5. Given that 1.8.0 will ship on Oct 21st, this may want to
      include 1.8.0 as well.

  #7. Stop "backup", and leave that to 'other (please specify)'.
      Also, "Frontend to other SCM" feels somewhat out of place.  It
      would be interesting to see how "work vs personal" and "native
      vs foreign" are correlated, for example, but this format does
      not let you measure it.

 #12. I am not sure why EGit applies and Eclipse doesn't.  Is it
      like saying "vc.el applies but Emacs doesn't" (the former is
      the interface, the latter is 'the other side' the interface
      connects git to")?  If so it makes sense to me, but if EGit is
      the only interface used to connect to Eclipse, perhaps it does
      not help people who answer these questions to say this.

 #13. This list is intelligible, at least to me.  "git add" but not
      "git rm"?  What is "incremental add / commit"?  "git add -p"?
      Is it worth asking about "update-index"?

      It may be simpler to condense the questionaire down to the
      following three questions:

      - Do you use command line tool to build commit?
        [Always/Often/Sometimes/Never]

      - When you do, do you build the next commit incrementally with
        "git add [-p]" and run "git commit" without the "-a" option?
        [Always/Often/Sometimes/Never]

      - What do you use if you do not commit with the command line?
        GUI? IDE/Editor? FileManager? Web?

 #21. (nit) Isn't ProGit one of the "printed books (or ebooks)"?

I think the questions are designed to gauge the individual users (proficiency, background, etc.), but I think it would be interesting to see what kind of projects they are using Git for, but not in vague terms like #7 does.

Even within "work projects - code", it would be enlightening to see a bit more details, e.g. Are they building phone app? Controlling nuclear reactors? Bioinformatics? How big is their team? How is the project structured, e.g. a central repository where everybody pushes into? Workers push to submission branches that are reviewed, approved and merged by the official committers? Use of continuous integration? Issue tracker integration?