Re: git-scm.com
- From
Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
- Date
- Jul 26, 2008, 17:10 UTC
- Message-ID
- <7vsktwfu5z.fsf@gitster.siamese.dyndns.org>
- In-Reply-To
- <d411cc4a0807251759m1d83d7c4w4724806b19f7c02a@mail.gmail.com>
"Scott Chacon" <schacon@gmail.com> writes:
Show 13 quoted lines
> On Fri, Jul 25, 2008 at 4:47 PM, Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> wrote: >> ... >> I find a tabular list like this list easier to read if it were sorted like >> this: >> >> A D G >> B E H >> C F >> ... > > I fixed the things you mentioned here, except for the list ordering, > only because I kinda think you big contributors should be at the top > there,...
If you are going to list 30 or so top contributors in 8 rows times 4 columns, because visually the columns are much more distinct than the rows, it makes the result look more sorted. This is the same reasoning hwo "git help --all" was fixed with 112d0ba (Make "git help" sort git commands in columns, 2005-12-18).
By the way, I think this shows another issue with the "rest of us" list in the lower half.
I have a mild suspicion that sorting that list in alphabetical order may actually make it much better. It all depends on the purpose of that list, though.
The purpose of the list would most likely not to find somebody with high activity to contact for help (you would use the top list that is sorted by the commit count for that kind of thing). It would primarily be to give credit to everybody, and perhaps so that people on the contributor list can point at their own name and say "I helped them", or find somebody else they happen to know in the list.
When a contributor used to have 8 commits and then adds 2 commits, that would move the name in the list by a dozen places or so with the current set of contributors. It would be much easier to locate one's own name among a huge list if the names are alphabetically sorted, not by commit count. When more people start to contribute, your name does not move so drastically. If you are Adam, you are likely to find yourself near the beginning of the list, if you are Scott, you are likely to find yourself near one fourth from the end of the list.
And for the "giving credit" purpose, I do not think truncating the list at 5 commits or less threshold, as suggested earlier and already done, makes much sense, either.