Re: Suggestions for "What's cooking"

From: Andrew Ardill <andrew.ardill@gmail.com>
Date: Sep 13, 2012, 05:14 UTC
Message-ID: <CAH5451kmwZehys4nL+NV8m8VGjDJtkSxru3o44_J_d3jD5ipxA@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <A7A1DB46082142E683753CFBC0A22A6B@PhilipOakley>

(sorry about double replying - html sub-part creeped in!) On 13 September 2012 08:49, Philip Oakley <philipoakley@iee.org> wrote:

Show 33 quoted lines

>
> From: "Jens Lehmann" <Jens.Lehmann@web.de>
> Sent: Wednesday, September 12, 2012 8:21 PM
>
>> Am 11.09.2012 21:41, schrieb Junio C Hamano:
>>>
>>> Thanks.  I wish all others paid attention to "What's cooking" like
>>> you did here.
>>>
>>> And if it is hard to do so for whatever reason, suggest a better way
>>> for me to publish "What's cooking" or an equivalent (I am interested
>>> in finding the least bureaucratic way to help people and keep the
>>> balls rolling).
>>
>>
>> I think "What's cooking" makes lots of sense in its current form
>> as one gets a very good overview over current development tracks.
>>
>> Maybe in addition it would be nice to email the author(s) of a
>> series when the state changes or new comments are added (and to
>> only include the relevant part from "What's cooking" there). For
>> me it's not a big problem as I just have to grep for "submodule"
>> to get the bits I care about, but I suspect others might have to
>> invest much more time to check the current state of their series
>> and may appreciate being mailed directly when something happens.
>> Opinions?
>
>
> My comment, as a simple reader, is that I misread the order of the items, in that I miss-associate the description paragraph with the * title _below_. That is, I see the description first and then read on...
>
> Thinking about it, if the description paragraph was indented by one space then the * title  would create that obvious content indent that (I am) would be expected.
>
> Obviously only a useful suggestion if it's easy to implement...

I can attest to the fact that the format can be at times difficult to parse, and I often find myself rereading sections to make sure I understood what each was referring to.

As a casual reader, interested in the development that is going on,
the things I am interested in for each branch/topic are like:
 - Branch/Topic description
 - Current integration status
 - Next steps required
 - Notes and memoranda

I understand that references to where the branch is found (it's name) and what it includes (commit list) are important too, but these are less important for me.

Currently, the output for each branch looks something like:
* <branch-name> (<creation-date>) <number-of-commits>
  (<merge-status>)
 [list-of-commits]
  (<branch-usage>)
<long-description>
<notes-and-memoranda>
<next-steps>

and these are grouped by current integration status (new, graduated, stalled etc)

A format that would make this information easier for me to parse would be something like:

<short-branch-description>
  <long-branch-description>
  <notes>
  <next-steps>
  * <branch-name> (<creation-date>) <number-of-commits>
    (<merge-status>)
   [list-of-commits]
    (<branch-usage>)

Essentially, shifting the details of the branch to the bottom, and adding a short description for the entire branch. Indent everything after the short description to make it clear that they belong together.

The only real 'new' information required is the short description, but that could be replaced with the topic name if short description is not available (or the topic name is self explanatory).

Most of the parsing benefit would come from the indentation, but having the 'summary' information near the top would let me skip things I am not interested in without having to scan the list of commits and other details.

Regards,

Andrew Ardill