Re: [PATCH 1/9] remote-bzr: trivial cleanups

From: Ramkumar Ramachandra <artagnon@gmail.com>
Date: Apr 26, 2013, 19:30 UTC
Message-ID: <CALkWK0=J2_mAViDwu2MJNvLsUbVpoR68-sQR9fs=4of+E5wAjg@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <CAMP44s3WkfAuPjJ5Z91Hjx7Vp5P2C7n5Wh+7Rd49k9N_n+SxkA@mail.gmail.com>

[completely off-topic; don't worry, we're just having a friendly chat]

Felipe Contreras wrote:

> If you are not prepared to defend your review, so are others, why to
> you blame that on me? If you were right, you would be shown to be
> right. Period.

Felipe, there are some things that are worth arguing about for a long time (like the new revision spec I'm proposing in [1]), and others that are not.

[1]: http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/222248/focus=222526

> No, we operate in evidence and reason, *not* opinion. Any reasonable
> person would say "well, I *think* this commit message needs more
> description, but I don't *know*, I don't have *evidence* for it, so
> I'm not going to fight to the death, as if I had".

Don't you think you're taking reason to an extreme here? Reason is a tool that I use when I want. I don't want reason when I'm browsing Google Art Project or listening to Gentle Giant. Arguments like "is this commit message large enough?" are really not worth the time and effort.

Show 5 quoted lines

> Ultimately the decision to merge or not to merge comes to Junio, if
> you don't like his decision, go complain to him, but I would be
> prepared with points in time where people complained about these
> patches, and there are no complains, so you have no ammunition at all
> whatsoever.

I have no desire to "attack" you, Felipe. I respect you as a more experienced developer than myself, and am trying to offer constructive criticism.

I don't have an ego (or consider myself important to the community). Whatever will happen will happen, with or without me.

Show 10 quoted lines

> And this is how communities die. When everybody thinks the same, and
> everyone who thinks differently is displaced. A monoculture, a place
> full of yes-men where nobody criticizes anybody, a circlejerk where
> everyone palms the back of everyone else. Eventually things go south,
> and nobody around you understands why.
>
> Diversity in a community is healthy. If you don't like people who
> think differently, *you* have a problem. If you don't like standing up
> and defending your ideas, *you* have a problem. If you don't like
> discussing on the basis of evidence and reason, *you* have a problem.

Diversity is certainly healthy, and I it would be nice to have you in the community. We just have to find a way to keep the conflict down.