Re: Working with public-inbox.org [Was: [PATCH] rev-parse: respect core.hooksPath in --git-path]

From: Johannes Schindelin <johannes.schindelin@gmx.de>
Date: Aug 25, 2016, 13:21 UTC
Message-ID: <alpine.DEB.2.20.1608251508280.4924@virtualbox>
In-Reply-To: <02c1c636-b0b4-8730-68a6-18f017ed3410@gmail.com>

Hi Kuba,

On Mon, 22 Aug 2016, Jakub Narębski wrote:

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> W dniu 22.08.2016 o 15:18, Johannes Schindelin pisze:
> 
> > So unfortunately this thread has devolved. Which is sad. Because all I
> > wanted is to have a change in Git's submission process that would not
> > exclude *so many* developers. That is really all I care about. Not about
> > tools. Not about open vs proprietary, or standards.
> > 
> > I just want developers who are already familiar with Git, and come up with
> > an improvement to Git itself, to be able to contribute it without having
> > to pull out their hair in despair.
> 
> What is lacking in using submitGit tool for those that have problems
> with sending patches via email?

Where do I start? And where do I stop? Here is a *very* brief list of issues from the top of my head (and the history of my web browser):

- You cannot open a PR on GitHub and include the PR's cover letter as
  cover letter: https://github.com/rtyley/submitgit/issues/9

- You cannot Cc: people explicitly:
  https://github.com/rtyley/submitgit/issues/31

- submitGit does not include any interdiff

- it is really hard to get back from mails to the corresponding commits

- you have to register with yet another service to send mails on your
  behalf. Would be nicer if the mails could be sent from a submitGit
  address (moderated, of course) and did not need a separate registration
  step with some scary permission granting.

- submitGit requires you to go to a separate website to interact with the
  submitGit web app. Would be so much nicer if it were a bot operating on
  PRs.

- comments sent as replies have no connection to the PR *nor* the commits
  they refer to (making submitGit basically a pimped up git-send-email,
  nothing more).

- submitGit would require a substantial effort from me to learn how to
  extend/fix it, to run the web app locally and run its tests. That is a
  rather steep hurdle.

This is an incomplete list, of course.

> Submitting changes in Git comes in three phases:
>  - submit email with patches
>  - review and discuss patch
>  - apply patches from email

You forgot a really crucial step. Maybe you did not go through dozens of iterations in your patch series as I regularly do, or something, so it is probably easy for you to forget:

  - find the commit in question, run rebase -i and patch it as suggested

This is something that costs me quite some time to do. It is easily the most annoying aspect of the mail list-based approach for me.

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> Pull request via GitHub / Bitbucket / GitLab is easier than sending
> patches via email (pity that GitHub et al. do not have such submitGit-like
> automation built-in).  But I think email, with threaded view, careful
> trimming of quoted contents, multi-level quotes is superior to exiting
> web-based solutions.

They are not exiting, but I know what you meant.

The thing is: GitHub does not need such an automation. Because most projects are pretty happy with the process centered around the web app.

It is only projects such as Linux, Cygwin and Git itself who refuse to allow for tools that would let the majority of potential contributors stick with their favorite way to read and write mails (I am talking about users of GMail and Outlook, of course).

Ciao, Dscho