threads / discuss / 5541

Git Survey summary

Subject: Git Survey summary

## tl;dr

13 messages between Sep 12, 2006 and Sep 21, 2006.

replies: 12people: 4as markdown or json

Nguyễn Thái Ngọc Duy· Sep 12, 2006, 09:05 UTC · lore

I'm summarizing the survey at http://git.or.cz/gitwiki/GitSurvey. There are some questions I haven't done yet: 14, 20, 21, 23, 24, 25 and 31. However as I won't work on it until next week, if you have spare time, feel free to edit it (even other questions because I'm quite certain the result is biased :). We may need some analysis than just raw numbers I collected.

-- 
Duy
Nguyễn Thái Ngọc Duy· Sep 21, 2006, 14:12 UTC · re: Nguyễn Thái Ngọc Duy · lore

Re: Git Survey summary

FYI, I've completed the survey summary (except Q13, repo size, which I
don't know how to handle it. And there was no Q14 in GitSurveyData).
You may be interested in Q20 and Q31.
Some thought after completing this summary:
 - Documentation is still most wanted (as a comprehensive book or
examples/use-cases). There were many answers indicated that users
didn't know about existing git features. We should advertise git
features more.
 - Git homepage and Git wiki (and sometimes git mailing list) are
unknown to many users. Perhaps we should put them in git.7 man page?
 - Plumbings/Porcelains confustion. Is it about time to move all git-*
into /usr/lib/git? Also some probably wants to integrate cogito into
git.
 - A place to post bugs and feature requests (if bugzilla is too big,
maybe mantis?)
 - (This comment is mine) Git should ship NEWS file in release
tarballs. An auto generated ChangeLog in tarballs is also great (maybe
make git-changelog to generate the changelog)
-- 
Duy
Jakub Narebski· Sep 21, 2006, 15:23 UTC · re: Nguyễn Thái Ngọc Duy · lore

Re: Git Survey summary

Nguy?n Thái Ng?c Duy wrote:
>  - A place to post bugs and feature requests (if bugzilla is too big,
> maybe mantis?)

Isn't this mailing list the place to post bugreports and feature requests (and of course patches)? Any bugtracker has to be tied to mailing list, and perhaps also two-way to gitweb (gitweb making links to bugtracker issues, bugtracker having links to gitweb; perhaps incrementing revision numbers...).

-- 
Jakub Narebski
Warsaw, Poland
ShadeHawk on #git
Shawn Pearce· Sep 21, 2006, 15:56 UTC · re: Jakub Narebski · lore

Re: Git Survey summary

Jakub Narebski <jnareb@gmail.com> wrote:
Show 10 quoted lines
> Nguy?n Thái Ng?c Duy wrote:
> 
> >  - A place to post bugs and feature requests (if bugzilla is too big,
> > maybe mantis?)
> 
> Isn't this mailing list the place to post bugreports and feature requests
> (and of course patches)? Any bugtracker has to be tied to mailing list, and
> perhaps also two-way to gitweb (gitweb making links to bugtracker issues,
> bugtracker having links to gitweb; perhaps incrementing revision
> numbers...).

Its funny, some communities are based around their bug tracking systems (Mozilla) and others around their mailing lists (kernel, git). Both work, but only if those participating make it so. Trying to force one type of community into another model can kill it.

I'm all for hyperlink integration of gitweb and bug tracking systems but bug tracking tends to be a personal preference; there's so many choices. So whatever support is in gitweb needs to be pretty modular to allow users to drop in the configuration for whatever bug tracking system a given repository uses.

Since Git uses a mailing list model it would be nice if the gitweb hyperlinks were into the marc and GMane archives by Message-ID; but that would also require that commits start including the Message-ID of the thread which spawned the patches. It would also be nice if the links were able to jump to the discussion about the patch, as sometimes the patch thread is different from the spawning thread.

-- 
Shawn.
Jakub Narebski· Sep 21, 2006, 16:13 UTC · re: Shawn Pearce · lore

Re: Git Survey summary

Shawn Pearce wrote:
> Since Git uses a mailing list model it would be nice if the gitweb
> hyperlinks were into the marc and GMane archives by Message-ID;
Planned (as an example committag support).
Would it be better ti use MARC or GMane interface:
 http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?i=200609200739.48732.alan%20()%20chandlerfamily%20!%20org%20!%20uk
 http://news.gmane.org/find-root.php?message_id=<200609200739.48732.alan@chandlerfamily.org.uk> 
-- 
Jakub Narebski
Warsaw, Poland
ShadeHawk on #git
Shawn Pearce· Sep 21, 2006, 16:27 UTC · re: Jakub Narebski · lore

Re: Git Survey summary

Jakub Narebski <jnareb@gmail.com> wrote:
Show 10 quoted lines
> Shawn Pearce wrote:
> 
> > Since Git uses a mailing list model it would be nice if the gitweb
> > hyperlinks were into the marc and GMane archives by Message-ID;
> 
> Planned (as an example committag support).
> 
> Would it be better ti use MARC or GMane interface:
>  http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?i=200609200739.48732.alan%20()%20chandlerfamily%20!%20org%20!%20uk
>  http://news.gmane.org/find-root.php?message_id=<200609200739.48732.alan@chandlerfamily.org.uk> 

Well, the GMane link worked and displayed the thread; the MARC one didn't. The GMane link is also less mangled.

When reading the mailing list via the web I do tend to read through GMane more than MARC but I can't state why I have that preference. It just happens. Maybe I prefer white backgrounds over black ones?

-- 
Shawn.
Petr Baudis· Sep 21, 2006, 16:34 UTC · re: Shawn Pearce · lore

Re: Git Survey summary

Dear diary, on Thu, Sep 21, 2006 at 06:27:24PM CEST, I got a letter where Shawn Pearce <spearce@spearce.org> said that...

Show 18 quoted lines
> Jakub Narebski <jnareb@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Shawn Pearce wrote:
> > 
> > > Since Git uses a mailing list model it would be nice if the gitweb
> > > hyperlinks were into the marc and GMane archives by Message-ID;
> > 
> > Planned (as an example committag support).
> > 
> > Would it be better ti use MARC or GMane interface:
> >  http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?i=200609200739.48732.alan%20()%20chandlerfamily%20!%20org%20!%20uk
> >  http://news.gmane.org/find-root.php?message_id=<200609200739.48732.alan@chandlerfamily.org.uk> 
> 
> Well, the GMane link worked and displayed the thread; the MARC
> one didn't.  The GMane link is also less mangled.
> 
> When reading the mailing list via the web I do tend to read through
> GMane more than MARC but I can't state why I have that preference.
> It just happens.  Maybe I prefer white backgrounds over black ones?

Surprisingly few web mailing list interfaces are actually usable for reading threads. Gmane is, MARC isn't (you don't see the list of references and replies to the current mail, and the next/prev in thread links somehow don't seem to be very reliable). That's a killer feature for me, if MARC had that I'd have preferred it (I like black background and dislike frames).

-- 
				Petr "Pasky" Baudis
Stuff: http://pasky.or.cz/
#!/bin/perl -sp0777i<X+d*lMLa^*lN%0]dsXx++lMlN/dsM0<j]dsj
$/=unpack('H*',$_);$_=`echo 16dio\U$k"SK$/SM$n\EsN0p[lN*1
lK[d2%Sa2/d0$^Ixp"|dc`;s/\W//g;$_=pack('H*',/((..)*)$/)
Jakub Narebski· Sep 21, 2006, 16:49 UTC · re: Petr Baudis · lore

Re: Git Survey summary

Petr Baudis wrote:
Show 10 quoted lines
>> When reading the mailing list via the web I do tend to read through
>> GMane more than MARC but I can't state why I have that preference.
>> It just happens.  Maybe I prefer white backgrounds over black ones?
> 
> Surprisingly few web mailing list interfaces are actually usable for
> reading threads. Gmane is, MARC isn't (you don't see the list of
> references and replies to the current mail, and the next/prev in thread
> links somehow don't seem to be very reliable). That's a killer feature
> for me, if MARC had that I'd have preferred it (I like black background
> and dislike frames).

From what I guessed, MARC groups threads by _title only_, while GMane seems to parse In-Reply-To:/References: headers for threading.

-- 
Jakub Narebski
Warsaw, Poland
ShadeHawk on #git
Jakub Narebski· Sep 21, 2006, 16:44 UTC · re: Shawn Pearce · lore

Re: Git Survey summary

Shawn Pearce wrote:
Show 14 quoted lines
> Jakub Narebski <jnareb@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Shawn Pearce wrote:
>> 
>>> Since Git uses a mailing list model it would be nice if the gitweb
>>> hyperlinks were into the marc and GMane archives by Message-ID;
>> 
>> Planned (as an example committag support).
>> 
>> Would it be better ti use MARC or GMane interface:
>>  http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?i=200609200739.48732.alan%20()%20chandlerfamily%20!%20org%20!%20uk
>>  http://news.gmane.org/find-root.php?message_id=<200609200739.48732.alan@chandlerfamily.org.uk> 
> 
> Well, the GMane link worked and displayed the thread; the MARC
> one didn't.  The GMane link is also less mangled.

Both links works for me, although MARC one is incompatibile with most of MUA marking of text/plain link. And probably those "%20" can be entered simply as " "... yes, they can.

-- 
Jakub Narebski
Poland
Petr Baudis· Sep 21, 2006, 16:37 UTC · re: Shawn Pearce · lore

Re: Git Survey summary

Dear diary, on Thu, Sep 21, 2006 at 05:56:17PM CEST, I got a letter where Shawn Pearce <spearce@spearce.org> said that...

> I'm all for hyperlink integration of gitweb and bug tracking systems

Actually, Trac might be interesting if you want tight VCS web interface and bugtracking web interface integration, although Trac is not very powerful. I think the OLPC people did some work on integrating Trac and Git.

People will think I'm weird, but I have to admit that I rather do like Bugzilla.

I think we are doing fine as it is for now, though.
-- 
				Petr "Pasky" Baudis
Stuff: http://pasky.or.cz/
#!/bin/perl -sp0777i<X+d*lMLa^*lN%0]dsXx++lMlN/dsM0<j]dsj
$/=unpack('H*',$_);$_=`echo 16dio\U$k"SK$/SM$n\EsN0p[lN*1
lK[d2%Sa2/d0$^Ixp"|dc`;s/\W//g;$_=pack('H*',/((..)*)$/)
Shawn Pearce· Sep 21, 2006, 16:48 UTC · re: Petr Baudis · lore

Re: Git Survey summary

Petr Baudis <pasky@suse.cz> wrote:
Show 11 quoted lines
> Dear diary, on Thu, Sep 21, 2006 at 05:56:17PM CEST, I got a letter
> where Shawn Pearce <spearce@spearce.org> said that...
> > I'm all for hyperlink integration of gitweb and bug tracking systems
> 
> Actually, Trac might be interesting if you want tight VCS web interface
> and bugtracking web interface integration, although Trac is not very
> powerful. I think the OLPC people did some work on integrating Trac and
> Git.
> 
> People will think I'm weird, but I have to admit that I rather do like
> Bugzilla.

Your not weird. I also like Bugzilla for some projects; its rather simple and somewhat easy to use... I also know a lot of people who hate it.

> I think we are doing fine as it is for now, though.
Oh I agree completely.  But that's the Git project.

However I think it would be nice if we had native hooks shipped with core Git to connect to some popular bug tracking systems such as Bugzilla and Trac. Nothing incredibly fancy, but like how we currently ship some default example hooks (and even install them into every repo with `git init-db`!) we should at least ship some basic examples and documentation for integrating to some popular systems. Integrate with at least 2 and it should be easy for users to add others...

Eh, its just more stuff for an ever growing wishlist. :-) I probably won't do it as its not high on my wish list for Git. I don't currently use any bug tracking systems.

-- 
Shawn.
Nguyen Thai Ngoc Duy· Sep 21, 2006, 16:49 UTC · re: Jakub Narebski · lore

Re: Git Survey summary

On 9/21/06, Jakub Narebski <jnareb@gmail.com> wrote:
Show 7 quoted lines
> Nguyen Thai Ngoc Duy wrote:
>
> > - A place to post bugs and feature requests (if bugzilla is too big,
> > maybe mantis?)
>
> Isn't this mailing list the place to post bugreports and feature requests
> (and of course patches)?

Because it's harder to keep track of a long-living bug/request which spans many threads. I think git mailing list is for git development and helping users. It's not clear it should be a place to request features. I'm still wondering why people requested a lot in the survey while more than half subscribed to the mailing list. I personally feel the mailing list is a place for _contributing_ features (thoughtful ideas or patches) not just requesting features (desires without no clear idea how to implement it). Anyway it's still good to clearly state the git mailing list is for discussion, bug reports and feature requests in git.7 man page (together with git homepage maybe)

>  Any bugtracker has to be tied to mailing list, and
> perhaps also two-way to gitweb (gitweb making links to bugtracker issues,
> bugtracker having links to gitweb; perhaps incrementing revision
> numbers...).

Ruby (or YARV, I don't remember exactly) uses a bug tracking system that depends heavily on mailing lists (open bug with a mail, close bug with a mail ...). The benefit is that we have at least bug numbers :-)

> --
> Jakub Narebski
> Warsaw, Poland
> ShadeHawk on #git

-- Duy

Petr Baudis· Sep 21, 2006, 17:00 UTC · re: Nguyen Thai Ngoc Duy · lore

Re: Git Survey summary

Dear diary, on Thu, Sep 21, 2006 at 06:49:52PM CEST, I got a letter where Nguyen Thai Ngoc Duy <pclouds@gmail.com> said that...

> Anyway it's still good to clearly state the git mailing list is for
> discussion, bug reports and feature requests in git.7 man page
> (together with git homepage maybe)
Ok, I tried to clarify that.
-- 
				Petr "Pasky" Baudis
Stuff: http://pasky.or.cz/
#!/bin/perl -sp0777i<X+d*lMLa^*lN%0]dsXx++lMlN/dsM0<j]dsj
$/=unpack('H*',$_);$_=`echo 16dio\U$k"SK$/SM$n\EsN0p[lN*1
lK[d2%Sa2/d0$^Ixp"|dc`;s/\W//g;$_=pack('H*',/((..)*)$/)

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