Re: [9fans] Plan9 Sources Repository

["Aram Hăvărneanu" <aram.h@mgk.ro>]

On Sat, Jul 19, 2014 at 11:31 AM, dante <subscriptions@posteo.eu> wrote:
> It is hard to do small fixes (typos, documentation) from another system.

One could argue this is a feature. Everything has to be tested.
I've seen way too many botched patches that purportedly only fixed
documentation. Also, how do you write documentation if you don't
use the system?

Typos are not worth fixing unless it is done systematically and
many errors are corrected at once, otherwise they just create noise
and break existing patches creating merge nightmares.

This is true even with git, typos impact the precision of bisect
and blame. Every change starts at -100 points. Unless the net benefit
is positive it shouldn't go in. A change fixing a typo only gets
you up to -99 points. It's not worth it.

>From my experience with Plan 9 and many other different open source
projects like Linux, OpenBSD and Go, patches coming from people not
really using the system are of very low quality. Changing the model
is very disruptive and would not bring any more good contributions.

Plan 9 is easy to get if you want it.

> There are no commit comments.

Actually patches do have comments. The filesystem doesn't carry any
metadata. Maybe it should, more likely it shouldn't; a changelog
file is easy to write, one could even automate it from existing
patch metadata.

There is a net benefit to be gained, but the benefit is small,
otherwise somebody would have done the work. One property of the
existing model is that it works. You are proposing a new model, as
if the existing model doesn't work. But it does.

> There are no release tags.

It's just a different model. There's no evidence that one is superior
to the other.

> There are no branches.

Actually, Plan 9 private namespaces give you branches and much more.
You can pick and choose; assemble any number of views over the tree
as you like. You see, you're criticizing the Plan 9 development
model by thinking in traditional terms. The Plan 9 model is simpler,
perhaps too simple for Unix software, but Plan 9 is not Unix.
Combining the Plan 9 model with orthogonal Plan 9 primitives gives
you a much richer and cleaner environment that all falls naturally
from the design of the system, rather than having all features
backed in the vcs blob.

-- 
Aram Hăvărneanu