Re: aspell-el added

[voidlinux-github@inbox.vuxu.org]

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New comment by flexibeast on void-packages repository

https://github.com/void-linux/void-packages/pull/16043#issuecomment-549676049

Comment:
@nereusx:

> That is in your contributing: "There's a helper tool for committing packages in the xtools package: xbump"

Okay, thanks. (Although i wasn't the one that wrote CONTRIBUTING.)  i'll prepare a PR to have CONTRIBUTING elaborate on how to use `xbump`.

> About xbump "manual":
> xbump pkgname [git commit options] – Git commit a version bump
> Is it supposed to I understand it?

It certainly makes sense to me, though i admit English is my native language. Still, i agree it could do with more details - i'll see what i can do.

> Just mention what commands needed and how to use them.

Well, when i prepared my first package, i read CONTRIBUTING and found that it seemed to provide all the necessary information, as shown by the fact that the PR to which i referred in my previous comment did not require any further changes before it was merged.

> Back in smallbasic project, sourceforge had al ready did tickets and forums, but no, no one used (except 2-3 ppl). The reason it wasn;t attractive to visitors and users to involve, so I just add a phpBB forum, and wow was filled with ppl in 1-2 months commenting, asking and exchange scripts.

Okay, but there are a couple of things to keep in mind here:

* The FOSS world has changed significantly since Sourceforge was the main player in online code repos. Git is now the de facto standard DVCS in FOSS, and GitHub, even after its acquisition by Microsoft, is probably still the primary platform for project hosting and collaboration. (A number of people moved to GitLab, but in the last couple of weeks a number of people are probably considering moving elsewhere after the recent tracking and analytics debacle.) What this means is that *many* people nowadays are much more familiar with Git and GitHub than they are with things like CVS or SVN - enough so that projects not using Git or GitHub regularly get told that they 'should' move to using one or both, to make things easier for new contributors (examples from my experience: Emacs, OpenBSD), regardless of whether or not that makes things easier for core and/or regular contributors.

* Setting up and maintaining forum software requires extra time and effort from volunteers who can already have very full plates. (Again: Void is maintained entirely by volunteers.) Using Reddit as a general forum, and GitHub as an issue tracking forum, means that the Void devs have this work taken care of for them. Personally, i like the fact that the Void devs can spend their time improving the distro itself, rather than worrying about the latest security and functionality bugs in forum software.

> I am sure there are plenty examples in srcpkgs... but someone has to point me instead of losing my time discovering a boring matter as a packager.
> I have more important thinks to do

But why is your time as a volunteer inherently more valuable than the time of the volunteer Void devs?

When i packaged `hunspell-en_AU`, i thought it obvious that i should look at the `template` file for `hunspell-en_US` to give me an example of what to do. Still, it probably couldn't hurt to change the "Creating a new template" section of CONTRIBUTING to say something like:

> For deeper insights on the contents of template files consider reading the manual, and be sure to browse the existing template files in srcpkgs for concrete examples.