Subject: Re: commit -- Scott Kovner trailblazes Mac port
From: Paul Rohr (paul@abisource.com)
Date: Sat Dec 18 1999 - 22:28:28 CST
At 08:40 PM 12/18/99 -0600, Scott Kovner wrote:
>I've since sent Robert some extra Mac files that I overlooked. (I had only
>sent him changed files, not new ones.) I don't know if they are in the tree
>yet.
To see what's currently in the tree, you can do a Bonsai query:
http://www.abisource.com/bonsai/
It looks like Bob's last checkin for you was to add the ap_MacClipboard.*
and ut_MacString.cpp files.
Or, if you want to compare your CVS view to what's currently in the tree, my
two favorite CVS incantations are:
cvs -n -q update (lists all files which differ)
cvs -q diff -u -rHEAD (shows the actual diffs)
>Is there a good document for me to read on procedures? I'm new to the whole
>open-source thing.
What kind of information are you looking for?
Overall, it's not *that* different from being a team member on any other
large software project. Behaviors that were frowned on there (sloppy code,
breaking the build, being rude over email, etc.) are also frowned on here.
However, because face-to-face meetings are much rarer, good communication
skills over email are even more important than usual.
Each project tends to adapt to the working style of its most active
contributors, and there are probably more unwritten norms than written ones.
(That's not much help, I know. Let's see if I can do better.)
The classic paper on how Open Source projects work is "The Cathedral and the
Bazaar", which is only a short Google hop away.
Like any good Open Source project, ours is a meritocracy, where individuals
take ownership of the code, one chunk at a time. It's pretty easy to defer
to someone's judgement on an issue when they've demonstrated that they
thoroughly understand the issues and have coded an elegant solution that
Just Works. :-)
On this project, we work very hard to make sure that people feel free to
take on as much responsibility as they're ready to handle. Many folks
choose to just submit patches which are then reviewed and applied by someone
who has CVS access. More active folks are given CVS access as soon as it's
clear that nobody else needs to review their work.
But you asked about stuff to read, didn't you? Our only document on how
things work in this project is the programmer guidelines document in the
abi/docs node of the source tree (I think it got renamed recently). It's
pretty vanilla stuff, but definitely worth reading.
So, have I answered your question?
Paul
PS: Yes, that document *is* in AbiWord format, which makes it a bit hard
to read before you get the port up. No, that's not a motivational
technique. ;-) Just open it up in any text editor, and you'll see that
it's pretty easy to read there, too. If not, someone can export a copy of
the latest version for you to another format.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b25 : Sat Dec 18 1999 - 22:23:26 CST