Re: How can we decrease the cognitive overhead for contributors?

[Simon Tournier]

Hi Ricardo, all,

On Sun, 03 Sep 2023 at 12:31, Ricardo Wurmus <rekado@elephly.net> wrote:

> As the original author of Mumi I want it to become obsolete as it
> clearly has outlived its usefulness and better alternatives exist.  The
> way to get there is to add the replacement to Guix so we can host it.

I am seeing the gap that Mumi fills with a tiny larger angle.  For sure,
the initial aim of Mumi is to improve the situation with the default
web-interface of the Debbugs instance of the project GNU.

In addition, the collateral effect is an improvement for *all* the GNU
projects using this Debbugs instance.  Currently, Mumi displays all
issues, e.g., an old one about the Emacs project:

    https://issues.guix.gnu.org/12345

The fact that the GNU project is not currently exploiting the Mumi
front-end is another story but I have always considered Mumi as a way to
improve first the Guix experience and then also the whole GNU project.


> I won’t contribute to Mumi any more.  Giving it up doesn’t hurt my
> feelings.  I’d be glad to see it gone.

For what my opinion is worth, I think that Mumi is very valuable.  Yes
it has many annoyances and even considering these, it highly improves
the situation.

As far as I know, the GNU project is not planning to move from their
Debbugs instance.  The Guix project is free to move to something else.
And although this thread is now large, it only collects ideas – that’s
good! – however we have nothing concrete for making a decision to switch
from the GNU Debbugs instance.  Well, I do not want to cut people’s
motivation, I roughly estimate to several months (maybe more than one
year) between the start of evaluations of alternatives and the effective
switch.  Waiting that, it appears to me worth to still fix the Mumi
annoyances

Maybe SourceHut is one alternative.  However, from my experience,

        PS: First time I am sending something to SourceHut... and I am a
        bit confused by the interface. Or how to send patches.

        https://todo.sr.ht/~whereiseveryone/toys/18

and after the hour I have spent this morning, it is not clear how to
fetch messages, or how to read message without the web-interface, and
how to send messages without the web-frontend, etc.  all that are not
straightforward neither.  Well, I do not also speak about the lack of
Message-ID – it does not jump to my eyes – and building a tool around
emails without Message-ID is just a bad decision.

Yes, Debbugs is not prefect.  Mumi neither.  SourceHut will not
magically fix our annoyances and this tool also brings many drawbacks.

Therefore, I still need to be convinced by concrete examples that
SourceHut provides a better experience.  For now, my feelings are mixed…
Well, I just strongly hope SourceHut fits our bill – «I hope» is not «I
know» nor «I am convinced».


Thank you contributors to Mumi!

    Ricardo Wurmus <rekado@elephly.net>
    Arun Isaac <arunisaac@systemreboot.net>
    Ludovic Courtès <ludo@gnu.org>
    Tobias Geerinckx-Rice <me@tobias.gr>
    jgart <jgart@dismail.de>

I hope you will continue to improve our annoyances. :-)


Cheers,
simon