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

[Liliana Marie Prikler]

Am Dienstag, dem 05.09.2023 um 19:40 +0100 schrieb (:
> Liliana Marie Prikler <liliana.prikler@gmail.com> writes:
> > Uhm, we have snippets?
> 
> Well, those are exclusive to Emacs :)  And without regard to /that/
> issue, I do think that there's a problem if the commit format is so
> complex that it's not trivial for anyone new to the project to write
> them out manually.
By definition, no amount of typing is non-trivial, safe for the empty
amount, which good luck trying to commit your changes by pure mouse
movements, I guess?

Now, if you excuse my French, I think the problem isn't really as much
that people struggle to type out the perfect ChangeLog on the first
try, which also makes it odd to request a linter.  Bear in mind that
committers will sign off anything that appears convincing enough, even
if there are smaller mistakes in the message.  Trust me, I've been
there and seen that; and also done it myself.

Instead, we have seen in this thread appeals to age, appeals to
perceived lack of personal benefit, and now appeals to typing effort,
none of which really make that great of an argument against the
ChangeLog style, especially when they come in combination with a
refusal to make use of already provided tools.  I think we're starting
to see the moving of the goal post as the actual game here. 

Maybe it's time to take a step back and instead of asking “How can we
decrease the cognitive overhead for contributors?”, we should perhaps
ask “For which contributors do we want to/can we decrease the cognitive
overhead?”  We have drifted much from the original post that discussed
moms with full-time jobs, who struggle to do “difficult” tasks
(simplified wording; may change the meaning of the OP a little).  Now,
I personally struggle to see how your personal preference for
communication media, commit message style, and other things that were
discussed in any of the preceding threads actually correlate with being
a parent.  However, I do know that with its 150 million users, most
people of the world don't have a Github account.  Being one of the 4
billion email users out there is a comparably low barrier of entry
imho.  So, whose cognitive overhead do you want to reduce (besides the
obvious "my own", which everyone always tries)?