Re: shortened flags affair, part 8: choosing appropriate flag (issue4312057)

[Graham Percival]

On Fri, Apr 15, 2011 at 01:07:02AM +0200, Janek Warchoł wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> 2011/4/7 Graham Percival <address@hidden>
> > You severely over-estimate either the number of "seasoned
> > developers", or the skill of most people on this mailing list.
...
> > The same goes for virtually every aspect of lilypond.  There are
> > very few actual "seasoned" developers, and most of those are very
> > busy with other things in their lives.

> We are a team. Teamwork doesn't just mean having many people at work,
> it means helping each other - i don't have to remind you, you surely
> know this.

Absolutely!

But the development community has a very huge problem:
- the very skilled members generally have full-time jobs and
  familes.
- it takes about 5 hours a week simply to keep "up to date"
  with the various lilypond mailing lists.
- lilypond is a hobby, and some people only want to spend 2 or 3
  hours a week on such a hobby.

I am allocating almost all of my 10 hours a week to reducing the
amount of time that it takes to keep informed.  We can do much
better in this regard.  Main points are:
- bug squad + issue tracker, so that programmers don't need to
  look at user emails.  Also updating issues with discussions
  on -devel, so that in case nothing gets finished for months,
  a programmer can quickly get "up to date" by reading the
  material in (or linked from) the issue tracker
- organizing patches, including the "patch countdown"
  annoucements.

Note that both of these points require little or no technical
ability.  Non-technically-skilled users can help tremendously with
these points.  And if we can reduce the time it takes to read
emails from 5 hours a week to 3 hours a week, that allows
programmers to spend more time programming or helping each other.


> But i know my limits: now i've reached the limit of my skill
> and, more importantly, the limit of my psychical stength. I'm too
> tired to continue trying to do things that i don't know how to do.
> I ask for help and i hope that someone would take 15 minutes necessary
> to get things going here.

Right.  The main problem for you is:
- you need a mentor.  Somebody who can guide you through the
  steps, encourage you, and investigate if you get truly stuck.

Unfortunately, Mike Solomon is the only programmer who has offered
to mentor people, and IIRC he's paired up with Benko Pal.


There is no simple solution to these problems.

Cheers,
- Graham