Re: gerrit - does it allow writing commits using a web interface?

[John Mandereau]

Hi Janek,
Il giorno lun, 03/09/2012 alle 00.26 +0200, Janek Warchoł ha scritto:
> i remember that you are investigating whether we could be using Gerrit
> for Lily work.  I may've asked this question already, but i don't
> remember whether there was a definitive answer: does gerrit have a web
> interface that allows to create new commits using only a web browser?

I've looked into this, and I think Gerrit doesn't have this feature,
which would belong more to something like a wiki than to a code review
tool.


> The reason i'm so concerned about this is simple: it would enable
> hordes of LilyPond users (;-)) to participate in Lily development.
> The following situation happened to me several times: a user had a
> problem, i've explained how to fix it (or simply sent a link to
> appropriate section in manuals), and i asked "how could we improve the
> manuals so that you had found this information easier/understood it
> better?".  Unfortunately, the responses are usually too vague to be
> turned to a patch on the spot, and i don't have time to think about
> them myself (and it doesn't make sense to ask the user to install
> Lilydev and learn how to make a patch just for this).  With a web
> interface, this would become massively simpler.
> Also, Graham's catchphrase "patches appreciated" would become much
> more powerful :)

This might be useful for documentation work, including translations, for
a workflow such as the past GDP (Grand Documentation Project): editors
using such tools would still be mentored by Git- and Texinfo-savvy
people, but mentors would play with Git branches and possibly Gerrit
issues instead of exchanging individual files by hand.  That said, I
have found no existing program for doing this, so this would require
quite a bit of work (which I estimate as the overall amount of work that
has been put in Patchy) for writing a program for managing changes done
by a web code editor such as CodeMirror http://codemirror.net with Git
branches, including a feature to submit work on Gerrit.

As for LilyPond code, I second David's reply: the quality that submitted
patches should have requires a level of technical skills and motivation
such that installing LilyDev or generally setting up a development
environment for LilyPond should not be a significant barrier.

Best,
John