Re: improving our workflow with better tools - let's test things.

[David Kastrup]

"Trevor Daniels" <address@hidden> writes:

> Our current workflow already enforces: "No one pushes directly to
> master".

There is no actual enforcement by technical means.  Our enforcement
basically is peer pressure and habit/discipline.  That allows for
emergency repair actions.  And of course it allows for people running
Patchy without requiring special access.

> Why is it "ultimately worth it" to lose a real advantage only to regain 
> something we already have?
>
> Having worked with Carl for some years I respect his opinion,
> and for me his bottom line: "I'm seriously thinking of junking
> Gitlab because the benefit seems to be more promised than realized",
> based on his experience of actually using Gitlab on a real project 
> clinches the matter.

Depends on whether the circumstances are comparable.  Our
development/review tools for LilyPond have evolved with the aim to
integrate work of non-programmers into our workflows.  Most projects are
more homogeneous in the function and capabilities of its members than
LilyPond is.

Now it's rather hard to do a proper balance of the merits: basically we
are not aiming for a "I could discipline myself into using xxx" verdict
but rather for "this will definitely make things quite easier for me in
the long run" for a majority of existing and potential contributors.

Now testing a setup is, in a way, sort of an intellectual challenge,
costs energy, and one is understandably proud if one masters such a
challenge and does not want this work to go to waste.

But in the end, of course we are interested most in those experiments
which ended up not challenging at all, at least from the user side.

I'd rather have people try out five tools in a rather shallow fashion
and report back their relative impressions than have five different
people involve themselves deeply with a particular setup.  That way we
lose the focus on "easy for the casual user" and lose the comparison.

So let's not discuss each single option to death in order not to waste
our testers.

-- 
David Kastrup