Re: branching

[Mike Solomon]

On Dec 11, 2013, at 2:18 PM, Trevor Daniels <address@hidden> wrote:

> 
> Mike Solomon wrote Wednesday, December 11, 2013 10:22 AM
> 
>> On Dec 11, 2013, at 11:36 AM, David Kastrup <address@hidden> wrote:
>> 
>>> As opposed to me, Graham excelled at organizing
>>> and maintaining community efforts like this which makes his leaving an
>>> even larger loss.
>> 
>> His leaving is a huge loss, and as he has stated several times, one big 
>> reason is the lack of sense of community.  devel-list quarrels and the 
>> thaws that come from them have real impacts on LilyPond - I can’t 
>> emphasize enough that we need to stop marginalizing this issue and 
>> tackle it head on.  Modularity, while perhaps a good long term solution, 
>> is a long ways away.  How are we going to deal with this in 2014?
> 
> Actually, I think there is a great sense of community within the LilyPond
> project.  Why else would people comment so favourably on the responses
> they receive on the various mailing lists; why else would people on the
> bug squad, Phil on releases, James on managing reviews, etc devote their
> time to mundane tasks?  Why else would people, even those no longer
> active in LilyPond development, continue to read the lists?  No, we are
> a great community and it is greatly enjoyable to belong to it!  
> 

I agree that this part of the community is great.  Reading the communication 
between these people is a pleasure - it is professional, courteous and fun.

> Also we are extremely fortunate to have so many brilliant developers
> willing to spend their time augmenting, fixing and improving our baby.
> That differences arise from time-to-time is inevitable - from the nature of
> this project our community includes people covering a wide range of
> temperament.  Artists, artisans and engineers all figure prominently.  They
> have different viewpoints and approaches, but this is an advantage not
> a problem - providing we can find a way to live and work together without
> stress levels getting too high.

I agree.

> 
>> How are we going to deal with this in 2014?
> 
> I would recommend Mike and David both consider privately what they
> might have done differently to avoid this situation arising.  Not what the
> other should have done, but what they themselves might have done.
> If they'd like to share those thoughts with the list that would be good, but
> that is not essential.  But they must share them with each other and try
> to culture a mutual respect and understanding for the other's position.

David and I have already been back and forth privately a lot about these issues.

I value David’s criticisms and have learned a lot from his insistance on 
commenting, code quality, and design.  To address issues that David has brought 
up, I have read cover to cover two books on programming, one of which is on 
code refactoring and design.  I think these have led to tangible improvements 
in my work on LilyPond.  I look forward to learning more.

It’d be a great goal in 2014 to see people who left the project because of 
communication difficulties come back because of a sincere effort on the part of 
everyone to communicate with mutual respect, irrespective of what the 
differences are in their positions.

Cheers,
MS