Re: CVS and WWW sprint.
Hi!
Let me answer a lot of mails in this thread with one single mail, I
don't want to repeat responses. Please make sure to at least read my
plead at the end of the mail, the part that starts with the -) list.
* Charles Plessy <plessy@debian.org> [2011-01-24 05:14:50 CET]:
> I make occasional contributions to the Debian website, in
> /devel/debian-med, and I wonder how I could help to let the website
> migrate out of the the CVS / WML / iso-8859-1 troika, which I think
> is turning away contributors.
Out of iso-8859-1 is actually still on the agenda and will happen.
Simon did post (and reference) the howto for that several times, it just
needs people that are native in the language that aren't converted yet
to do the checking afterwards wether everything worked as expected.
Personally I really would like to have this gone not too far after the
squeeze release.
About migrating out of WML, where would you like to head? What is the
real problem people see with WML? Actually a seperation of content from
framework is there, which means that there is not really anything to
learn for contributors if they don't want any fancy stuff (that wouldn't
fit into the overall picture of the website anyway).
About migrating out of CVS, there is only a single argument brought up
that I could consider as being a valid point:
* Joey Hess <joeyh@debian.org> [2011-01-24 21:30:39 CET]:
> Also, the Debian Weekly News has always struggled with producing a
> newsletter in a system where branching is hard. That they currently
> have to have their own standalone (svn) repository with posts copied
> back to CVS says a lot.
That's actually a workflow pattern, so it doesn't "say a lot" but one
thing: having better branching support for our repository might improve
the need to do it outside instead of within. I'm though not totally
convinced that it would be a vast of improvement to throw away a system
that is actually doing its job extremely well - but please don't take
this as a strong objection or counter-argument.
Actually I am the person who gave webwml.git a try, and I have to say
it did let me down pretty much. Doing any history based stuff on
webwml.git is *extremely* cumbersome. Not having the possibility to do
language-only checkouts (and the tools) is something that I've heard
from some translators that they wouldn't like because it would require
them to have the whole thing checked out. On the other hand, submodules
are said to be quite a PITA too, and noone of the "new VCSes are good
for us" worshippers actually gave them a try or did get back on that
topic when I raised it to them.
> It's hard to prove a negative. Contributors, seeing antiquated
> technology, custom systems, and continual resistance to change, may
> simply decide their efforts are better spent elsewhere.
It's not a resistance to change, that's a fair bit of an exaggeration.
It's just that we haven't seen any support or responses or help from
those that claim the downfall of heaven if we won't change, no
assistance on the move in any direction. All that is thrown around is
"but CVS is crap", which isn't something to move forward or work on.
* Charles Plessy <plessy@debian.org> [2011-01-24 05:52:30 CET]:
> It needs network access for CVS diff.
Yes, that's annoying actually.
> It behaves in a way that is unexpected to somebody that uses more
> recent VCSes.
You mean like Linux behaves in a way that is unexpected to somebody
that uses Windows? Sorry, but I don't follow such argumentation lines.
> And the more I get used to the fancy features of other VCSes (colored
> wdiffs with git, for instance), the more I get bored to death when I
> force myself to keep our part of the website alive.
Yes I also love git diff --color-words, and I use them regularly
myself. And indeed that would also be an improvement for webwml. Though,
as the person who did produce the webwml.git and tries to keep it up to
date, from time to time doing stuff within it, it's extremely
uncomfortably huge, and it actually drives away people that would like
to do a quick checkout for a small patch.
As comparison, with the wormux packaging it was tried to have upstream
sources within the git packaging repository. This did drive away a lot
of contributors because of the sheer size of the repository, it did
hinder a quick checkout of the package for a fix. In the end we
regenerated the git repository for it containing just the debian/
subdirectory which got back some more commiters to it to work on it
again.
> None of this is a problem, but it working with CVS is not a pleasure,
> so at least for me I tend to postpone work on the Debian website.
Feel free to send in patches in that case.
* Raphael Geissert <geissert@debian.org> [2011-01-25 10:29:40 CET]:
> Now you have some evidence: it has prevented me from working on the
> website either for improving it or at least generating the pages for
> DSAs. Whenever I tried to make a change I always preferred to just
> poke someone via IRC. I never got to generate a page for the DSAs
> either.
And that's fine with us too. Actually, generating the DSA pages is part
of what was discussed during the recent security meeting, and the
process with be cleaned up and improved.
> Do you really expect people to learn (or remember) how to use such
> antique technologies (webml and cvs, respectively)?
It's nice to put scathing words against wml but then, pretty please,
also try to combine it with constructive criticism of suggestions where
to move to instead. A tempalting framework that offers any embedded
scripting language (perl definitely preferred because that's what is
currently in use) would be the way to suggest.
Actually, there is something that I would like to request from all
critics:
-) Please leave out polemics of that CVS and WML are so ancient and
that it's ridiculous, instead please concentrate on actual suggestions
on how things could get improved
-) If possible, can we postpone this discussion to after the squeeze
release? There is a fair amount of work on the shoulders of the webteam
that we want to have finished for the squeeze release ...
-) The delay to after the squeeze release will hopefully help "both
sides" (I dislike the term, actually I really hope we are on the same
side here) to be able to think about all the options and try to come up
with a more fruitful discussion than what we have currently (and I'm not
excluding myself here - there is a fair amount of "defending" statements
above, I know, though I hope it helps to understand the situation a bit)
Thanks for all your input,
Rhonda
--
"What are the differences between Mark Zuckerberg and me? I give private
information on corporations to you for free, and I'm a villain.
Zuckerberg gives your private information to corporations for money and
he's Man of the Year." -- Julian Assange
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