[development] Slow down with the official releases of contrib already, ok? ; )

Liam McDermott liam at intermedia-online.com
Fri May 30 23:13:39 UTC 2008


Derek Wright wrote:
> It seems the regular practice for new 
> contributors is:
> 
> A) This stuff is new and complicated, I don't get it.
> B) Lemme try making a bunch of branches and tags, and see what happens.
> C) Lemme try making release nodes.
> D) At first sign of trouble, email dww or file support issues.
> 
> (Notice: "Read the docs" isn't on the list).

This is overly cynical, it's possible to read the docs and still feel 
overwhelmed by having to learn a new system. This isn't a problem with 
the docs, they're great, but it is still a steep learning curve. Also, 
you're on the receiving end of those who gets stuck, how many people 
have never needed to raise a ticket?

Having said that, those constraints have saved me from breaking stuff in 
CVS on multiple
  occasions. I've read the docs, and understand CVS reasonably well 
these days, but that doesn't stop the odd stupid mistake.

I expect most Drupal devs want a _simple_ system to manage their 
releases. The current release system is nearly perfect for that, and 
anyone who doesn't like it is welcome to run their own version control 
system and sync with the drupal.org repos as they see fit.

Lets keep drupal.org CVS simple, well constrained, and easy to use. 
Remember the 80/20 rule: Derek's time (in my opinion) is better served 
getting features that 80% of the community use perfect, than pandering 
to the needs of the 20% who want something different. Particularly when 
that 20% could set something up themselves, without having to lean on 
the limited resources of Derek and Co. (see Ubercart and eCommerce 
modules for examples of this).

Kind Regards,
Liam McDermott.


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