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Re: CVS update: ADDED: subversion/bindings/java/jni/org/tigris/subversion REMOVED: subversion/bindings/java/jni/org/tigris/subversion

From: Greg Stein <gstein_at_lyra.org>
Date: 2001-08-10 00:15:05 CEST

On Thu, Aug 09, 2001 at 04:15:19PM -0500, kfogel@collab.net wrote:
> I hate to jump in and disagree with virtually everyone :-), but:
>
> I wasn't aware that we had any policy about not putting authors' names
> in the files; if we do, it's not mentioned in the HACKING file, and I
> don't recall it ever being raised on this list. Until now, we've had
> very few files written by just one person (Greg Stein's code is
> perhaps the only exception), so the issue hasn't really come up.

Precedent sets policy. It seemed a good number of us believed in not putting
our names in the code, so it was effectively policy. We don't write down
everything about how to code -- there are dozens of unwritten rules.

Have we written down "check in often; avoid sweeping changes" ? Nope. It is
just something we do, but I would put forward that it is policy.

> Frankly, I don't see any problem with Alexander Mueller putting his
> name in there, for as long as he's the only author. I don't think
> it's against the open source spirit or something. It makes it
> slightly easier for others to track him down if they need to. And if
> other authors start working on that code, they can either add
> themselves, or decide to get rid of the @author line entirely.

You're misleading yourself if you believe an @author line can be removed :-)
If somebody is insisting on placing their name in the code, then (typically)
that person may also be upset on the day that you take their name out.

Tracking? That what AUTHORS is about. But even then: we have this list and
we have the teamwork, in general, as a way to maintain cohesion. If code is
arriving in our repository and we *don't* know how to contact the author,
then I'd be extremely worried.

> That said, I'm not going to start putting an @author line in files I
> work on, even if no one else has touched them. :-)
>
> In short, don't see a need for any policy here.

It is a poor precedent to have personal names in a team effort. And that is
what we're doing here: acting as a team.

I've mentioned it elsewhere, but names in code can engender fiefdoms ("don't
touch that; it's my code!"). That is the single-most destructive thing that
occur to a team and to the codebase that is being built. The potential cost
of that outweighs any minor benefit that I could think of for having names
in there.

[ note: I'm not suggesting Alex has the fiefdom point of view; I'm concerned
  about the precedent ]

Yes, I've written large chunks of code. It actually upsets me that others
aren't in there all that much (Joe Orton thankfully assists!). I avoid
putting my name in there because I *want* others to work on it. It isn't
really a good thing for the team/code to have a single author on critical
pieces of code. I'm confident with my code, but realistic enough to know
that it would be best to have more people contributing to those portions.

Cheers,
-g

>
> -K
>
> "B. W. Fitzpatrick" <fitz@red-bean.com> writes:
> > > Greg Stein schrieb:
> > >
> > > > On Thu, Aug 09, 2001 at 05:24:41PM -0000, XelaRellum@tigris.org wrote:
> > > > >...
> > > > > Index: Client.java
> > > > > ===================================================================
> > > > > package org.tigris.subversion.lib;
> > > > >
> > > > > /**
> > > > > * public interface for libsvn_client
> > > > > *
> > > > > * ====================================================================
> > > > > * Copyright (c) 2000-2001 CollabNet. All rights reserved.
> > > > > *
> > > > > * This software is licensed as described in the file COPYING, which
> > > > > * you should have received as part of this distribution. The terms
> > > > > * are also available at http://subversion.tigris.org/license-1.html.
> > > > > * If newer versions of this license are posted there, you may use a
> > > > > * newer version instead, at your option.
> > > > > * ====================================================================
> > > > > *
> > > > > * @author Alexander.Mueller@littleblue.de
> > > > > * @version 0.0
> > > >
> > > > We normally do not attribute specific authors in the SVN files. Personally,
> > > > I would be more comfortable to stick with that precedent.
> > >
> > > Hmm. Personally I do share the opinion of Andrew Hunt and David Thomas, authors of the
> > > great book "The Pragmatic Programmer". The opinion is, it is important to label files and
> > > methods with author's name. So everybody knows who to ask, for the programmer to feel
> > > more responsible for the code and last but not least to have something to be proud of!
> >
> > FWIW, cvs log and cvs annotate provide for this.
> >
> > -Fitz
> >
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-- 
Greg Stein, http://www.lyra.org/
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Received on Sat Oct 21 14:36:35 2006

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