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Re: Proposed New Feature (SVNROOT)

From: Brian Denny <brian_at_briandenny.net>
Date: 2004-03-16 20:35:45 CET

On Tue, Mar 16, 2004 at 11:51:38PM +0200, Nuutti Kotivuori wrote:
>
> And unless the extent of the functionality was already discussed (like
> I assume it wasn't from the patch), I strongly would urge you to
> discuss the actual semantics of SVNROOT on the list first, get a
> consensus on what would be sane behaviour, and hopefully start coding
> after you've got a green light that this indeed is a wanted change.

I want to make a remark about this.

I have observed a number of times on this list that a user comes to
the list with a feature request, and they get a response something
like "I don't really think this feature is worth the effort, but you're
welcome to submit a patch".

Which, if said before the actual semantics have been worked-out on list,
may encourage the sort of "code-first, ask questions later" pattern that
you (Nuutti) are trying above to discourage.

Furthermore, I fear a kind of subtext-misunderstanding. "You're welcome
to submit a patch" sounds like encouragement, but I feel like sometimes
people say this when what they really mean is "This is *so* low on my
priority list that I don't even want to discuss it right now. If you
come back with a patch, maybe I'll consider spending my time on it."
-- Which is a perfectly valid attitude, but I just hope the potential
patch submitter is hearing the right message.

I'm not necessarily saying that either of the above comments applies to
this particular case.

-brian
(thinking much more about psychology than about code, lately)

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Received on Wed Mar 17 04:26:55 2004

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