Thomas Zander <zander@kde.org> writes:
> > Ah. So you /do/ understand that your optimisation ideas would invalidate
> > our core WC design decisions,
>
> Again the defensive tone; svn has many design decisions that I have no idea
> if those are relevant for all users (do you?). After talking on IRC I
> gather that the whole handling of the points I proposed a couple of small
> optional optimisations to, is in desperate need of a rewrite. And has been
> for a long time; with mail-threads like these; where people attack ideas
> without trying to grok the idea first, time is wasted where code could be
> written.
You know, I have to agree with Thomas here.
I mean, not with his proposals -- which have been analyzed to death
and need no further comment -- but with his point that we're being
overly defensive and not focusing on the real problem.
Basically, his complaint is legitimate: svn update is slower than it
has to be. Maybe Thomas hasn't done enough careful measurement to get
at the root causes, and maybe his proposals are a bit naive, but we
don't need to hammer him down for that.
This thread *should* have started with us forthrightly acknowledging
the existence of the problem. Then we should point out that it's very
complex to determine the precise causes, say why we haven't gotten
around to it, and point out what sorts of measurements need to be made
before we talk about a solution. His proposals we should either rebut
amicably, or not respond to at all. The key word is "amicably".
Instead, Thomas got a lot of put-downs dressed as technical replies.
I'm not naming names because I've been as guilty of this as anyone
lately, just not in this thread (this being my first post here).
As Subversion matures, the difference in background knowledge between
an experienced developer and a newcomer will only increase. This
means that the longtime devs will start to appear short-fused, because
even if our fuses stay exactly as long as they've always been, we'll
still be contending with questions that are (relatively speaking) more
naive than questions in the past.
The solution to that is not to start slamming newcomers, but to point
out -- nicely :-) -- that SVN is complicated, and to help them
understand those complications, so they can contribute. Let us please
lengthen fuses accordingly!
End of soapbox,
-Karl
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Received on Sun May 8 21:38:46 2005