[Freeciv-Dev] Re: Documentation, Usability and Development

[Reinier Post <rp@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On Thu, Nov 29, 2001 at 10:39:07PM -0500, Justin Moore wrote:

> > I didn't realize you were held off by the discussion.  I didn't like
> > your API but it's a lot better than what we have.
> 
>    Other than the various typecasting issues, what didn't people like
> about it?

I remember a proposal in which there was no syntax parsing, only chopping
off words and feeding the rest to a callback, which made it hard to
maintain a consistent syntax.  However I'd have to look at the actual patch
for details.

>    The other issue was that after several submissions of the split() patch
> from me to no avail and one submission of another (identical) split()
> function that got essentially lots of enthusiastic comments, I threw in
> the towel for the time being.

This is simply because the other patch was short and therefore easy to
comment on.  In other words, it grabbed the attention of people like me
with a short attention span.  It has nothing to do with the quality of
the code.

> I was starting school/research again, and
> didn't have time to argue the finer points of why my solution fit the
> problem.  I had code that did *exactly* what was necessary, but it got
> completely bogged down in (IMHO) stupid memory management issues.

Yes, and the management issues arise from the fact that too few people
actually review patches.  (I don't.)

> It's hard when there's only one visible maintainer (and I do appreciate the
> incredible effort that Raimar puts in), and they don't agree with you, and
> you just *know* that you're right.

Yes, the only solution is to have more maintainers (some have been asked)
or open up CVS write access to anyone with a patch.  I have little
experience with this but opening a second development branch for this
purpose seems to be a proposal with little cost.

-- 
Reinier