Subject: Re: [RFC] Git User's Survey 2009 - trial run

From: Jakub Narebski <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2009 01:23:08 +0200

Dnia piątek 26. czerwca 2009 16:44, Johan Herland napisał:
> On Friday 26 June 2009, Jakub Narebski wrote:

>> Too large number of questions in the survey, and filling survey
>> taking too long were, I think, the most common complaints about
>> survey in the year before.
> 
> Yes, that's why I focused on decreasing the number of questions even
> further.

Having less questions (currently trying to fit within 30 questions)
is not the only criterion.  It is also important to not have too 
complicated questions (with large number of possible responses),
see e.g. question 10 (editors and RAD) which got slimmed down by
asking about kind of editors and not individual editors.

>>> There seems to be some unnecessary overlap among questions 11,
>>> 16/17 and 18.
>>
>> Overlap between questions 16/17 and 18 is, to some extent, intended.
>> Those two questions ask about similar area but from the two different
>> points of view: question 16/17 is about git commands, 18 about
>> features.
> 
> I see, but in the cases where the feature questions in 18 are tied to
> a specific git command already mentioned in 16/17, I believe you can
> drop it from 18 (since we already got our answer in 16/17).

Actually if I could I'd rather drop it from 16/17... but this question
is about comprehensive list of git commands (one can use).  I think
that some people won't answer 16/17 because it is long and time-consuming
(and difficult to answer, if you want to do it truthfully).

On the other hand trimming down the list of possible answers in 
18 (features of git) could be a good idea...

>> It there are votes for removing questions 16/17 I can remove it from
>> survey (again).
> 
> No, I don't want to remove 16/17. I'd rather remove 18, since it
> overlaps so much with several of the earlier questions.

I'd rather not.  I prefer 18 to 16/17.
 
>>> - 17/"git reflog" and 18/reflog
>>
>> I think I'll remove 'reflog' from 18 (features), not because it is
>> present in 16/17 (git commands), but because this is feature one
>> uses, I think, quite often and less 'conscious'.
> 
> agreed.
> 
>> OTOH one can use reflog feature without using "git reflog" or
>> "git log -g" ("git log --walk-reflogs") -- HEAD@{1} or @{yesterday}
>> uses reflog feature without using mentioned git commands :-)
> 
> But _why_ are we asking this question? If the reflog feature is used
> all the time without people having to know about it, then there's no
> point in asking about it. It's not like it's going to be removed in
> the next version because people dislike it. It's like asking "Are you
> using Git blob objects?". What are you going to do with the answer?

Actually I think this answer is here because it was present in previous
survey... and then reflog was not turned on by default, and <rev>@{<n>}
syntax didn't exist then.  Using reflog was then conscious choice.
Not nowadays.

Thank you for all your comments.  I'll try to come up soon with next
version of "Git User's Survey 2009", hopefully the last one before start
(and question about announcing it).

-- 
Jakub Narebski
Poland