Subject: Re: Official Git Homepage change? Re: git-scm.com

From: Junio C Hamano <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 26 Jul 2008 00:11:01 -0700

"Scott Chacon" <[email-masked]> writes:

> On Fri, Jul 25, 2008 at 9:09 PM, Junio C Hamano <[email-masked]> wrote:
>> ...
>> These two are directly related.  They might be friendly and well-meaning
>> folks, but I agree that they haven't earned our trust yet.
>>
>> But I do not think it matters that much.
>> ...
>> It's also somewhat interesting to observe that several people I have never
>> heard of in the git circle are simultaneously doing new git books,
>> apparently never asking for much technical advice from core git people, by
>> the way.
>
> To be honest, I have asked for a fair amount of technical advice from
> many helpful people in the IRC channel over the past few years.  In my
> case, one of my best friends - the guy I've been working with for the
> last 4 years - is Nick Hengeveld, who has something like 50 commits in
> there - why email the list when I can yell a question over the cube
> wall?  I'm sure you all have more important things to do than review
> my book for newbies - I asked Nick to do it.

Ah, Nick.  We haven't heard from him for quite some time.  I've actually
been missed him from time to time whenever http related issues came up.
Please say hello to him for me ;-).

> If I could code C worth a lick, I'm sure I would have contributed more
> to this list, but since I have nothing that I feel would be helpful to
> you, I've passively followed the list.  I'm sorry that you do not
> consider me a "git community member" just because I don't code C, and
> so I can't contribute helpfully to core.

I realize I may have sounded somewhat harsh, but that was not my
intention.  And I do not think what you said is fair, either.

We have had quite a few end user questions on this list, but I do not seem
to recall any of the names of the book writers, whose books are presumably
aimed at these people, answering them.  Granted, core coders may be busy
bunch of people, and the questions and comments from new people sometimes
tend to be lost in flurry of patch floods.  I and other core coders would
have greatly appreciated if non-coder experts like yourself helped these
threads that have never panned out.

I am not complaining.  This cuts both ways.  The patch floods do tend to
discourage new people from asking basic questions, and lack of answers
even more so.  But it is not healthy for people who design and code not to
hear end user feedback.  I personally would want to see the list traffic
to be inclusive.

The people who design the new features and write code should have easy
access to the issues the users of all levels have with the software and
the documentation (and what they find useful as well).  What I am most
afraid of is that both "We do not bother the coders" and "We are too busy
to answer every newbie question" mentalities would lead to a fractured
community.