26 Jun
2008
26 Jun
'08
8:28 a.m.
Thanks for descriptive, and, what's even more important, a neutral,
answer, without mutual blamings of someone (be it me, Magnus, or
anyone else), I highly appreciate that.
We'll work out something for future, I'm sure, but there is no such
thing as overdependence. It's like saying, "Magnus took whole DirectX
development into his hands, it created an overdependance on him since
noone else dared to touch this area". Or, "Alex Ionescu rewrote
critical parts of the kernel, and it created an overdependance on
him". I think you agree that sounds just silly, but that was
absolutely the same what you were saying :)
With the best regards,
Aleksey Bragin.
On Jun 25, 2008, at 9:30 PM, Zachary Gorden wrote:
Since I'm stuck at work without IRC, I need to do
this the old
fashioned way during my lunch break. I've followed the general
discussion thanks to the IRC logs of other people, so here goes.
First, Aleksey, you said that the intial blowup occurred because
Magnus went public and etc with what you said was a private issue
between him and you. But you also said that his development/commit
pattern was hurting the project. If that was the case, then I
personally don't think it should have stayed an issue between just
the two of you. If his changes were that disruptive, it's a matter
that every member of the project needs to help deal with. And this
should be the case no matter who the person is.
Second, the need for a "repository coordinator" or someone besides
yourself who has the ability to add and remove commit access is not
merely an administrative matter. The lack of such a person placed
more strain on you in the recent incident because the only person
Magnus could go to after his commit access was limited was you, a
person who had become extremely frustrated with him. Frustration
can go both ways, as both of you became pissed at the other. Not
the best mood to be in to resolve issues. While you, as the
project coordinator, are the one who lays down a general direction
for the project, it doesn't mean you need to act as the enforcer.
Having one or two people who overlap in certain areas of
responsibility helps let you avoid becoming too entangled in one
particular issue and becoming too personally invested in it. In a
major disagreement, that is definitely something to avoid.
The number of developers is still small, so it's not out of the
ordinary that you pay personal attention to things you think are
important or problematic. That's also not a bad thing, but you
could easily become overextended and overworked. It also creates
an overdependence on you for certain, mundane matters, which
further spread you thin. You also may forget or not even be aware
that a certain someone else may be able to help you with a specific
issue, simply because that person never found such an issue falling
into his/her (one day) field of responsibility.
There are plenty of people around you who can help you deal with
these matters, just trust us to stay on the path you set. Even if
you feel a developer isn't complying, that doesn't mean you
personally need to go after them. The rest of us are here and if
we know of the problem and how serious you think it is, we'd be
able to help.
Anyways, that's my say in this entire affair. Also, the me logged
in right now is my comp at home, for logging purposes, so I won't
respond on IRC until I get home.