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What do y'all think about mailing lists and IRC as sole communication channels? (self.programming)

submitted 1 year ago by onlinepersona to c/programming

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Say you want to contribute to a project and find out the only way to do so is by discussing the issue on IRC or the mailing list, then submitting the patch per email.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I never really used IRC, but in my experience contributing to projects which use mailing lists is very easy - you just send a mail with some code.

Of course you could use git-send-email, and you could create diffs and patches, but I actually think for a new contributor the mailing list workflow is the simplest since it doesn’t actually require knowledge of the various tools experienced developers use.

I write this from personal experience BTW - the first projects I contributed to used mailing lists, which allowed me to contribute even as a self taught programmer who had no experience with any VCS yet.

[–] onlinepersona 1 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Do you find mailing lists easier to use than pull requests / merge requests? And how do you find following a discussion in a mailing list?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

For newer/inexperienced users mailing lists are definitely easier. Everyone can send an email.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

From a contributor point of view, mailing lists are definitely easier than pull/merge requests - you just send a patch which you can create in any way you want to an email address.

Following a discussion is easy - it’s just a list of messages. In fact, it is easier for me since I use Gnus as my email client, which gives me a threaded view of discussions on the list.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yes and it depends to both questions.

I participate in projects being developed on Github that have 5k+ open pull requests and the same amount of issues. At that volume of communication, the Github workflow of "clicking through stuff" is way inferior to an efficient email workflow. Essentially, your workflow turns into email anyways because its the only sane way to consume based on push, and yes, I know, you can reply to Github using email, but its not nearly as good as something made for email.

So, in my opinion, email is simpler to use that pull request. It is not easiser because it is not close to what people are used to.

[–] lysdexic 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

At that volume of communication, the Github workflow of “clicking through stuff” is way inferior to an efficient email workflow. Essentially, your workflow turns into email anyways because its the only sane way to consume based on push (...)

I don't agree. Any conversation on pull requests happens through issues/tickets, which already aggregate all related events and are trivially referenced through their permanent links, including through the Git repo's history.