[Gnu-arch-users] quality, bazaar, arch, etc.

[Thomas Lord]

Stephen says:

> I'd still like to see some support [for the assertion that Bazaar
> is an engineering disaster], pretty please, with line numbers
> and lint warnings on top.

Assuming that you don't literally mean `lint(1)' that's a valid
enough request.  The main issues have been mentioned on the list
and on IRC over the years but they haven't been collected into
a damning presentation.

I have two issues that keeping from leaping at the opportunity
to answer your request at this time:

1) What difference will it make?   Is demand for an answer to
   that question standing between me and financial/economic recovery?
   It would be nice to believe "yes", because that is a straightforward
   problem to solve, but long experience teaches me the answer 
   is "no".

2) Your question does get to the heart of some of the problems
   but misses other parts of the heart of the problems.  By
   asking for "line numbers and lint warnings" you are taking 
   too narrow a view of what engineering is.

   Programs are expressions of mathematical thoughts.  If the 
   actions of an engineer could be appropriately judged just
   by looking at the programs that engineer writes then 
   engineering would be just a branch of mathematics.

   Instead, engineering is inherently multi-disciplinary and
   pragmatic.   Engineer's work not just on code but on their
   institutional and social context.  (Think "Scotty" on the
   original "Star Trek".)

   A complete analysis of the disaster would not look only at
   the code (which has plenty of problems) but would also 
   look in detail at the community participation and would
   "follow the money".  A complete analysis could easily reach
   book length.

You are asking for a lot of labor to be spent to prove a case
that some credible sources already see quite plainly.  Nothing
useful is on the table that will come of spending that labor.
Why is it important to answer your request?

-t

p.s.: Diffs can give you plenty of superficial evidence that something
is at least not quite right if you look at trivial evidence like
code formatting.   Diffs don't tell the whole code story since,
for example, tla was forced to merge code from the Bazaar archive format
changes.  Diffs don't tell the whole code story since both systems 
wound up with the abortive abrowse/rbrowse stuff.   You prbly do
understand the code issues well enough to think through some of the
changes in default options and implicit operations on yr own.  On the
narrow issue of code quality, while I don't want to accuse you of being
gratuitously obtuse, your question does seem to step back to an 
artificially neutral perspective.