Re: Emacs Survey: Toolbars

[Christopher Dimech]

> Sent: Monday, December 21, 2020 at 10:21 PM
> From: "Jean Louis" <bugs@gnu.support>
> To: "Eli Zaretskii" <eliz@gnu.org>
> Cc: dimech@gmx.com, abrochard@gmx.com, rms@gnu.org, emacs-devel@gnu.org
> Subject: Re: Emacs Survey: Toolbars
>
> * Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> [2020-12-21 19:17]:
> > > Date: Mon, 21 Dec 2020 10:04:53 +0300
> > > From: Jean Louis <bugs@gnu.support>
> > > Cc: abrochard@gmx.com, rms@gnu.org, bugs@gnu.support, emacs-devel@gnu.org
> > >
> > > There are many volunteer organizations where people make a plan of
> > > action. Volunteer or not, it is not related to planning. Especially if
> > > one wish to spare the time for developers it is better to have a
> > > development plan.
> > >
> > > It could be a simple list of most important issues to be handled for
> > > Emacs.
> > >
> > > When such list is published maybe more contributors could be drawn to
> > > it.
> >
> > We have that: etc/TODO.  But that isn't a "plan" in any reasonable
> > sense of the word, it's just a list of useful features that we would
> > like to have at some point.  Sometimes, not very frequently, someone
> > comes and actually takes up one of those jobs.
> >
> > But much more frequently, someone comes up with an implemented feature
> > and submits it for inclusion, and we usually accept it.  Since there's
> > no way to plan that in advance, almost all of Emacs development moves
> > by such submissions which no one planned in advance.
> >
> > Frequent contributors to Emacs probably have their own personal plans,
> > and work according to them as their time permits.  But these personal
> > plans are almost never coordinated with anyone else.
>
> It works amazingly by willingness and contribution.

> > I don't see how anything different from the above could ever work, as
> > long as the project continues to be a loosely coupled group of people
> > with very disparate interests.  (I also see nothing wrong in how we do
> > things, FWIW.)

There lies the problem.  The project cannot continue to be loosely coupled
with very disparate interests.  The major people involved should come together
as a team.  This means that they should spend some of their time looking at
the other interests.

There are several possibilities that can be used simultaneously

1. For every five aspects tackled, that same person helps another one on one of 
his tasks.
2. Have two tasks where everyone helps tackling them.

Might not be a very exciting proposition but it would help eradicate
some serious difficulties we are experiencing.

> What is in your opinion priority for Emacs?