Re: gerrit - does it allow writing commits using a web interface?

[David Kastrup]

Janek Warchoł <address@hidden> writes:

> Hi John,
>
> i remember that you are investigating whether we could be using Gerrit
> for Lily work.  I may've asked this question already, but i don't
> remember whether there was a definitive answer: does gerrit have a web
> interface that allows to create new commits using only a web browser?
> I've skimmed over
> http://qt-project.org/wiki/Gerrit-Introduction
> but didn't find any answer.
>
> The reason i'm so concerned about this is simple: it would enable
> hordes of LilyPond users (;-)) to participate in Lily development.
> The following situation happened to me several times: a user had a
> problem, i've explained how to fix it (or simply sent a link to
> appropriate section in manuals), and i asked "how could we improve the
> manuals so that you had found this information easier/understood it
> better?".  Unfortunately, the responses are usually too vague to be
> turned to a patch on the spot, and i don't have time to think about
> them myself (and it doesn't make sense to ask the user to install
> Lilydev and learn how to make a patch just for this).  With a web
> interface, this would become massively simpler.
> Also, Graham's catchphrase "patches appreciated" would become much
> more powerful :)

Frightening rather.  I don't spend enough time defending LilyPond
against awful patches as it is.  An automated system should likely
reject any patch not containing at least 25% of comment lines in code
areas (would be nice if this was the case for every submission).  Our
quality of code is terrible, and part of the reason is that submitters
just can't be bothered being interested in producing maintainable code.
Part of the reason is that the existing code base is not really a
shining example.  There is a lot of code that works because of fine
points and underlying designs that are not documented, and so this code
is useless as a template for how to write code that does not explode
around everyone's ears eventually.

It is also a timebomb for maintenance since changes might violate
underlying assumptions.

And that is just talking about code that actually works for good
reasons.  Quite a bit of code works since it has been prodded into not
failing under those circumstances that tend to be tested.

It is easy to make it easier to meddle with LilyPond code.  The low
number of contributors is not due to our toolchains.  It is because few
people are comfortable poking around in the dark.  And for good reason.

-- 
David Kastrup