Public SourceMage Discussion List

[David Kowis <dkowis AT shlrm.org>]

Jeremy Blosser wrote:
> Yeah... a lot of the questions being asked of the candidates are
> high-profile issues with feelings behind them, so people are understandably
> getting sidetracked trying to solve them again now.  But we aren't going to
> solve all of these during this election.  We need to hear what the
> candidates intend to do themselves to manage these things to resolution.
> More of "what you will do" as opposed to "what the project needs".
> 


So I thought about this for a while, and perhaps you guys need an example.

As Grimoire Lead I see these issues:
 * Reorganization of the grimoire for code reuse
 * Keywords - which also fit under the reorganization
 * Maintainership, or lack thereof

Of highest priority, I see is the reorganization. This is not a trivial
task, and I don't intend to take it lightly. I plan on reorganizing the
grimoire based on code reuse. That is the most efficient way to handle
the grimoire. Especially since several spells can be argued into one
section or the other.
So the new spell sorting method would be:
 1. Goes into a section based on code reuse
 2. Goes into a section based on what the spell does
 3. Goes into a section based on what the spell uses
  - For example, kde applications and gnome applications
 4. By maintainer


2 and 3 are about on the same level, and is pretty much what we're doing
right now. We don't really sort anything by maintainer now, and I think
it will be a good way to allow people to take responsibility for more
spells, easily. Obviously, I will not sacrifice code reuse just because
someone wants to move a spell into "their" section.

Keywords are a key issue here. There's been lots of arguement and
discussion about whether they're part of sorcery or not. Regardless of
that problem, I intend to resolve it and move forward implementing
keywords as a replacement for our sections. Since the sections will be
based on code reuse, they're not as useful in organizing spells in a
meaningful way to humans. I propose that we use the existing section
names as a start to the keyword list. We can add or subtract ones as
necessary.  Keywords allow us to arbitrarily and simply move spells
around in various groups, or be part of multiple groups. This is the way
of the future for organizing the grimoire and I intend to resolve this
issue.

Maintainership has been lax. Partially because some sections are huge
and others are small. People work on sections they like and things they
use. The kde Section is huge. It's nice when someone steps up to take
care of it for us, but that is a daunting task. I believe that
reorganizing the grimoire for code reuse will help alleviate some of the
difficulties in maintaining the grimoire. I will also enforce a coding
standard for the grimoire. It will be documented and obvious. Creating
such a document is a high priority, so that it will be easier for new
developers to get up to speed. It will also serve as a reference for
those that don't contribute all that often.

I will work with the Sorcery team to help remove things from sorcery
that shouldn't be part of sorcery. And I will keep up to date on things
going on in sorcery so that the grimoire can be ready and able to
implement improvements, or deprecate old logic. I intend to have monthly
status meetings or at the very least emails, regarding the current
status of projects and the grimoire as a whole.

I'm always available on IRC, and via email. I will let you guys know
when I go on trips and I will have assistants who will be capable and
willing to perform my duties while I'm gone.



<EOM>

This is the kind of thing that I'd like to see from the prospective
grimoire leads. Some measure of, "Yes, I will do these things." Not, "We
should have this." Or, "We need something to do $foo."

David

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