What I want to know is: which of Tower, GitKraken, GitHub Desktop or Stash do the kernel developers prefer?
Yes, and do they use Outlook or the Yahoo webmail interface to compose their patches?
Why kernel development still uses email (2016)
81–90 of 97 posts
Re: Why kernel development still uses email (2016)
#82For 99% of folks outside the HN echo chamber, email works fine. Spam is a problem, but I've never heard or read of anyone who thinks email needs to go the way of the dodo except on this site.
Email is the pinnacle of human communication. Without notifications, which I, of course, do not use, email is the least intrusive and least disrupting way someone can contact me. I simply check my email when I feel like it, which is about two times daily, morning and sometime late evening. Then, even when I look at my email, I don't have to respond. I don't have to do anything. And if there's an email I want to reply…
> Email is the pinnacle of human communication.
For one to one or one to many types of communication, I agree. Email, in my opinion, breaks down when there's a discussion amongst multiple people. For instance, you have to make sure that everyone in the discussion addresses are added by your MUA before clicking the reply button (or using the equivalent keyboard command). The other problem is that if you need to include a new person in an existing discussion, they won't have any of the previous messages to refer to (other than what happens to be quoted in the email they receive).
Newsgroups, on the other hand, address the issues I mentioned and are just as good as email in communication IMO.
Re: Why kernel development still uses email (2016)
#83Because you can read email from the command line.
Re: Why kernel development still uses email (2016)
#84For 99% of folks outside the HN echo chamber, email works fine. Spam is a problem, but I've never heard or read of anyone who thinks email needs to go the way of the dodo except on this site.
Email is the pinnacle of human communication. Without notifications, which I, of course, do not use, email is the least intrusive and least disrupting way someone can contact me. I simply check my email when I feel like it, which is about two times daily, morning and sometime late evening. Then, even when I look at my email, I don't have to respond. I don't have to do anything. And if there's an email I want to reply…
There's a chap by the name of Ted Nelson who's been working on that for the past 50 years. Unfortunately, the problem is a bit harder than it looks.
Re: Why kernel development still uses email (2016)
#85Ironically enough, Google actually does use Gerrit for their own kernel development.
What's ironic about it?
Re: Why kernel development still uses email (2016)
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
4000 developers sponsored by 400 companies. Let than sink in. It's not only 4000 opinionated devs. It's, potentially, 400 completely different organizations; 400 management layers on top; 400 different priority sets; devs in every time zone; etc. Google is just 1 company (a dozen, if you want to break down Alphabet). It's amazing that they manage to get 8 changes an hour, and still be one of the most successful open…
14000 developers from 1300 companies have contributed, since 2005. From 3.19 to 4.7, an average of 4600 lines of code was added daily. Over 80% of all kernel development is done by developers paid for their work. A small number of companies are responsible for a large portion of the total changes. These being, from biggest to lowest contributor: Intel (12.9%), Red Hat (8,0%), Linaro (4%), Samsung, SUSE, IBM, Google (…
Can I ask how you got that info? Are committers listed as paid / unpaid ?
Re: Why kernel development still uses email (2016)
#87One of the best things about email is that, with the right client, you can view discussions as hierarchical trees. That means you can have multiple simultaneous discussions about a topic asynchronously and not lose track of anything. GitHub and the like only work that well when there's maybe one or two things being discussed at once, because there's just a single linear stream of comments.
GitLab has discussions, which thread topics within an issue/MR/commit. In the context of a MR, individual messages or whole threads can be marked as resolved. This is an invaluable tool to get out of linear quote hell.
Re: Why kernel development still uses email (2016)
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
14000 developers from 1300 companies have contributed, since 2005. From 3.19 to 4.7, an average of 4600 lines of code was added daily. Over 80% of all kernel development is done by developers paid for their work. A small number of companies are responsible for a large portion of the total changes. These being, from biggest to lowest contributor: Intel (12.9%), Red Hat (8,0%), Linaro (4%), Samsung, SUSE, IBM, Google (…
Can I ask how you got that info? Are committers listed as paid / unpaid ?
Re: Why kernel development still uses email (2016)
#89For 99% of folks outside the HN echo chamber, email works fine. Spam is a problem, but I've never heard or read of anyone who thinks email needs to go the way of the dodo except on this site.
Email is the pinnacle of human communication. Without notifications, which I, of course, do not use, email is the least intrusive and least disrupting way someone can contact me. I simply check my email when I feel like it, which is about two times daily, morning and sometime late evening. Then, even when I look at my email, I don't have to respond. I don't have to do anything. And if there's an email I want to reply…
"In fact, I think I should just start recording everything, every day, all the time, and convert the audio to text."
About a decade or perhaps 15 years ago in Birmingham UK, the Ikon gallery had a multi-artist exhibition of a conceptual nature. one of the artists had used a micro-cassette recorder to record every word he uttered over a week and then had the tapes transcribed by audio-typists. The results where exhibited as an impressively high stack of A4 sheets. Unfortunately, they were, apart from a few sample sheets on the wall, piled in a glass case thus preventing viewers from sampling the text. I was taking bets on the sheets that were hidden from view being blank. The artist also exhibited the micro-cassette recorder and tapes used.
Google has nothing to say about the exhibit, but it has to be said my memory is a bit short on key words.
A sibling post mentioned Ted Nelson.
Re: Why kernel development still uses email (2016)
#90(Unrelated to the e-mail topic) > A poor craftsman famously complains about his tools, Greg said, but a good craftsman knows how to choose excellent tools. Unless their company forces tools on them. :(
Actually good craftsman knows how to use the tools available to him to do the job in the most effective way. Choice is a luxury that is not always present.
Just because you say that doesn't make it true, though. Sometimes a tool just is worse, even if you become skilled at it.
I can try to work around Microsoft Word's UI by learning the keyboard shortcuts, but I can't do anything against Internet Explorer taking its sweet time loading webpages. No skill in the world will make that faster.