Team Collaboration Considerations

[Jerry D]

On 12/8/22 9:25 AM, Tobias Burnus wrote:
> Hi,
>
> On 08.12.22 17:27, Steve Kargl via Fortran wrote:
>> On Wed, Dec 07, 2022 at 05:54:40PM -0800, Jerry D via Fortran wrote:
>>> Other than Benson, I have received no sign of any interest from 
>>> gfortran
>>> developers to adopt a teaming/collaboration platform.  I am a bit
>>> disappointed. Maybe my intent was misunderstood.  I am not suggesting
>>> replacing the email approval process but there are many other 
>>> features of
>>> these platforms, in particular, communication efficiency that would 
>>> be very
>>> helpful.
>
> I personally do not have a strong preference for any. But every
> additional communication channel costs time time (setting up, tracking
> discussions etc.) and it is not really clear what's the benefits vs.
> costs ratio.
For myself, a clear benefit is at a glance on my phone I can know if 
there is activity and i can reply on the fly while I am at work or 
whereever, or reply later as i choose without having to scan my emails
>
> I don't mind adding yet another channel to watch, but I cannot guarantee
> that I will be able to actively follow it. If it is not high volume and
> I get some notification that something has changed by email, it might
> work – or if it is interesting/often enough used, I might log in from
> time to time – but otherwise it will simply get ignored. Not due to not
> being interested but due to having too much else on to do.
>
Understood, we all have this issue.
>>> I will keep the Mattermost workspace. If anyone want to join send me 
>>> your
>>> email and I will send you an invite.
> Let's try it – please send an invite.
I wiil start sending invites. I am learning this thing myself.  I will 
also post to Fortran Discourse occasionally to see if anyone new may be 
interested in getting invited as well.  I have in mind the possibilities 
of this being a mentoring tool for any newer persons and a 'give me 
hint' place for the long timers trying to remember where this or that 
was in the code etc.

>
>> I think you're seeing the effects of the move to git and an aging
>> base of contributors.
>
> I don't think that moving to 'git' really causes the problem – nor the
> move to C++, given that is is not really visible in most code. I think
> the main problem is that most things do work and attracting a new
> contributor is always difficult. Google Summer of Code was one
> successful way, but attracting contributors is not trivial.

Yes, I do not see git as the main issue. I use it often at work.  I also 
use C, C++, C#, Python, and some others on occasion.  The only trick is 
jumping between the various eye candy features. Code is code, but then i 
am sort of a generalist which is why sometime i get stuck in details. LOL
>
> This year, two were interested working on gfortran but at the end it did
> not work out – despite me spending quite some time to guide them to get
> started.

If you can send me contact information on people.  Maybe I can invite 
them to the Mattermost. (Up to you of course)

>
>> Occasionally, Thomas
>> and I offer up patches, but this occurs in a rather sparse manner.
>> In fact, if I fix a bug, the patch is attached to the bugzilla report
>> where it sits until Harald stumbles across it or it bit rots.
>> ...
>> "I don't have time"
>
Totally understand this issue.
> I think we have three areas: bug fixes (where Harald does an awesome
> job), cleanup/restructuring of some bad design, and new features (mainly
> but not only F2018). The problem with the second item is that it takes
> quite some work for little visible benefit; we do some bits here and
> there for bug fixes (or for TS29113) but nothing larger. Likewise for
> F2018, some low-hanging fruits are easily done, but some larger
> development work is really due.
>
> I still intend to do more on the gfortran side, but I am rather busy on
> the OpenMP side (code, specification meetings including filing issues
> and creating spec patches) and things like working on gfortran competes
> with fixing other GCC issues (a pragma, documentation, long-standing
> other Bugzilla bugs), fixing issues in external testsuites/libraries,
> GSoC mentoring, internal mentoring etc. I still hope that I will do more
> non-OpenMP gfortran work but it does not look as if I will do a lot any
> time soon.
>
> Tobias
>

Your contributions have always been very appreciated.

Jerry