Re: Team Collaboration Considerations

[Tobias Burnus <tobias@codesourcery.com>]

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.

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.

>> 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 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.

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.

> 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"

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

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