Hello Prot,

While I completely understand and support your decision to move Denote
development over to Github, I'd like to say:

Denote was the first project I used after 2008 where I had to push
patches to a mailing list for contributing, and I was so happy about
how easy the process is, as compared to PRs on Github. I know that I
am probably in the minority here, but I'm genuinely sad that the
developer community considers PRs easier.

I read through your post[1] and I can see how the email based workflow
is terrible for maintainers, but I must say that it is a breeze for
contributors :)

For example, I want to push two commits right now to the newly created
`denote-org-extras.el` file. The first commit is something I am very
sure about -- I think we should absolutely make that tiny fix to the
code. The second commit changes the same code, but in a way that is
controversial and open to discussion. I'm not sure that it would be
merged in, perhaps it is too particular to my workflow. How do I model
this easily in the PR world? At the moment, I am pushing both commits
to the same PR[2] and hoping that they get accepted. If I get comments
that the second commit is not acceptable, I will force push again and
remove it. :shrugs:

There is no conclusion to this email, it is just a small rant I
thought I'd share with the community. Thank you Prot and team for all
the hard work you put into this project, Denote is a joy to use and
tinker with.

[1]: https://protesilaos.com/codelog/2024-01-27-sourcehut-no-more/
[2]: Update: I ended up pushing 2 PRs instead of 1, to make it easier
for maintainers: https://github.com/protesilaos/denote/pull/240 and
https://github.com/protesilaos/denote/pull/241
-- 
Cheers,
Vedang

https://vedang.me
@vedang on fosstodon.org

> From: Vedang <ved.manerikar@gmail.com>
> Date: Thu,  1 Feb 2024 10:45:27 +0530
>
> Hello Prot,

Hello Vedang,

> While I completely understand and support your decision to move Denote
> development over to Github, I'd like to say:
>
> Denote was the first project I used after 2008 where I had to push
> patches to a mailing list for contributing, and I was so happy about
> how easy the process is, as compared to PRs on Github. I know that I
> am probably in the minority here, but I'm genuinely sad that the
> developer community considers PRs easier.
>
> I read through your post[1] and I can see how the email based workflow
> is terrible for maintainers, but I must say that it is a breeze for
> contributors :)

It is easy for maintainers as well:

    git am path/to/patch

The path can be fetched directly from the email client (notmuch in my
case) or from Dired.

But this only works smoothly if the patches are always formatted
correctly. I did not want to cover some bugs with SourceHut because I
understand it is still in "alpha". In short: formatting of attached
patch files is faulty due to an extra ">" added to the top.

> For example, I want to push two commits right now to the newly created
> `denote-org-extras.el` file. The first commit is something I am very
> sure about -- I think we should absolutely make that tiny fix to the
> code. The second commit changes the same code, but in a way that is
> controversial and open to discussion. I'm not sure that it would be
> merged in, perhaps it is too particular to my workflow. How do I model
> this easily in the PR world? At the moment, I am pushing both commits
> to the same PR[2] and hoping that they get accepted. If I get comments
> that the second commit is not acceptable, I will force push again and
> remove it. :shrugs:

Two separate PRs make it easier to keep the discussions focused.

Internally, I still treat everything as a patch, anyway. Take this URL
for example:

    https://github.com/protesilaos/denote/pull/241

And append ".patch":

    https://github.com/protesilaos/denote/pull/241.patch

Do this from inside Emacs, M-x write-file, and take it from there.

> There is no conclusion to this email, it is just a small rant I
> thought I'd share with the community. Thank you Prot and team for all
> the hard work you put into this project, Denote is a joy to use and
> tinker with.

You are welcome!

All the best,
Prot

-- 
Protesilaos Stavrou
https://protesilaos.com