[Bf-committers] Lack of coordination and communication in Blender development

[Mike Erwin]

On Sat, Aug 15, 2015 at 3:15 PM, Jacob Merrill <blueprintrandom1 at gmail.com>
 wrote:

> I think step 1 in any proposal for change,
>
> we need a new 'map'/flow diagram of the current system,
>
> any proposed change would be a editied version of this map,
>

Reminds me of the blender 2.03 book :) But that was a map of the externals,
not internals.


> I have steadily been trying to digest commits, and understand
> what everything does, could steps be taken to refactor blender
> to make it be more approachable for coders in their blender infancy?
>

This is more about diving into the code. Which is a separate issue but
worth talking about.

I don't think making code more beginner friendly should be a goal. A
beginner is just someone who's not an expert yet. Good refactoring makes it
better for any coder, not just new people.

could there be 1 day a month we set aside to helping new developers get
> into the flow of commiting?
>

Most years we have GSoC for this, which allows a more hands-on introduction
for a few new coders. I was new to blender's code and development work flow
5 years ago. By now I'm really comfortable with the parts I care about. The
key to getting started is pick one area and learn as much as you can about
it. Who wrote this? Who else works on it regularly? Are any parts of this
code "dead"/obsolete, so you can skip those and focus on the "live" parts?
That's any code base really, not just blender's.

Understanding the code as it exists today isn't easy. It's big and has a
history. Keeping up with new commits isn't easy since there's so much
activity. It's possible though, and I've never gotten the impression that
anyone is actively making things harder for new people.


Mike Erwin
musician, naturalist, pixel pusher, hacker extraordinaire