[Bf-committers] Blender developers meeting minutes - February 27, 2016

Sat Feb 27 16:45:05 CET 2016

So the actual issue is a lack of coordination work for contributors and the
reason why Manual is still in a reasonable shape is simply only because all
the contributors are scared away and now it's 1.5 people only working on it.

f we'll do better coordination work, then Wiki documentation will not be a
disaster at all.

On Sat, Feb 27, 2016 at 4:41 PM, Aaron Carlisle <carlisle.b3d at gmail.com>
wrote:

>  > IMO the new Sphinx-based solution presents too much of an initial
> > barrier to entry.
>
> This may be true and first however, once the environment gets setup
> It is really easy especially if you are using a GUI SVN client like Smart
> SVN
> In order to look at this correctly you need to see the arguments from both
> sides.
> These can be found on the new manual [1]. One of the reasons for the wiki
> disaster
> Is that too many people would edit which resulted in some bad content
> and over redundant text.
>
>
> 1. https://www.blender.org/manual/about/migration.html
>
>
> On Sat, Feb 27, 2016 at 10:34 AM, Campbell Barton <ideasman42 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > On Sat, Feb 27, 2016 at 10:22 PM, Sergey Sharybin <sergey.vfx at gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> > > Hi,
> > >
> > > I will strongly suggest to ignore Phabricators Wiki for the following
> > > reasons:
> > >
> >
> > It was mentioned as a possible alternative.
> >
> > > - It is not nearly as comprehensive as Mediawiki
> > > - Editing policies in Phabricator are still quite limiting, meaning
> > > granting someone's editing role for Wiki would either mean we manually
> > > control this (which is same as current "Please mail us if you need Wiki
> > > access" bullshit), or we'll effectively allow everyone to edit any
> object
> > > in our tracker which is not acceptable.
> > > - There's no comprehensive anti-spam tools in Phabricator.
> > > - Search is kinda pathetic
> > >
> > > Only argument for the Phabricator's wiki i currently see is that you
> only
> > > need one developer account to do the code and documentation. The truth
> > is:
> > > _any_ current developer has a Wiki account, yet it does not help
> keeping
> > > documentation in an up-to- state. So the issue of out-of-date
> > documentation
> > > is clearly somewhere else. (and if it's really an account issue, we can
> > > teach wiki.b.o to login with dev.b.o accounts).
> > >
> > > Let me ask this question: why would we keep diverging documentation
> from
> > > one single place (which is wiki.b.o) to a multiple ones (currently it's
> > > b.o/manual, and also proposed move of developer's documentation
> somewhere
> > > else)? I don't see such a diverge making documentation any easier to
> find
> > > or any easier to maintain.
> > >
> >
> > We don't - and think using a wiki for developer docs is reasonable to
> > stick with.
> >
> > > I do see however bullshit happening on current wiki.b.o, all this
> > anti-spam
> > > things which are done in really lazy way. But that only means our wiki
> > > itself is to be changed. Truth here is, it's a _really_ old mediawiki
> > > install which is just getting rotten. We can not upgrade it easily
> > because
> > > of the tree navigation, which required hacks all over the code. As for
> > me,
> > > we should evaluate such proposal instead:
> > >
> >
> > The way we handle Wiki accounts is quite broken,
> > for a while I was getting mails from `wiki at blender dot org`,
> > and we got regular mails with people who wanted to just learn Blender,
> > where I'm not even sure they knew what the wiki account was for.
> > Sometimes their English was poor so it wasn't really clear why they
> > wanted access.
> >
> > > - Re-consider navigation in Wiki, avoid having hacks to try support
> > > navigation which was barely useful
> > > - Prepare fully fresh install of Wiki (new engine, new web server
> > settings
> > > optimized for today's standards and so on)
> > > - Install skin which we'll find acceptable (this is the most tedious
> > work,
> > > we'll need someone to work on the skin and it's not so simple for
> > Mediawiki
> > > i've heard)
> > > - Migrate the content to a new Wiki
> > > - Re-evaluate state of the documents in there, wipe out-of-date ones
> > >
> > > Benefits:
> > >
> > > - This keeps use of documentation the same as it always was
> > > - This does not scare actual editors with wither fully offline editing
> > > - Let's everyone (new developers, old develeoprs, non-developers) to
> have
> > > project/design proposals in there, which are then simple to move to an
> > > actual documentation/release notes
> > > - Keeps release notes, release cycle, ongoing projects, personal
> > > notes/design proposal/drafts in a single place.
> > >
> > > Simplified proposal: we can just ignore all history in existing Wiki
> and
> > > simply start a new one. Even with a default skin it will not be less
> > usable
> > > than default sphinx/phabricator wikis.
> > >
> > > In any case, we would _have_ to update wiki sooner than later, and it
> > will
> > > bring it back to an usable state. Now, please stop for a moment from
> all
> > > your "let's split stuff apart" proposal and outline _actual_ problems
> > which
> > > _can not_ be solved in a context of having fresh and working wiki.b.o,
> > what
> > > will be the benefits of that move and so on.
> >
> > +1 (and something we've discussed/agreed on informally).
> >
> > > On Sat, Feb 27, 2016 at 2:26 AM, Campbell Barton <ideasman42 at gmail.com
> >
> > > wrote:
> > >
> > >> Hi, here are the notes from today's meeting in irc.freenode.net
> > >> #blendercoders.
> > >>
> > >> 1) Upcoming release
> > >>
> > >> So far things go smooth with 2.77rc1, reminder that release notes need
> > >> attention still.
> > >>
> > >> - Mike Erwin will do OpenGL release notes.
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> 2) Current projects
> > >>
> > >> - Developers confirm that after 2.77 we should *stop* focusing
> > >>   on 2.7x and move attention to bigger 2.8x projects.
> > >>   However discussion shows we still need more concrete planning.
> > >>
> > >> - UI team will start having its own meetings,
> > >>   current plan is to hold after next developer meeting.
> > >>   Will be announced on the bf-committers mailing list.
> > >>
> > >> - UI project has _many_ open tasks with discussion and no conclusion,
> > >>   these tasks could use some decisions from UI design leads.
> > >>   (or archive if theirs no clear outcome and nobody has time for
> them).
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> 3) Other Projects
> > >>
> > >> - Kevin Dietrich has begun work on the DwarfLabs Alembic patch,
> > >>   plans to move development to a branch and update to support
> > >>   import/export based on suggested changes in review.
> > >>   https://developer.blender.org/D1783
> > >>
> > >> - @Blendify proposes to migrate developer documentation to new system
> > >>   (and help with the migration),
> > >>   https://developer.blender.org/T47563
> > >>
> > >>   However others in meeting prefer further discussion
> > >>   on mailing list before going ahead and making changes
> > >>   (evaluate Phabricator's Wiki for developer docs for eg).
> > >>
> > >> --
> > >> - Campbell
> > >> _______________________________________________
> > >> Bf-committers mailing list
> > >> Bf-committers at blender.org
> > >> http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers
> > >>
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > --
> > > With best regards, Sergey Sharybin
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Bf-committers mailing list
> > > Bf-committers at blender.org
> > > http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > - Campbell
> > _______________________________________________
> > Bf-committers mailing list
> > Bf-committers at blender.org
> > http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers
> >
> _______________________________________________
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>

-- 
With best regards, Sergey Sharybin