[GSoC] The Final Git Dev Blog(s)

[GSoC] The Final Git Dev Blog(s)

[Atharva Raykar]

Hello Git Developers,

This is my last week with Git under the Google Summer of Code banner.
This week's update will be different from usual, as I have split it into
two separate posts.

These are:

1. The Technical Report: https://atharvaraykar.me/gitnotes/final-report

   This is a largely impersonal report that describes the current status
   of my work.
   Mentors: this is what I will be submitting to Google as my final work
   product. Do let me know if it is missing anything.


2. Reflections on Working With the Git Community:
   https://atharvaraykar.me/gitnotes/final-reflection

   This is a blog post that I wrote mostly for myself, and other people
   interested in contributing to Git. It covers my personal experience
   with my time here with the many ups and downs. I also wanted to thank
   all the people who helped and collaborated with me in these 14 weeks.

This won't be the last time you will see me on the list, of course. I
still have patches waiting to make it to the list, and other work
undergoing review—the only difference now is that it won't be under the
GSoC banner anymore.

Have a great weekend!

---
Atharva Raykar
ಅಥರ್ವ ರಾಯ್ಕರ್
अथर्व रायकर

Re: [GSoC] The Final Git Dev Blog(s)

[Junio C Hamano]

Atharva Raykar <raykar.ath@gmail.com> writes:

> This won't be the last time you will see me on the list, of course. I
> still have patches waiting to make it to the list, and other work
> undergoing review—the only difference now is that it won't be under the
> GSoC banner anymore.

I hoped everybody participated in this year's GSoC had a great time,
and you certainly seem to have.

Thanks for your participation.  

Re: [GSoC] The Final Git Dev Blog(s)

[ZheNing Hu]

Hi, Atharva Raykar.

Atharva Raykar <raykar.ath@gmail.com> 于2021年8月21日周六 上午12:53写道：
>
> Hello Git Developers,
>
> This is my last week with Git under the Google Summer of Code banner.
> This week's update will be different from usual, as I have split it into
> two separate posts.
>
> These are:
>
> 1. The Technical Report: https://atharvaraykar.me/gitnotes/final-report
>
>    This is a largely impersonal report that describes the current status
>    of my work.
>    Mentors: this is what I will be submitting to Google as my final work
>    product. Do let me know if it is missing anything.
>

I may not know the technical details of git submodules very well,
but, when I look through your blog occasionally, I know that you work very hard.

>
> 2. Reflections on Working With the Git Community:
>    https://atharvaraykar.me/gitnotes/final-reflection
>
>    This is a blog post that I wrote mostly for myself, and other people
>    interested in contributing to Git. It covers my personal experience
>    with my time here with the many ups and downs. I also wanted to thank
>    all the people who helped and collaborated with me in these 14 weeks.
>

Your articles are always more interesting than mine :-)

The COVID-19 affects each of us, and I hope we can get through it smoothly.

> This won't be the last time you will see me on the list, of course. I
> still have patches waiting to make it to the list, and other work
> undergoing review—the only difference now is that it won't be under the
> GSoC banner anymore.
>
> Have a great weekend!
>
> ---
> Atharva Raykar
> ಅಥರ್ವ ರಾಯ್ಕರ್
> अथर्व रायकर

Good luck!
--
ZheNing Hu

Re: [GSoC] The Final Git Dev Blog(s)

[Kaartic Sivaraam]

On 20/08/21 8:05 pm, Atharva Raykar wrote:
> Hello Git Developers,
> 
> This is my last week with Git under the Google Summer of Code banner.
> This week's update will be different from usual, as I have split it into
> two separate posts.
> 
> These are:
> 
> 1. The Technical Report: https://atharvaraykar.me/gitnotes/final-report
> 
>     This is a largely impersonal report that describes the current status
>     of my work.
>     Mentors: this is what I will be submitting to Google as my final work
>     product. 
> 

Thanks for the report! It's well written. Some comments:

> Portability: Non-POSIX systems like Windows don’t play nice with shell
> script commands like grep, cd and printf, to name a few, and these
> commands have to be reimplemented for the system. There are also
> POSIX to Windows path conversion issues.

I wonder if that's a valid claim. The shell script version of the
commands use a lot of *nix utilities to achieve their goal. This comes
as a hindrance to run the corresponding commands on other platforms such
as Windows which don't have these utilities. That doesn't mean those
platforms implement those utilities for their platforms. From what
I know,They just use an emulation layer in which the *nix commands would
be available. Using an emulation layer is costly and not an ideal solution.

> Miscellaneous

You could consider mentioning that the first two changes have been merged
to the 'master' and possibly also link to the corresponding commits.

> Structuring Patches

Structuring was indeed an overarching theme your work.
  
> This taught me how effective communication makes software scale—your
> changes should tell a story that’s easy to follow, so that the code
> can easily be picked up by others by a mere examination of its
> commit and list history.

Good point.

Speaking about structuring, I must mentioned that the structuring approach
has paid off very well till now. I'm inferring this from the fact that
the reviewers haven't expressed any concerns about patches being too
long-ish to review. Having taken a look at the patches that aren't on
list yet, they seem to be structured well for ease of review too.
So, good job!

> What I learned over the course of this project

Good to see that you had some good learnings from the project. :-)

> Do let me know if it is missing anything.

I don't think you missed anything. There's one thing which might
be worth including in the report, though. You could have a section
called "Organization of the work" or something like that which
gives some details about the branches that contain your work and
clarify which ones are still relevant at this point. This could
help future readers (including you!) to quickly get an idea of
the branches and code in your fork.

-- 
Sivaraam

Re: [GSoC] The Final Git Dev Blog(s)

[Kaartic Sivaraam]

On 20/08/21 8:05 pm, Atharva Raykar wrote:
> 
> 2. Reflections on Working With the Git Community:
>     https://atharvaraykar.me/gitnotes/final-reflection
> 
>     This is a blog post that I wrote mostly for myself, and other people
>     interested in contributing to Git. It covers my personal experience
>     with my time here with the many ups and downs. I also wanted to thank
>     all the people who helped and collaborated with me in these 14 weeks.
> 

Good idea on trying to separate the reflection part of the blog from the
actual final report blog. This way, you didn't have to worry about the
report getting too long due to the reflections ;-)

You could consider linking each of these to the other ones, though. That
would help tie things up.

Some other thoughts:

> This mild dogfooding went a long way into making my work feel far more
> enjoyable and meaningful (if working on a project used my millions was
> already not meaningful enough).

Dogfooding is one of those thing that's surprisingly effective at all times :-)

BTW, s/my millions/by millions/

> CoViD.

Good to know that all are well. I resonate with what Zheing Hu says. Let's
hope we get through COVID-19 smoothly.

> This blog will continue, with a renewed purpose. I will be writing down
> important things I learnt in my time and bugs that new contributors
> could work on. I believe that writing guides and making contributions
> easier has some of the best effort-to-impact characteristics that
> I am looking for.

Very true. They are always helpful. I believe MyFirstContribution is
a testimony for this. It's glad to know you would like to help
contributors in that way :-)

> This won't be the last time you will see me on the list, of course. I
> still have patches waiting to make it to the list, and other work
> undergoing review—the only difference now is that it won't be under the
> GSoC banner anymore.
> 

Great!

> Have a great weekend!
>

Thanks and hope you have a good weekend too! Also, thanks for all
your contributions so far! Hoping to see more patches from you on
the list :-)

-- 
Sivaraam

Re: [GSoC] The Final Git Dev Blog(s)

[Kaartic Sivaraam]

On 22/08/21 5:45 pm, Kaartic Sivaraam wrote:
>> CoViD.
> 
> Good to know that all are well. I resonate with what Zheing Hu says. Let's
> hope we get through COVID-19 smoothly.
> 

Typo: I meant to refer ZheNing Hu :-)

BTW, I was planning to look at the patches you've sent to the list
recently. I couldn't manage to find the time for it yet. I hope
I'll be able to find some time soon.

-- 
Sivaraam

Re: [GSoC] The Final Git Dev Blog(s)

[Christian Couder]

Hi Atharva,

On Fri, Aug 20, 2021 at 6:53 PM Atharva Raykar <raykar.ath@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hello Git Developers,
>
> This is my last week with Git under the Google Summer of Code banner.
> This week's update will be different from usual, as I have split it into
> two separate posts.
>
> These are:
>
> 1. The Technical Report: https://atharvaraykar.me/gitnotes/final-report

[...]

> 2. Reflections on Working With the Git Community:
>    https://atharvaraykar.me/gitnotes/final-reflection

[...]

Great posts, thanks!

> This won't be the last time you will see me on the list, of course. I
> still have patches waiting to make it to the list, and other work
> undergoing review—the only difference now is that it won't be under the
> GSoC banner anymore.

We are looking forward to it!

> ### Concluding remarks
>
> This summer vacation, I have gained a lot, also made a lot of friends.
>
> Thanks to Google and Git.
>
> Thanks to those people who have helped me!

Thanks for all the work you did, and for your enthusiasm, dedication
and involvement with the community!

Best,
Christian.

(Sorry for the late answer due to a vacation.)

Re: [GSoC] The Final Git Dev Blog(s)

[Atharva Raykar]

Kaartic Sivaraam <kaartic.sivaraam@gmail.com> writes:

> On 20/08/21 8:05 pm, Atharva Raykar wrote:
>> Hello Git Developers,
>> This is my last week with Git under the Google Summer of Code banner.
>> This week's update will be different from usual, as I have split it into
>> two separate posts.
>> These are:
>> 1. The Technical Report: https://atharvaraykar.me/gitnotes/final-report
>>     This is a largely impersonal report that describes the current status
>>     of my work.
>>     Mentors: this is what I will be submitting to Google as my final work
>>     product.
>
> Thanks for the report! It's well written. Some comments:
>
>> Portability: Non-POSIX systems like Windows don’t play nice with shell
>> script commands like grep, cd and printf, to name a few, and these
>> commands have to be reimplemented for the system. There are also
>> POSIX to Windows path conversion issues.
>
> I wonder if that's a valid claim. The shell script version of the
> commands use a lot of *nix utilities to achieve their goal. This comes
> as a hindrance to run the corresponding commands on other platforms such
> as Windows which don't have these utilities. That doesn't mean those
> platforms implement those utilities for their platforms. From what
> I know,They just use an emulation layer in which the *nix commands would
> be available. Using an emulation layer is costly and not an ideal solution.

Maybe I didn't phrase it well enough. Maybe doing a
s/reimplemented/emulated at a cost/ would fix it?

(Welp, unfortunately I cannot edit the GSoC project description which
has this same text. That blooper would be set in stone.)

>> Miscellaneous
>
> You could consider mentioning that the first two changes have been merged
> to the 'master' and possibly also link to the corresponding commits.

Okay.

>> Structuring Patches
>
> Structuring was indeed an overarching theme your work.
>  > This taught me how effective communication makes software scale—your
>> changes should tell a story that’s easy to follow, so that the code
>> can easily be picked up by others by a mere examination of its
>> commit and list history.
>
> Good point.
>
> Speaking about structuring, I must mentioned that the structuring approach
> has paid off very well till now. I'm inferring this from the fact that
> the reviewers haven't expressed any concerns about patches being too
> long-ish to review. Having taken a look at the patches that aren't on
> list yet, they seem to be structured well for ease of review too.
> So, good job!

Yes, the strategy has worked well so far. I would say my only major
error was holding onto some of the patches for too long, because I did
not still have the right idea for when to send the next series.

>> What I learned over the course of this project
>
> Good to see that you had some good learnings from the project. :-)
>
>> Do let me know if it is missing anything.
>
> I don't think you missed anything. There's one thing which might
> be worth including in the report, though. You could have a section
> called "Organization of the work" or something like that which
> gives some details about the branches that contain your work and
> clarify which ones are still relevant at this point. This could
> help future readers (including you!) to quickly get an idea of
> the branches and code in your fork.

This is a good idea. I will update that blog post soon. The blog's home
used to have that but I did a poor job of keeping that up to date.

Re: [GSoC] The Final Git Dev Blog(s)

[Atharva Raykar]

Kaartic Sivaraam <kaartic.sivaraam@gmail.com> writes:

> On 20/08/21 8:05 pm, Atharva Raykar wrote:
>> 2. Reflections on Working With the Git Community:
>>     https://atharvaraykar.me/gitnotes/final-reflection
>>     This is a blog post that I wrote mostly for myself, and other people
>>     interested in contributing to Git. It covers my personal experience
>>     with my time here with the many ups and downs. I also wanted to thank
>>     all the people who helped and collaborated with me in these 14 weeks.
>>
>
> Good idea on trying to separate the reflection part of the blog from the
> actual final report blog. This way, you didn't have to worry about the
> report getting too long due to the reflections ;-)
>
> You could consider linking each of these to the other ones, though. That
> would help tie things up.

Okay, that's a good suggestion.

> Some other thoughts:
>
>> This mild dogfooding went a long way into making my work feel far more
>> enjoyable and meaningful (if working on a project used my millions was
>> already not meaningful enough).
>
> Dogfooding is one of those thing that's surprisingly effective at all times :-)
>
> BTW, s/my millions/by millions/

Right.

>> CoViD.
>
> Good to know that all are well. I resonate with what Zheing Hu says. Let's
> hope we get through COVID-19 smoothly.
>
>> This blog will continue, with a renewed purpose. I will be writing down
>> important things I learnt in my time and bugs that new contributors
>> could work on. I believe that writing guides and making contributions
>> easier has some of the best effort-to-impact characteristics that
>> I am looking for.
>
> Very true. They are always helpful. I believe MyFirstContribution is
> a testimony for this. It's glad to know you would like to help
> contributors in that way :-)
>
>> This won't be the last time you will see me on the list, of course. I
>> still have patches waiting to make it to the list, and other work
>> undergoing review—the only difference now is that it won't be under the
>> GSoC banner anymore.
>>
>
> Great!
>
>> Have a great weekend!
>>
>
> Thanks and hope you have a good weekend too! Also, thanks for all
> your contributions so far! Hoping to see more patches from you on
> the list :-)

Thanks for the time you set aside to help me as well!

Re: [GSoC] The Final Git Dev Blog(s)

[Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason]

On Fri, Aug 20 2021, Atharva Raykar wrote:

> 2. Reflections on Working With the Git Community:
>    https://atharvaraykar.me/gitnotes/final-reflection
>
>    This is a blog post that I wrote mostly for myself, and other people
>    interested in contributing to Git. It covers my personal experience
>    with my time here with the many ups and downs. I also wanted to thank
>    all the people who helped and collaborated with me in these 14 weeks.

Thanks a lot for the kind words there, I'm glad I could be of help to
you an others.

Just on the comment about 10x developers (on-list regulars) v.s. 0.1x
developers (GSOC students) that you had: I think everyone realizes that
getting students to work on git isn't going to result in developers that
are instantly productive, especially with the inherent time-boxing of
the GSOC project.

On a personal note I think it's very pleasing to work with people who
are smart but just unfamiliar with the project itself, and in many cases
with tooling that some of us "graybeards" have gotten used to. It helps
to get a fresh perspective of things.

I also think that the main value of a program like GSOC is not the
patches anyone comes up with while participating in the project, but to
hopefully give what are usually young people hopefully at the the start
of a long career in software development a good experience in working
with the free software community.

I never participated in GSOC myself (it didn't exist at the time), but
my first real experience with software development was in trying to
participate in public free software projects. I'm really grateful for
the patience and mentoring I got from various people at the time, and
hope I can do my part to pay that forward. To me that outcome is much
more important than the "success" of any given GSOC project, or the
patches that result from it.