Hi Jon,
> Having gone through the process for the first time of recommending an
> amendment to CF I'd like to share some experiences and opinions. If
> you don't want to read all of this mail, then I can summarize this by
> saying that I think the requirements for proposers of changes are too
> onerous and a strong disincentive to potential contributors. Here's
> why:
>
> 1) The instructions for posting Trac tickets are not very clear and
> it's not at all clear that it is necessary to use the template. The
> button on the ticket creation page that generates the template is easy
> to miss, particularly if one is used to other Trac sites that don't
> have this button.
I have to agree that we need better instructions. I noticed that Tom
Gross had set up a "Getting Started" page for discussing Ticket #6, but
most of this applies to discussions of any ticket:
http://cf-pcmdi.llnl.gov/trac/wiki/GettingStarted
I've just added mention of the template button for a new CF Conventions
enhancement proposal. I think this is a good beginning for a guide to
using the Trac system for CF Conventions development.
> 2) The difference between the Conventions document and the Conformance
> document is not clear to me and is not explained on the website.
>
> 3) The respective roles of the Trac site and mailing list are not
> clearly delimited.
>
> 4) The procedure for identifying a moderator is not clear. Will a
> proposal just "die" if a moderator doesn't volunteer?
These could all be explained by expanding this GettingStarted page a
bit. Even small improvements to these instructions will help make
things less onerous for new proposers.
> 5) If I want to propose a change to CF I apparently have to propose
> the *actual text* that will go in the Conventions and Conformance
> documents. This means that I (the proposer) have to read and
> understand the entirety of these documents and keep up with both of
> them as they change. I would have thought that proposing actual text
> would be the job of one of the document authors, who already knows the
> documents inside out. This is much more akin to what happens in the
> open-source software world, where a mailing list is used to agree that
> a proposal is needed, then a change request is filed. It is then up
> to the developers to implement the change "properly". Of course, if
> the proposer can submit a patch this is a bonus, but proposers will
> only do this when they are familiar enough with the software to be
> confident that their patch won't break other things.
I think the moderator should be able to help with create the actual
change for the text. The problem is we seem to be short of moderators
who have time to provide such a service. Maybe we need to recruit more
volunteer moderators.
> All of these things mean that it would take hours of my time to
> propose a change to CF and I frankly won't bother in future unless the
> change is extremely important to me personally. This all comes down
> to a lack of time on everybody's part. Is it not time to consider
> applying for funds to employ more people to be dedicated to CF? I
> would have thought that the community would strongly support this.
I strongly support it.
> Regards, Jon
>
> --
> --------------------------------------------------------------
> Dr Jon Blower Tel: +44 118 378 5213 (direct line)
> Technical Director Tel: +44 118 378 8741 (ESSC)
> Reading e-Science Centre Fax: +44 118 378 6413
> ESSC Email: jdb at mail.nerc-essc.ac.uk
> University of Reading
> 3 Earley Gate
> Reading RG6 6AL, UK
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Received on Fri Jun 27 2008 - 10:28:59 BST
