[Biopython-dev] biopython on github

Brad Chapman chapmanb at 50mail.com
Mon Mar 16 18:42:40 EDT 2009


Hey everyone;
Wow, y'all are quick. Bartek, Giovanni and Peter -- thanks for all
the hard work and organization. Consolidating a couple of threads
below...

> >> I've written a short guide on the wiki :
> >> http://biopython.org/wiki/GitMigration
> >
> > I also have a draft for some documentation... I can contribute it later this
> > morning (now I don't have time).
> 
> In the meantime, I have updated the following pages accordingly:

The documentation looks awesome. My only suggestion would be to
change the navigation link that current points to CVS to point to a
generic page like SourceCode. Then that landing page could link
to the current CVS and explain we are working to transition to 
Git, with links to those pages. Currently, the Git docs are a
bit buried from the front page.

Peter, I don't appear to have wiki permissions to edit the navigation
bar; do you?

Peter:
> I'm thinking a news post on
> http://news.open-bio.org/news/category/obf-projects/biopython/ about
> version control would be a good idea at this point.  How about this -

This is great, and I would move the last paragraph describing
the Git repository to the beginning; start with what we are doing and
then describe the rationale. This should help for those with ADD, and
also give more prominent credit to Bartek, Giovanni and you for the
work that went into this.

> > - Evaluate the success of Git. This is easy to measure in terms of
> >  new contributors, increased happiness, and what not. At the same
> >  time we can monitor how GitHub evolves over time.
> 
> It may not be that easy to measure in practice...

How about these two metrics:

- How do current developers like it? Beyond the initial learning
  curve, does it work at least as good as CVS for day to day stuff?

- Does it lower the entry barriers to contributing to Biopython? The
  main reason to do this is to ease the initial work for coders who
  feel CVS/Patches/Bugzilla is too much. If we find new contributors
  through this, it's a win.

Modest expectations are good. If either of these fail miserably, then 
we can re-evaluate.

Brad


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