[Biopython-dev] Moratorium on commits?

[Morten Kjeldgaard]

On 09/08/2013, at 21:06, Peter Cock <p.j.a.cock at googlemail.com> wrote:

> On Fri, Aug 9, 2013 at 6:26 PM, João Rodrigues <anaryin at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Dear all,
>> 
>> The situation with the occupancy in the PDBParser led to think of one
>> thing.
>> 
>> Since not everybody is in the same timezone, has the same availability,
>> etc, what about we introduce a brief moratorium over commits of say 3 days
>> (except for critical bug fixes)? This will give everybody probably enough
>> time to read the email and give their opinion.
>> 
>> The downside is that it will make things roll a bit slower but then again,
>> 3 days is not so much..
>> 
>> Cheers,
>> 
>> João
> 
> I don't think that's really needed for small commits like
> this which are simple to interpret. In this case there were
> three opinions in favour of the idea, with a fourth counter
> view appearing later, resulting in a further tweak.
> 
> Longer periods of discussion are far more important on
> large code additions or major changes.

Sorry, but I don't agree that this is a "small commit". It may not be large in terms of number of bytes, but it is large in terms of impact, since it affects users' programs in unpredictable ways. Whenever a change is made that affects values returned to the user, it is worth spending a few days discussing it,  to let people have a chance to think through the consequences of the change.

Cheers,
Morten