Dash's web presence

Dash's web presence

[Dan Muresan]

Where is dash's homepage? This is what a reasonably diligent Google
investigation turns up:

http://gondor.apana.org.au/~herbert/dash/

Does it look like a major project's page? Does the URL even look stable?

Going further, where is dash's mailing list? The link on that
"homepage" points to a read-only archive. I was eventually able to
sign up for this list after extraordinary contortions (including
tracking down a list member by their name).

Why did I sign up for this list? I wanted to report a bug. By the way,
where is dash's bug tracker?

For the default Debian /bin/sh, I would expect a more dignified web
presence and a more transparent development.

-- Dan

Re: Dash's web presence

[Jonathan Nieder]

Hi,

Some quick answers.

Dan Muresan wrote:

> Does it look like a major project's page? Does the URL even look stable?

Yes, to me it does.  Lots of low-level tools with single maintainers
have pages like that --- e.g.,

	http://invisible-island.net/xterm/xterm.html

Was it lacking some information you needed?  Do you know someone
willing to buy up dash dot org to make it redirect there?

> Going further, where is dash's mailing list? The link on that
> "homepage" points to a read-only archive.

This complaint I agree with.  It might be a good idea to let Herbert
know so he can change the link to point to
http://vger.kernel.org/vger-lists.html#dash

> Why did I sign up for this list? I wanted to report a bug. By the way,
> where is dash's bug tracker?

A bug tracker makes no sense if no one is maintaining it.  Do you know
someone interested in doing that work?

> For the default Debian /bin/sh,

Debian has a bug tracker.

> I would expect a more dignified web presence

Do you know anyone interested in making a new web site?  That's how
many projects got their fancy pages --- someone had a better idea for
what the webpage should look like and the original page was changed to
redirect to their page.  See for example
http://mercurial.selenic.com/thepage/

> and a more transparent development.

I haven't noticed development going on behind doors.  What does this
even mean?  Patches get sent to the list, discussed on the list, then
committed to the git repository.

Hope that clarifies some things.
Jonathan

Re: Dash's web presence

[Dan Muresan]

> have pages like that --- e.g.,
>
>        http://invisible-island.net/xterm/xterm.html

xterm is now a niche project used by a small minority. Even I use
urxvtcd. Debian's X11 doesn't even require xterm.

> Was it lacking some information you needed?  Do you know someone

Only the most essential things: how to send mail to the list and how
to report bugs.

> willing to buy up dash dot org to make it redirect there?

Sourceforge? Google Code? Berlioz?

> A bug tracker makes no sense if no one is maintaining it.  Do you know

So you admit that the dash community is not up to maintaining a bug tracker...

Shall we go over the advantages of a BTS in ensuring bugs aren't
forgotten, capturing the lifecycle of a bug, organizing follow-up,
offering a template for bug reporters, providing a "big picture" for
developers etc? I would be happy to detail these points for anyone who
thinks a mailing list is equivalent to a BTS (or just read Joel on
Software, he's already done this work).

> Debian has a bug tracker.

... and when they do get off the couch and want to push a report
upstream, where do they go? To this list, where bug reports can get
lost between == discussions, nothing gets filed in an organized
manner, and tracking a bug's status means leafing through pages of
archives?

>> I would expect a more dignified web presence
>
> Do you know anyone interested in making a new web site?  That's how

Again, Sourceforge, Google and a myriad of others would be happy to
set up a project page, accessible mailing list and BTS for free.

>> and a more transparent development.
>
> I haven't noticed development going on behind doors.  What does this
> even mean?  Patches get sent to the list, discussed on the list, then
> committed to the git repository.

A read-only mailing list and non-existent BTS is transparent? How can
users report bugs? How can they track what happened to a bug? How can
they participate in discussions?

Oh, you do have a GIT repository. Kudos for that.


-- Dan

Re: Dash's web presence

[Jonathan Nieder]

Hi again,

Dan Muresan wrote:

> A read-only mailing list and non-existent BTS is transparent? How can
> users report bugs? How can they track what happened to a bug? How can
> they participate in discussions?

I forgot to mention: thanks for reporting bugs!  You may or may not
have noticed that there are not as many people hacking on dash as
one would like, but it is useful to users and developers alike to
learn about existing problems.

The word "transparent" has an implied subtext that there is something
happening concerning these bugs elsewhere --- perhaps a hidden
bugtracker.  There isn't.

And I should say: I am very new to working on this shell myself.  A
little while ago I started working on patches to update src/TOUR to
more closely match current reality; maybe it's time to send those out
and get some review.

So thanks for caring.

Regards,
Jonathan

Re: Dash's web presence

[Dan Muresan]

Hi,

> The word "transparent" has an implied subtext that there is something
> happening concerning these bugs elsewhere --- perhaps a hidden

Sorry, didn't mean anything like that. In fact, most problems seem to
originate in the web page: if it simply said "we don't have a
bugtracker, please send mail" and "this is where you can send mail",
things would be much clearer (though, in my opinion, still in need of
improvement).

And sorry if I was being a bit abrasive -- I just wanted to make sure
people "wake up" and realize that being the default shell brings some
responsibilities. Shell programming can be frustrating even without
bugs, but when bugs appear, options tend to narrow to using perl /
python even when one doesn't want to depend on them. And shell bugs
linger in distros for many, many years after they are fixed.

-- Dan

Re: Dash's web presence

[Eric Blake]

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On 03/08/2011 01:08 AM, Dan Muresan wrote:
> Oh, you do have a GIT repository. Kudos for that.

And when you consider that bash lacks even a public repository, and your
only recourse is massive inter-version diffs, dash is already worlds
ahead in that regards.

-- 
Eric Blake   eblake@redhat.com    +1-801-349-2682
Libvirt virtualization library http://libvirt.org


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