[RFH] Questions for Git User's Survey 2009

[RFH] Questions for Git User's Survey 2009

[Jakub Narebski]

Even though analyzing answers from "Git User's Survey 2008" is not 
finished (although I have added partial results for questions with a 
free-form part, see http://git.or.cz/gitwiki/GitSurvey2008), it looks 
like there is time for annual Git User's Survey (which takes place in 
summer)... or at least thinking about possible questions.  Coming up
with a good list of questions (see below) would take time.

More than 55% of people answering survey wanted to have Git User's 
Survey repeated, with below 1% of people who didn't want for there
to be next year survey.

On the other hand one of common complaints was that the survey was
much too long, with around 60 questions (one question was split into
two). It was requested for survey in this year to have maximum 20
questions.


So what I would like to have is to come up with a LIST OF QUESTIONS
and possible answers; I'd like to limit number of questions with 
free-form part, and reduce number of free-form questions to absolute
minimum; they are pain to analyse with so large number of responses.

Please write also _why_ you would want a question; what we can learn
from it, how it can help in developing git.

Thanks in advance

-- 
Jakub Narębski
Poland

Re: [RFH] Questions for Git User's Survey 2009

[Felipe Contreras]

On Fri, May 29, 2009 at 7:55 PM, Jakub Narebski <jnareb@gmail.com> wrote:
> Even though analyzing answers from "Git User's Survey 2008" is not
> finished (although I have added partial results for questions with a
> free-form part, see http://git.or.cz/gitwiki/GitSurvey2008), it looks
> like there is time for annual Git User's Survey (which takes place in
> summer)... or at least thinking about possible questions.  Coming up
> with a good list of questions (see below) would take time.
>
> More than 55% of people answering survey wanted to have Git User's
> Survey repeated, with below 1% of people who didn't want for there
> to be next year survey.
>
> On the other hand one of common complaints was that the survey was
> much too long, with around 60 questions (one question was split into
> two). It was requested for survey in this year to have maximum 20
> questions.
>
>
> So what I would like to have is to come up with a LIST OF QUESTIONS
> and possible answers; I'd like to limit number of questions with
> free-form part, and reduce number of free-form questions to absolute
> minimum; they are pain to analyse with so large number of responses.
>
> Please write also _why_ you would want a question; what we can learn
> from it, how it can help in developing git.
>
> Thanks in advance

Personally I think last year's survey was great, but it was missing
questions regarding git's user interface. How good is it? What would
you improve, etc.

-- 
Felipe Contreras

Re: [RFH] Questions for Git User's Survey 2009

[Jakub Narebski]

On Sat, 30 May 2009, Felipe Contreras wrote:
> On Fri, May 29, 2009 at 7:55 PM, Jakub Narebski <jnareb@gmail.com> wrote:

[...]
> > So what I would like to have is to come up with a LIST OF QUESTIONS
> > and possible answers; I'd like to limit number of questions with
> > free-form part, and reduce number of free-form questions to absolute
> > minimum; they are pain to analyse with so large number of responses.
> >
> > Please write also _why_ you would want a question; what we can learn
> > from it, how it can help in developing git.
> >
> > Thanks in advance
> 
> Personally I think last year's survey was great, but it was missing
> questions regarding git's user interface. How good is it? What would
> you improve, etc.

The problem with this question is that it is free-form question (and
not single or multiple choice one). With more than 3000 responses to
last year survey free-form questions are not summarized till now. 
I'd rather limit number of free-form questions to absolute minimum.

Hmmm... I wonder if the trend would continue, and we would get around
15,000 responses to this year survey (if there would be one)...
-- 
Jakub Narebski
Poland

Re: [RFH] Questions for Git User's Survey 2009

[Felipe Contreras]

On Sat, May 30, 2009 at 12:39 PM, Jakub Narebski <jnareb@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sat, 30 May 2009, Felipe Contreras wrote:
>> On Fri, May 29, 2009 at 7:55 PM, Jakub Narebski <jnareb@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> [...]
>> > So what I would like to have is to come up with a LIST OF QUESTIONS
>> > and possible answers; I'd like to limit number of questions with
>> > free-form part, and reduce number of free-form questions to absolute
>> > minimum; they are pain to analyse with so large number of responses.
>> >
>> > Please write also _why_ you would want a question; what we can learn
>> > from it, how it can help in developing git.
>> >
>> > Thanks in advance
>>
>> Personally I think last year's survey was great, but it was missing
>> questions regarding git's user interface. How good is it? What would
>> you improve, etc.
>
> The problem with this question is that it is free-form question (and
> not single or multiple choice one). With more than 3000 responses to
> last year survey free-form questions are not summarized till now.
> I'd rather limit number of free-form questions to absolute minimum.
>
> Hmmm... I wonder if the trend would continue, and we would get around
> 15,000 responses to this year survey (if there would be one)...

Yes free-form questions should be reduced, but IMHO this one should
stay. If there's only 2 free-form questions I'd pick
 * What would you improve in git's UI?
 * Any words you want to share with git developers?

-- 
Felipe Contreras

Re: [RFH] Questions for Git User's Survey 2009

[Clemens Buchacher]

On Sat, May 30, 2009 at 12:45:14PM +0300, Felipe Contreras wrote:
>  * Any words you want to share with git developers?

Isn't it pointless to ask such a generic question? Users are always welcome
to post suggestions on the mailing list. Maybe the survey should encourage
to do so.

But for the survey itself, which people don't usually have a lot of time to
spend on, I think a specific question is much more inspiring. For example,

	"Which feature would you like to see added to git? Feel free to
	ignore technical restrictions."

I think we had something like that last year, didn't we?

Clemens

Re: [RFH] Questions for Git User's Survey 2009

[Jakub Narebski]

On Sun, 31 May 2009, Clemens Buchacher wrote:
> On Sat, May 30, 2009 at 12:45:14PM +0300, Felipe Contreras wrote:

> >  * Any words you want to share with git developers?
> 
> Isn't it pointless to ask such a generic question? Users are always welcome
> to post suggestions on the mailing list. Maybe the survey should encourage
> to do so.
> 
> But for the survey itself, which people don't usually have a lot of time to
> spend on, I think a specific question is much more inspiring. For example,
> 
> 	"Which feature would you like to see added to git? Feel free to
> 	ignore technical restrictions."
> 
> I think we had something like that last year, didn't we?

You mean

  34. What would you like to see improved about Git?

  (Results of free-form questions will follow.)

;-)
-- 
Jakub Narebski
Poland

Re: [RFH] Questions for Git User's Survey 2009

[Jakub Narebski]

As there were not much response to this thread, let me propose
a set of questions for Git User's Survey 2009 (if we plan to have
it this year).  I would probably use Survs.com, like last year.

Comments appreciated!

------------------------------------------------------------------
Git User's Survey 2009: proposed questions

Questions marked with star (e.g. 11.*) are questions which I am not
sure if they should be in this survey.

About you:
^^^^^^^^^^
01. What country do you live in?
    (free-form question, or drop-down list of countries (select))
02. How old are you (in years)?
    (free-form / text entry, or age range: single choice)

I am ambiguous if to count questions in this section against the
number of commits in this survey, which we probably would want to have
no more (or at least not much more) than 20.  I wonder also if
Survs.com would support Geo-IP (finding location based on IP address)
at the time of survey...

I have removed "With which programming languages are you proficient?"
from this section, unless there are some arguments for keeping it.


Getting started with Git
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
03. Did you find Git easy to learn?
    (single choice: very hard/hard/reasonably easy/easy/very easy)
04. Did you find Git easy to use?  [NEW!]
    (single choice: very hard/hard/reasonably easy/easy/very easy)
05. Which Git version(s) are you using?
    (multiple choice: pre 1.3, 1.3.x, 1.4.x, 1.5.x, 1.6.x, 'master',
    'next', other - please explain)
06. Rate your own proficiency with Git:
    (single choice: novice/casual, needs advice/everyday use/
    /can offer advice/very well)

I have removed (perhaps a bit difficult to answer correctly) question
"How long do you use Git?"; mainly to limit number of questions in
survey.  I have also removed all the free form questions (what helped
you most in learning, what did you find hardest), as free-form
questions are hard to analyse.

Should we remove some of above questions? Should we keep some of
removed free-form questions?

[The whole section about "Other SCMs" was removed]

How do you use Git?
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
07. I use Git for (check all that apply):
    (multiple choice: work projects, unpaid projects; 
    proprietary code, OSS development, private (unpublished) code; 
    code, personal data, documents, static website, web app;
    sharing data or sync, backup, wiki/blog/other web app backend,
    managing configuration files, frontend to other SCM;
    other - please specify)
08. How do you obtain Git?
    (multiple choice: binary package, source tarball, 
    source package or script[*], pull from main repository)
    [*] so git is installed in a system of packages
09. What operating system do you use Git on?
    (multiple choice: Linux, MacOS X, MS Windows/msysGit, 
    MS Windows/Cygwin, *BSD, other Unix, other - please specify)
10.*What editor, IDE or RAD you use working with Git?
    (either free-form, or multiple choice: Eclipse, NetBeans,
    IntelliJ IDEA, MS Visual Studio, KDevelop, Anjuta, XCode,
    Emacs and XEmacs, Vim, Notepad++, TextMate, gedit, Geany,
    Kate, 'E', SciTE, other - please specify).
11.*Which porcelains / interfaces / implementations do you use?
    (multiple choice: git (core), JGit, Cogito, pg, StGIT, Guilt,
    Easy Git, Pyrite, TopGit, other - please specify)
12. Which of the following git tools do you use?
    (multiple choice: JGit (EGit etc.), Cogito, pg, StGIT, Guilt,
    TopGit, Easy Git, editor/IDE VC integration, gitk, git-gui,
    QGit, GitView, Giggle, tig, git-sh, instaweb, git-cola / ugit,
    GitNub, GitX, GitTortoise, Git Extensions, git-cheetah, Gitosis,
    graphical diff tool, graphical merge tool, other - please specify)
13. Which git hosting site do you use for your projects?
    (multiple choice: GitHub, repo.or.cz, Gitorious, Unfudle,
    Assembla, Alioth, Fedora Hoster, Savannah, SourceForge,
    freedesktop.org, kernel.org, self hosted, generic web site,
    git hosting site for set of projects, other - please specify)
14. How do you fetch/get changes from upstream?  [NEW!]
    (multiple choice: git, ssh, http, rsync, filesystem, bundle,
    foreign SCM import/script like git-svn, other - please specify)
15. How do you publish/propagate your changes?
    (multiple choice: push, pull request, format-patch + email,
    format-patch + other, git bundle, git-svn, foreign SCM,
    other - please specify)
16. Which of the following features do (or did) you use?
    (multiple choice: non-default hooks, working with dirty tree,
    bisect, submodules (subprojects), integration with IDE/editor,
    multiple worktrees (git-new-worktree), gitattributes, stash,
    separate worktree / git.worktree, patch managemtn interface
    (e.g. StGIT), alternates mechanism (sharing object database),
    git bundle (off-line transport), git-filter-branch, commit message
    templates, shallow clone, eol conversion, interactive rebase,
    interactive commit / per-chunk comitting / partial commit,
    detaching HEAD, gitk or other history viewer, git-gui or other
    commit tool, shell completion, git-aware shell prompt)

In this section number of individual operating systems in "What
operating system do you use Git on?" was reduced a bit, based on
answers from previous survey.  We might want to put OpenSolaris as
separate from "other Unices" (which would then be "proprietary
Unix").  The question about hardware platforms got removed.

The trouble with "What editor, IDE or RAD you use working with Git?"
question is coming up with a good list of editors... and that such
list is of necessity fairly long.  Perhaps it would be better to
change it to more generic question
 10.*What kind of editor, IDE or RAD you use working with Git?
    (multiple choice: simple text editor[1], programmers editor[2],
    IDE or RAD[3], WYSIWYG tool[4], other kind - please specify)
    [1] for example pico, nano, joe, Notepad
    [2] for example Vim, Emacs, TextMate (syntax highlighting,
        autoindentation, integration with other tools, etc.)
    [3] for example KDevelop, Anjuta, MS Visual Studio, but also
        Quanta+, BlueFish or Screem for editing HTML, and Kile
        or LyX for LaTeX.
    [4] text processors such as MS Office or OpenOffice.org,
        but also tools such as Adobe Acrobat (for PDF) or GIMP
        (for images)
(if we are not to remove this question entirely).

Two questions in 2008 survey: "Which porcelains / interfaces /
implementations do you use?" and "Which git GUI (commit tool or
history viewer, or both) do you use?" were joined together.  The
question " Which git web interface do you use for your projects/have
installed?" (where "use" was to meant "deploy") was removed... perhaps
unnecessarily.

The longest question in previous survey, "How often do you use the
following forms of git commands or extra git tools?" (which had to be
split in two because of its length) is not present in this survey
proposal, as it adds significantly to difficulity and time to fill
this survey.


What do you think of Git?
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
17. Overall, how happy are you with Git?
    (single choice: unhappy / not so happy / happy / very happy /
    / completely ecstatic)
18.*How does Git compare to other SCM tools you have used?
    (single choice: git is worse / equal / better than other SCM).

This whole section don't bring us much tangible information.
As we removed section about other SCMs, perhaps question comparing git
to other SCMs should also be removed?


Changes in Git
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
19.*Did you participate in previous Git User's Surveys?
    (multiple choice: in 2008, in 2007, in 2006)
20.*How do you compare current version with version from year ago?
    (single choice: cannot say[1] / worse / better / no changes)
    [1] perhaps this should include situation where one didn't use
        Git for a year?

This whole section is considered for deletion to fit in the 20
questions limit.


Getting help, staying in touch
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
21. Which form of documentation do you use?
    (matrix form with columns: never used, not useful, somwehat, useful,
    or multiple choice: wiki, on-line help, help with Git)
22.*Have you tried to get Git help from other people?
    (single choice: yes / no)
23. What channel did you use to request help?
    (multiple choice: git mailing list, IRC (#git), IRC (other),
    request in blog post or on wiki, asking guru/colleague,
    project mailing list or IRC or forum, Twitter or other microblog,
    instant messenging (IM) like XMPP/Jabber, StackOverflow, other
    - please specify)
24.*If yes, did you get these problems resolved quickly
    and to your liking?
    (single choice: yes / somewhat / no)
25. Do you read the mailing list, or watch IRC channel?
    (multiple choice: git@vger.kernel.org, msysGit, Git for Human 
    Beings (Google Group), #git IRC channel, #github IRC channel)

This group is concatenation of former "Documentation" and "Getting
help, staying in touch" groups.  All of "Documentation" questions are
compressed together to single question encompassing most of issue
touched in mentioned group (section).

The question "Have you tried to get Git help from other people?" is a
bit redundant: if one answered "What channel did you use to request
help?" then one did try to get help, isn't it?  But only a bit; I
think it would help to have this question separately, and not only
implied.  I am not sure though about "Did you get these problems
resolved quickly and to your liking?" question...


Open forum
^^^^^^^^^^
26.*Should Git User's Survey be repeated next year?
    (single choice: yes / no / undecided)
27. What other comments or suggestions do you have 
    that are not covered by the questions above?
    (free-form)

As you can see there is only _one_ free-form open-ended question in
the whole survey.  While I am not completely against adding more, 
I'd prefer to keep their number to the absolute minimum.

-- 
Jakub Narebski
Poland

Re: [RFH] Questions for Git User's Survey 2009

[Sverre Rabbelier]

Heya,

On Wed, Jun 10, 2009 at 20:42, Jakub Narebski<jnareb@gmail.com> wrote:
> 14. How do you fetch/get changes from upstream?  [NEW!]
> 15. How do you publish/propagate your changes?

I think it needs to be made more clear here that you mean in general,
not just changes to git.git (since you had a question about how one
fetches git itself earlier), if that is indeed the intent of this
question.

Other than that, I think it'd good we cut down the amount of (open)
questions :).

-- 
Cheers,

Sverre Rabbelier

Re: [RFH] Questions for Git User's Survey 2009

[Peter Baumann]

On Wed, Jun 10, 2009 at 08:42:13PM +0200, Jakub Narebski wrote:
> As there were not much response to this thread, let me propose
> a set of questions for Git User's Survey 2009 (if we plan to have
> it this year).  I would probably use Survs.com, like last year.
> 
> Comments appreciated!
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------
> Git User's Survey 2009: proposed questions
> 

[ ... leaving out some questions ... ]

> 11.*Which porcelains / interfaces / implementations do you use?
>     (multiple choice: git (core), JGit, Cogito, pg, StGIT, Guilt,
>     Easy Git, Pyrite, TopGit, other - please specify)
> 12. Which of the following git tools do you use?
>     (multiple choice: JGit (EGit etc.), Cogito, pg, StGIT, Guilt,
>     TopGit, Easy Git, editor/IDE VC integration, gitk, git-gui,
>     QGit, GitView, Giggle, tig, git-sh, instaweb, git-cola / ugit,
>     GitNub, GitX, GitTortoise, Git Extensions, git-cheetah, Gitosis,
>     graphical diff tool, graphical merge tool, other - please specify)

Those two seems a little redundant. Could we combine those into

> 11.Which porcelains / interfaces / implementations / tools do you use?
     ...

> 13. Which git hosting site do you use for your projects?
>     (multiple choice: GitHub, repo.or.cz, Gitorious, Unfudle,
>     Assembla, Alioth, Fedora Hoster, Savannah, SourceForge,
>     freedesktop.org, kernel.org, self hosted, generic web site,
>     git hosting site for set of projects, other - please specify)
> 14. How do you fetch/get changes from upstream?  [NEW!]
>     (multiple choice: git, ssh, http, rsync, filesystem, bundle,
>     foreign SCM import/script like git-svn, other - please specify)
> 15. How do you publish/propagate your changes?
>     (multiple choice: push, pull request, format-patch + email,
>     format-patch + other, git bundle, git-svn, foreign SCM,
>     other - please specify)
> 16. Which of the following features do (or did) you use?
>     (multiple choice: non-default hooks, working with dirty tree,
>     bisect, submodules (subprojects), integration with IDE/editor,
>     multiple worktrees (git-new-worktree), gitattributes, stash,
>     separate worktree / git.worktree, patch managemtn interface
>     (e.g. StGIT), alternates mechanism (sharing object database),
                 ^ 
                 | - TopGit, Quilt
                  
    
>     git bundle (off-line transport), git-filter-branch, commit message
>     templates, shallow clone, eol conversion, interactive rebase,
>     interactive commit / per-chunk comitting / partial commit,
>     detaching HEAD, gitk or other history viewer, git-gui or other
>     commit tool, shell completion, git-aware shell prompt)
> 
> In this section number of individual operating systems in "What
> operating system do you use Git on?" was reduced a bit, based on
> answers from previous survey.  We might want to put OpenSolaris as
> separate from "other Unices" (which would then be "proprietary
> Unix").  The question about hardware platforms got removed.
> 
> The trouble with "What editor, IDE or RAD you use working with Git?"
> question is coming up with a good list of editors... and that such
> list is of necessity fairly long.  Perhaps it would be better to
> change it to more generic question
>  10.*What kind of editor, IDE or RAD you use working with Git?
>     (multiple choice: simple text editor[1], programmers editor[2],
>     IDE or RAD[3], WYSIWYG tool[4], other kind - please specify)
>     [1] for example pico, nano, joe, Notepad
>     [2] for example Vim, Emacs, TextMate (syntax highlighting,
>         autoindentation, integration with other tools, etc.)
>     [3] for example KDevelop, Anjuta, MS Visual Studio, but also
>         Quanta+, BlueFish or Screem for editing HTML, and Kile
>         or LyX for LaTeX.
>     [4] text processors such as MS Office or OpenOffice.org,
>         but also tools such as Adobe Acrobat (for PDF) or GIMP
>         (for images)
> (if we are not to remove this question entirely).

If you leave the question, you might want to add Eclipse at the appropriate
place.

-Peter

Re: [RFH] Questions for Git User's Survey 2009

[Jakub Narebski]

On Wed, 10 June 2009, Peter Baumann wrote:
> On Wed, Jun 10, 2009 at 08:42:13PM +0200, Jakub Narebski wrote:

> > ------------------------------------------------------------------
> > Git User's Survey 2009: proposed questions
> 
> [ ... leaving out some questions ... ]
> 
> > 11.*Which porcelains / interfaces / implementations do you use?
> >     (multiple choice: git (core), JGit, Cogito, pg, StGIT, Guilt,
> >     Easy Git, Pyrite, TopGit, other - please specify)
> > 12. Which of the following git tools do you use?
> >     (multiple choice: JGit (EGit etc.), Cogito, pg, StGIT, Guilt,
> >     TopGit, Easy Git, editor/IDE VC integration, gitk, git-gui,
> >     QGit, GitView, Giggle, tig, git-sh, instaweb, git-cola / ugit,
> >     GitNub, GitX, GitTortoise, Git Extensions, git-cheetah, Gitosis,
> >     graphical diff tool, graphical merge tool, other - please specify)
> 
> Those two seems a little redundant. Could we combine those into
> 
>   11.Which porcelains / interfaces / implementations / tools do you use?
>      ...

Good idea.  It is hard to distinguish sometimes: JGit is Java 
implementation, developed alongside EGit Eclipse plugin;  Grit is
Ruby library, but also partial implementation, etc.

We would probably have place then for one free-form question:

11'.What tool would you like to have Git support in?
    (this includes language bindings / reimplementations)

> > 16. Which of the following features do (or did) you use?
> >     (multiple choice: non-default hooks, working with dirty tree,
> >     bisect, submodules (subprojects), integration with IDE/editor,
> >     multiple worktrees (git-new-worktree), gitattributes, stash,
> >     separate worktree / git.worktree, patch managemten interface
> >     (e.g. StGIT), alternates mechanism (sharing object database),
>                  ^ 
>                  | - TopGit, Quilt

Well, this was 'for example' (e.g.); also TopGit hails as topic branch
management and not as simply patch management.  You also probably meant
Guilt (formerly gq, Git Queues), not Quilt.

> > The trouble with "What editor, IDE or RAD you use working with Git?"
> > question is coming up with a good list of editors... and that such
> > list is of necessity fairly long.  Perhaps it would be better to
> > change it to more generic question
> >  10.*What kind of editor, IDE or RAD you use working with Git?
> >     (multiple choice: simple text editor[1], programmers editor[2],
> >     IDE or RAD[3], WYSIWYG tool[4], other kind - please specify)
> >     [1] for example pico, nano, joe, Notepad
> >     [2] for example Vim, Emacs, TextMate (syntax highlighting,
> >         autoindentation, integration with other tools, etc.)
> >     [3] for example KDevelop, Anjuta, MS Visual Studio, but also
> >         Quanta+, BlueFish or Screem for editing HTML, and Kile
> >         or LyX for LaTeX.
> >     [4] text processors such as MS Office or OpenOffice.org,
> >         but also tools such as Adobe Acrobat (for PDF) or GIMP
> >         (for images)
> > (if we are not to remove this question entirely).
> 
> If you leave the question, you might want to add Eclipse at the appropriate
> place.

Eclipse as example of IDE / RAD?  Yes, of course.

-- 
Jakub Narebski
Poland

Re: [RFH] Questions for Git User's Survey 2009

[Jakub Narebski]

On Thu, 11 June 2009, David Aguilar wrote:
> On Wed, Jun 10, 2009 at 08:42:13PM +0200, Jakub Narebski wrote:
> > 
> > 11.*Which porcelains / interfaces / implementations do you use?
> >     (multiple choice: git (core), JGit, Cogito, pg, StGIT, Guilt,
> >     Easy Git, Pyrite, TopGit, other - please specify)
> > 12. Which of the following git tools do you use?
> >     (multiple choice: JGit (EGit etc.), Cogito, pg, StGIT, Guilt,
> >     TopGit, Easy Git, editor/IDE VC integration, gitk, git-gui,
> >     QGit, GitView, Giggle, tig, git-sh, instaweb, git-cola / ugit,
> >     GitNub, GitX, GitTortoise, Git Extensions, git-cheetah, Gitosis,
> >     graphical diff tool, graphical merge tool, other - please specify)
> 
> Can you not mention ugit?
> Less is more.  I really hope it has 0 users.
> 
> As you're well aware, git-cola is how most people know it.
> 
> My reason for wanting to strike it from the record is to make
> things simpler for users.  If someone went looking for ugit these
> days they'd be redirected to git-cola.

O.K.

I wonder if I should do the same for Guilt (formerly gq = Git Queues)...

> I have a similar feeling about cogito, but I didn't write it.
> Since cogito is dead, it's best to let it rest, otherwise new
> users waste time wondering what it is, no?
> 
> It's kinda like rewriting history... ;-)

The goal of including Cogito and pg (Patchy Git), of course with strong
warning about it being DEPRECATED, was to check if many people use it,
even when they should not (because it is unmaintained).

Cogito had 14 replies, and pg 2 replies last survey (for 2681 responders).

Put perhaps it is time to lay this answer to rest...

> 
> 
> Thanks for the survey.
> I'll be forwarding to all my co-workers.

It would be a bit before starting survey.  Most work would be announcing
the survey, I think.  Any ideas for channels I forgot last year?

> 
> > 16. Which of the following features do (or did) you use?
> >     (multiple choice: non-default hooks, working with dirty tree,
> 
> fwiw, the number one thing cvs users ask me for is the
> ugly+dirty cvs update-before-commit/merge workflow...

Well, perhaps I should add "What features would you like to see in Git?"
free-form question.  Mind you, I don't guarantee that it would be ever
analyzed... :-)

-- 
Jakub Narebski
Poland

Re: [RFH] Questions for Git User's Survey 2009

[Jakub Narebski]

This is current list (after a bit of feedback here on git mailing list)
of proposed questions and of proposed _answers_ (for single choice and
multiple choice questions) for "Git User's Survey 2009".

Comments very much appreciated.

Next version would be put additionally as test survey on Survs.com, 
to test how much time would it take to fill survey.  Note that this
future test run of survey would have data removed before true survey!


Git User's Survey 2009: proposed questions
==========================================

Questions marked with star (e.g. 11.*) are questions which I am not
sure if they should be in this survey.  If there is more than one
question with the same number, and they have different version suffix,
e.g. 10v1 and 10v2, it means that there are laternate versions of the
same question (and of course only one would be in 2009 survey).


About you:
^^^^^^^^^^
01. What country do you live in?
    (free-form question, or drop-down list of countries (select))

02. How old are you (in years)?
    (free-form / text entry, or age range: single choice)

    Possible values for age ranges, taken from previous survey 
    analysis (GitSurvey2008 page on Git Wiki):
      * < 18
      * 18-21
      * 22-25
      * 26-30
      * 31-40
      * 41-50
      * 51-75
      * > 75
 
What do you think about this set of ranges?  Should it be changed?
Or perhaps free-form age is a better solution (it is not as if
analysis of this field was hard).


Getting started with Git
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
03. Did you find Git easy to learn?
    (single choice:) 
     * very hard
     * hard
     * reasonably easy / average
     * easy
     * very easy

04. Did you find Git easy to use?  [NEW!]
    (single choice, the same set as in previous question:)
     * very hard
     * hard
     * reasonably easy / average
     * easy
     * very easy

05. Which Git version(s) are you using?
    (multiple choice, as one can for example use different version on
    different machines:) 
     + pre 1.3, 
     + 1.3.x, 
     + 1.4.x, 
     + 1.5.x, 
     + 1.6.x, 
     + 'master',
     + 'next', 
     + minor release 1.x.y.z  [NEW!, ???]
     + other - please explain (free-form field)

06. Rate your own proficiency with Git:
    (single choice:)
     * novice
     * casual, needs advice
     * everyday use
     * can offer advice
     * know it very well (guru)

Actually this is meant to be something like 1-5 numerical
grade of one's proficiency in git.  Do you have other proposals
for naming possible answers?

[The whole section about "Other SCMs" was removed]

How do you use Git?
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
07. I use Git for (check all that apply):
    (multiple choice:) 
     + work projects, 
     + unpaid projects; 
 
     + proprietary code, 
     + OSS development, 
     + private (unpublished) code; 

     + code, 
     + personal data, 
     + documents, 
     + static website, 
     + web app;

     + sharing data or sync, 
     + backup, 
     + wiki/blog/other web app backend,
     + managing configuration files, 
     + frontend to other SCM;
    
     + other - please specify

Empty lines here are used to separate kinds of choices, although most
possibly they would be not present in the final version on Survs.com.
What things are lacking in above list?  Should we remove some less
often used things (but in 2008 survey it is only wiki/blog backend
that received decidely less answers... with 10% / 290 responses)?

08. How do you obtain Git?
    (multiple choice:)
     + binary package, 
     + source tarball, 
     + source package or script[*], 
     + pull from (main) repository
    [*] Explanation: so git is installed in a system of packages

09. What operating system do you use Git on?
    (multiple choice:) 
     + Linux, 
     + MacOS X, 
     + MS Windows/msysGit, 
     + MS Windows/Cygwin, 
     + *BSD (FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, etc.), 
     + other Unix, 
     + other - please specify

In this question number of possible answrs was reduced a bit, based on
answers from previous survey.  We might want to put OpenSolaris as
separate from "other Unices" (which would then be "proprietary Unix")
-- what do you think?  Should we pot Solaris, OpenSolaris, AIX, SunOS,
IRIX, SCO SV as separate possibilities instead of groupng them under
'other Unix'?  I'd rather have smaller number of choices; I think this
makes for easier to take survey.

10v1.*What editor, IDE or RAD you use working with Git?
      (either free-form, or multiple choice:) 
      IDE/RAD:
        + Eclipse, 
        + NetBeans,
        + IntelliJ IDEA, 

        + MS Visual Studio, 
        + KDevelop, 
        + Anjuta, 
        + XCode,

      editor:
        + Emacs and XEmacs, 
        + Vim, 
        + Notepad++, 
        + gedit, 
        + Geany,
        + Kate, 
        + TextMate, 
        + 'E' Text Editor, 
        + SciTE, 

      free-form part:
        + other - please specify.

10v2.*What do you use to edit contents under version control with Git?
      What kind of editor, IDE or RAD you use working[*] with Git?
      (multiple choice:)
       + simple text editor[1], 
       + programmers editor[2],
       + IDE or RAD[3], 
       + WYSIWYG tool[4], 
       + other kind - please specify
    [*] this means using it often, and not once or twice
    [1] for example pico, nano, joe, Notepad
    [2] for example Vim, Emacs, TextMate (syntax highlighting,
        autoindentation, integration with other tools, etc.)
    [3] for example Eclipse, KDevelop, Anjuta, MS Visual Studio, Xcode,
        but also Quanta+, BlueFish or Screem for editing HTML, 
        and Kile or LyX for LaTeX.
    [4] word processors such as MS Office or OpenOffice.org,
        but also tools such as Adobe Acrobat (for PDF) or GIMP
        (for images), or WYSIWYG DTP tools such as QuarkXPress,
        PageMaker or Scribus, or WYSIWYG HTML editors such as
        FrontPage, Dreamweaver or KompoZer, etc.

This (optional) question comes in two flavours.  Which one to choose?

There is v1 with detailed list of possible editors and IDEs; the
problem with this version is coming up with comprehensive list of
editors and IDE (to not have too much of free-form 'other' answers,
which one has to analyze), balanced on the other hand with desire to
not have too long (unwieldy) list of answers / possible responses.

Then there is alternate shorter v2 which asks only about "kind" of
editor/RAD one use.  It has much less possible answers (although the
question if all possible reasonable responses are included remains,
only much reduced), which is good... but it also provides less
information.  What other kinds of tools used to edit version managed
content there might be?

11v1. What Git interfaces, frontends and tools do you use?
      (multiple choice:)
      Implementations:
       + git (core) commandline, 
       + JGit, 
       + via library / language binding (e.g. Grit)

      Porcelains:
       + Cogito (DEPRECATED), 
       + Easy Git
       + Pyrite (?)

      Patch and topic branch management interfaces:
       + pg / Patchy Git (DEPRECATED), 
       + StGIT, 
       + Guilt (formerly gq),
       + TopGit

      History viewers and commit tools:
       + gitk
       + git gui
       + QGit
       + GitView
       + Giggle
       + GitNub
       + GitX
       + git-cola (formerly ugit)
       + tig

      Filemanager / shell extensions:
       + TortoiseGit
       + Git Extensions
       + git-cheetah

      Other tools:
       + instaweb
       + git-sh

      Other kinds of tools:
       + editor/IDE VC integration
       + graphical diff tool
       + graphical merge tool
       + graphical blame or pickaxe tool

       + other - please specify:

This combines "Which porcelains / interfaces / implementations do you
use?" with "Which of the following git tools do you use?".  Alternate
version could be asking about only kinds of tools one use, not about
specific tools.  Which would be better, what do you think?

12. What tool (or kind of tool) would you like to have Git support in?
    (this includes language bindings and Git (re)implementations)
    (free-form - essay:)

13. Which git hosting site do you use for your projects?
    (multiple choice:)
     + GitHub, 
     + repo.or.cz, 
     + Gitorious, 
     + Unfudle,
     + Assembla, 
     + Alioth, 
     + Fedora Hosted, 
     + Savannah, 
     + SourceForge,
     + freedesktop.org, 
     + kernel.org, 
     + git hosting site for set of projects
     + self hosted, 
     + generic web site (no git support),
     + other - please specify

Are there other (popular) git hosting sites, or generic software
hosting sites with git support which I missed in above set?  Should
all hosting sites from http://git.or.cz/gitwiki/GitHosting be listed?

14. How do you fetch/get changes from upstream?  [NEW!]
    This means how do you get changes from projects you follow
    or participate in development, into your local repository.
    (multiple choice:) 
     + git protocol, 
     + ssh, 
     + http, 
     + rsync, 
     + same filesystem, 
     + bundle,
     + foreign SCM import/script like git-svn, 
     + other - please specify

15. How do you publish/propagate your changes?
    (multiple choice:) 
     + push, 
     + pull request (+ any form of announcement), 
     + format-patch + email,
     + format-patch + other (e.g. review board or forum), 
     + git bundle, 
     + git-svn, 
     + foreign SCM interface (other than git-svn),
     + other - please specify (free-form:)

16. Which of the following features do (or did) you use?
    (multiple choice:)
     + non-default hooks (from `contrib/hooks/` or custom),
     + working with dirty tree,
     + bisect (optionally "git busect run <script>"), 
     + submodules (subprojects), 
     + subtree merge (optionally git-subtree)
     + integration with IDE/editor,
     + multiple worktrees (git-new-worktree), 
     + gitattributes, 
     + stash (optionally "git stash --keep-index"),
     + separate worktree / core.worktree, 
     + patch management interface (e.g. StGIT or Guilt), 
     + alternates mechanism (sharing object database),
     + git bundle (off-line transport), 
     + git-filter-branch,
     + interactive rebase, 
     + commit message templates, 
     + shallow clone (the --depth=<n> option), 
     + eol conversion (core.autocrlf), 
     + interactive commit / per-hunk comitting / partial commit,
     + detaching HEAD, 
     + gitk or other history viewer, 
     + git-gui or other commit tool, 
     + shell completion, 
     + git-aware shell prompt
     + other - please specify (free-text, single line)

What other important Git features are missing in the above list?
Perhaps the oppiste is true: this list is too long, and some less
commonly used answers should be removed (but which)?

17. What features would you like implemented in Git?
    What features are you missing?
    (free-form: essay)


What do you think of Git?
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
18. Overall, how happy are you with Git?
    (single choice:) 
     * unhappy 
     * not so happy 
     * happy 
     * very happy
     * completely ecstatic

19.*How does Git compare to other SCM tools you have used?
    (single choice:) 
     * git is worse 
     * equal (similar)
     * better than other SCM.

As we removed section about other SCMs, perhaps question comparing git
to other SCMs should also be removed?


Changes in Git
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
20.*Did you participate in previous Git User's Surveys?
    (multiple choice: 
     + in 2008, 
     + in 2007, 
     + in 2006

21.*How do you compare current version with version from year ago?
    (single choice:) 
     + cannot say[1] 
     + worse 
     + no changes
     + better 
    [1] perhaps this should include situation where one didn't use
        Git for a year?

This whole section is considered for deletion to fit in the 20
questions limit.  If only question about if git improved is removed,
then remaining question in this section about participation in
previous surveys would be moved at the end of survey.


Getting help, staying in touch
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
This group is concatenation of former "Documentation" and "Getting
help, staying in touch" groups.

If we want to push for "Git User's Survey 2009" to have no much more
than 20 questions, perhaps this section should be removed?

22. Which form of documentation do you use?
    (matrix form:)
    columns: never used / not useful / somewhat / useful,
    rows:
      # Git Wiki, 
      # on-line help, 
      # help distributed with Git,

All of former "Documentation" questions: "Do you use the Git wiki?",
"Do you find Git wiki useful?", "Do you find Git's on-line help
(homepages, documentation) useful?", "Do you find help distributed
with Git useful?" are compressed together to single question
encompassing most of issue touched in mentioned group (section).

The question "Do you contribute to Git wiki?" and open-ended
(free-form) question "What could be improved on the Git homepage(s)?"
were removed from the survey.

23.*Have you tried to get Git help from other people?
    (single choice:)
     * yes 
     * no

This question "Have you tried to get Git help from other people?" is a
bit redundant: if one answered "What channel did you use to request
help?" then one did try to get help, isn't it?  But only a bit; I
think it would help to have this question separately, and not only
implied.  On the other hand we want to reduce number of questions in
the survey.

24. What channel did you use to request help?
    (multiple choice:) 
     + git mailing list, 
     + 'Git for Human Beings' Google group (???)
     + IRC (#git), 
     + IRC (other),
     + request in blog post or on wiki, 
     + asking guru/colleague,
     + project mailing list, or IRC, or forum, 
     + Twitter or other microbloggin platform,
     + instant messenging (IM) like XMPP/Jabber, 
     + StackOverflow, 
     + other - please specify

Compared to last year survey, "IRC (#github)" was replaced by more
generic "IRC (other)"; some of responses in 'other' from 2008 survey
were added (more common / more generic).  I have also added
StackOverflow, collaborative programming Q & A site (started in 2009).

25.*If yes, did you get these problems resolved quickly
    and to your liking?
    (single choice:) 
     * yes 
     * somewhat 
     * no

This question doesn't bring much information to us, and it counts
agains number of questions in survey.  Should it be removed, or should
it stay (and why)?

26. Do you read the mailing list, or watch IRC channel?
    (multiple choice:)
     + git@vger.kernel.org (main mailing list), 
     + msysGit mailing list, 
     + Git for Human Beings (Google Group), 
     + #git IRC channel, 
     + #github IRC channel


Open forum
^^^^^^^^^^
27.*Should Git User's Survey be repeated next year?
    (single choice:)
      * yes 
      * no 
      * undecided

28. What other comments or suggestions do you have 
    that are not covered by the questions above?
    (free-form: essay)


-- 
Jakub Narebski
Poland