[Haskell-cafe] Re: [darcs-users] poll: how can we help you contribute to darcs?

[Ferenc Wagner]

wren ng thornton <wren at freegeek.org> writes:

> [Bug trackers are an excellent source of tasks for active developers to 
> use so things don't get lost, but they're awful for new developers. For 
> someone just joining the project it's rarely clear how important a task 
> is, how hard, or how far reaching its consequences (or whether someone's 
> already working on it). Good trackers have fields to note these things, 
> but the notes are engineered for active developers; the extent to which 
> those notes are even used or accurate varies wildly from project to 
> project. Hence, having a clear discussion about what things really are 
> important and how much they interact with everything else is a great boon.]

Agreed.  In short, shouldn't Darcs come up with sth like
http://wiki.winehq.org/JanitorialProjects or
http://janitor.kernelnewbies.org/ perhaps?

And of course with some serious up-to-date documentation on the theory
behind Darcs.  AFAIK Ian Lynagh started working on one.  I'd say:
first be precise.  Don't be afraid of abstract algebra, it's
university material, quite some people actually understands it.  And
those can later explain the hard to grasp parts.  But I never felt
like diving into the bunch of hazy metaphors I found about the inner
workings of Darcs, even though I was and still am interested.  So I
nevert felt qualified to touch anything important or assess the
performance problems for example.
-- 
Cheers,
Feri.