From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-2.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,MAILING_LIST_MULTI autolearn=unavailable autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Thread: 103376,deac256a05c84a59 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit Path: g2news1.google.com!news4.google.com!news.glorb.com!news.agarik.com!usenet-fr.net!enst.fr!melchior!cuivre.fr.eu.org!melchior.frmug.org!not-for-mail From: Stephen Leake Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: DOM and SAX parsing in Ada Date: 28 Jan 2005 05:17:14 -0500 Organization: Cuivre, Argent, Or Message-ID: References: <41900010.D28DD400@boeing.com> <9CWjd.17305$5K2.1356@attbi_s03> <1106223415.857525.176640@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> <41F4DB6F.4090909@mailinator.com> <35nh12F4oe4caU1@individual.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: lovelace.ada-france.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: melchior.cuivre.fr.eu.org 1106907454 90093 212.85.156.195 (28 Jan 2005 10:17:34 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@melchior.cuivre.fr.eu.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 28 Jan 2005 10:17:34 +0000 (UTC) To: comp.lang.ada@ada-france.org Return-Path: In-Reply-To: User-Agent: Gnus/5.09 (Gnus v5.9.0) Emacs/21.3 X-Virus-Scanned: by amavisd-new-20030616-p10 (Debian) at ada-france.org X-BeenThere: comp.lang.ada@ada-france.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: "Gateway to the comp.lang.ada Usenet newsgroup" List-Unsubscribe: , List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Xref: g2news1.google.com comp.lang.ada:8046 Date: 2005-01-28T05:17:14-05:00 Nick Roberts writes: > Stephen Leake wrote: > > > > So, I could see very little advantage to making any contributions to > > > XML/Ada, since it would create two XML/Adas (mine and AdaCore's). Would > > > that be an advantage to the Ada community? > > > > Big disconnect. Why do you say there would be two? Hmm, apparently you > > feel you can only contribute if the CVS repository is on SourceForge. Why > > is that, specifically? > > I told the AdaCore employee that I wanted to make a large number of small > changes (a lot of comments that would help identify fragments of code, for > referential maintenance documentation), and he responded that he felt such > changes were not necessary. I took this to imply (although admittedly he > didn't say so explicitly) that he wouldn't accept these changes into the > AdaCore CVS repository. On this basis, I was assuming that I would have to > create a forked project on some other repository (of course it doesn't have > to be SourceForge per se). Ok. So, you could not contribute your particular changes because the "project architect" did not agree they are necessary. This is a fact of life when more than one person is on a project. Somebody has to be the architect (I don't think the "bazaar" model is appropriate), and everyone else has to agree to live with the architects rules. If the architect is a good project manager, they will listen to the developers, and adjust the rules to maintain a healthy project. In your particular case, I don't know enough to say whether I would lobby for what you wanted to do. The statements you have made here have not had detail; they have just been of the form "the number of comment lines is too small". I would reject such justifications as well. > > > On the subject of comments, I suggested that the amount of > > > maintenance documention (in the form of comments or in any other > > > form) was insufficient -- it was nearly nonexistent, in fact -- > > > and the answer was, in essence, that no maintenance > > > documentation is required, since the code is self-documenting. > > > I'm afraid, to me, that attitude is unacceptable (and doesn't > > > seem very professional, frankly). > > > > Well, did you try reading the code? THat is the only thing that matters, > > not some arbitrary standard of "not enough comment lines". If you can, in > > fact, understand it, then it _is_ self-documenting. > > Of course I read the code, Stephen! In the package bodies there are almost > no comments at all, and there is no other maintenance documentation. The > code is very complex, and no vaguely self-documenting. I guess you are saying "I did not understand the code, and comments would help". > The idea that it could be struck me (and still strikes me) as, > frankly, bizarre. It's not bizarre to me; it is something I strive for. Because the Ada compiler checks the code, but it does not check the comments. I believe Tucker Taft expressed simmilar sentiments at a SigAda several years ago (something like "good Ada code doesn't need comments"). Again, that's a fact of life when more than one person is on a project; people will have different opinions about the appropriate level of code comments. I often find myself wishing for an introduction to a complex set of code. But once I figure out the basic structure, I would find such an introduction annoying, because it would necessarily be inaccurate. So I would lobby for creating such an introduction in a separate document, not as code comments. > > On the other hand, I agree that a lot of AdaCore's code is not > > well enough documented; I'm thinking of some parts of GtkAda in > > particular. > > Well, that would seem to be a case in point, then. > > > But the proper response is to contribute good documentation, not just > > complain. > > I wanted to do precisely that! I specifically offered to contribute > maintenance documentation, but this offer seemed to be rejected, in effect, > by the AdaCore employee I communicated with. Ok. It is a problem. But not, I think, a sufficient problem to warrant a fork. Perhaps if you offered to write a separate introduction document, that would be accepted. -- -- Stephe