Re: [HACKERS] commitfest.postgresql.org

Robert Haas <robertmhaas(at)gmail(dot)com> writes:
> On Fri, Jul 3, 2009 at 10:40 AM, Tom Lane<tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us> wrote:
>> I tried the "New Patch Comment" feature. It's absolutely horrid.
>> I get a page showing a "comment type" button, one line for Message-ID,
>> and one line for Content. No explanation of what those are, and no
>> visibility any more of the patch I'm trying to comment on. I have no
>> idea what I'm supposed to do here, and if I were trying to respond to
>> someone else's comment, it would be nice to be able to see that comment.

> The message-ID is the (optional) ID of a message you'd like to link
> to. The comment is the text of your comment. If there's a legitimate
> reason for confusion here, I have no idea what it is.

It's not apparent that the message-ID is optional, nor what it is for
really. And the fact that the boxes are the same size leaves one
wondering what the comment is supposed to be too. The basic complaint
is that the page assumes you already know what to do with it.
Given the vast amount of white space left behind by the omission of
any context information, it doesn't seem unreasonable to include a
couple sentences of explanation.

> I agree that the comment box probably needs to be converted into a
> text area rather than a single line. But I also think that comments
> on the wiki should be kept short. If you have more than a few lines
> of text, there's a good chance you should be sending an email to
> -hackers and then linking to it. There are some projects that are
> managed using a discussion forum or a bug tracker and as far as I know
> you've always been opposed to that, as am I. So complaining that this
> system doesn't work that way seems disingenuous. Also, if you think
> this interface is inconvenient for leaving a comment, have you tried
> doing it on the wiki lately?

I spent a large part of the last year leaving comments on the wiki.
Yeah, it was a bit tedious to use wiki markup, but at least all the
information you needed was a click away. (The wiki wasn't designed
on the assumption that users already know how to use it.) And the
context didn't all disappear from view the moment you wanted to add
something.

> I still think it's already better than the wiki.

Maybe to you, but right now I think the wiki is far more usable
and far more flexible. It hasn't got arbitrary assumptions about
what size comment people are allowed to leave, for example.

regards, tom lane