launchpad-dev team mailing list archive

[Martin Pool <mbp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

2009/8/17 Barry Warsaw <barry@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>:
> On Aug 17, 2009, at 6:24 AM, Tim Penhey wrote:
>
>> I think the commands for updating the branch and getting the branch are
>> also
>> not that interesting most of the time.  It is useful when you don't know
>> anything about launchpad, but once you do it is just noise.
>
> Actually, for the opportunistic hacker, this is probably the /most/
> important information.

Well, I'd say the most important information we want to give the
opportunistic hacker is (to tease it out a bit)

1- you can get a copy of this code
 - it's pretty quick and easy
 - you need to use Bazaar, and install it if you don't already
 - you probably want a shared repo directory
 - and then you type blahdeblah (**)
 - and then you'll have a working tree
2- you can also share your own changes to this code
 - for free
 - you should make your own branch locally, within a shared repo
 - then push it to Launchpad under a sensible name
 - you'll need to register and set an SSH key first
 - then you might want to link it to a bug or propose a merge

I think the problem with the draft is we're focusing on just one
element (**) of this, but realistically if you don't know the rest of
it typing that command isn't super helpful, and if you do know the
rest of it all you need is the url.

That's why I think we need to actually guide people into some kind of
mini-explanation that can be hidden once you know it.

I guess the commands will often give somebody at least some kind of
copy of the code, but it's not the best explanation we could give.

I do think too that we could look at cutting steps from this by eg
avoiding separate creation of a shared repo, or having a browser mime
or url handler to kick off bzr.

>> I guess the first question we need to ask ourselves is:
>>  "Are we designing a single branch page that nicely shows all possible
>> branches?"

Good question, and a really interesting post, Tim.

-- 
Martin <http://launchpad.net/~mbp/>