[SVN] Bundle information cleanup?

[Allan Odgaard]

On 27/2/2006, at 5:19, Paul Bissex wrote:

> In trying to point someone to information about bundles I noticed  
> it's a little messy.

For repository checkout there is [1] as the (now) official  
documentation.

> [...] There's also information in the bundle comments and in the  
> README file at the root of the repository.

For credits, the Help command found in some bundles is the (for now)  
only document which is easy to view by the user. So with respect to  
“getting credit” that is IMHO the better choice for storing such info.

Personally I do “svn log” on the thing I want to see who made/ 
modified, as that is the only exact up-to-date information.

> I consistently get "This post has been blocked by the  
> administrator" when I try to edit the wiki pages (I imagine it's  
> related to anti-wikispam measures), and if I'm not the only one  
> maybe this is one reason the pages get out of date.

I do have a block list [2] which would cause that (if a word on the  
list was typed). It would be helpful if you could send me the  
contents of your page edit, if it happens again. I also have a JS- 
challenge to block spam, so I could likely remove most of the block  
list w/o that high an increase in spam -- unfortunately though, it  
seems some spammers now use scripted browsers to overcome the JS  
challenges.

> What do you all think about creating a single bundle info page that  
> for each bundle lists status (requested, in progress, in repo, in  
> default set), responsible parties, and notes? Nothing elaborate,  
> just a rationalizing of what we already have.

I think trying to keep “status” of each bundle will be too much work  
(and so, will quickly just get outdated). But having a better list of  
contributors, preferably with one mentioned as the maintainer of the  
bundle, would be useful (especially the maintainer bit, although some  
bundles have half a dozen contributors who each have done different  
things in the bundle, or there are commands which have been rewritten  
a few times by different people).

I see 3 possibilities:
  1) cleanup the current README, make it a bit more structured
  2) use a per bundle CREDITS file
  3) use a wiki page

The third option has the advantage that it can easily be linked to,  
thus read, by all users. But with option one and two I could generate  
a page from the info, probably include it in the manual (so it could  
be linked too as well).

Seeing how the bundles can work on their own, I think option two is  
better than option one. But it would have to be a structured format,  
so that other pages could be easily generated.

As of such, we could also look into harvesting the info from svn. All  
files are already tagged with whom edited it last -- the problem is  
with commits on behalf of someone else [3], or figuring out if an  
edit is minor or major (and hence deserves a prominent credit).   
There is of course svn properties for meta data, but then I guess a  
CREDITS file is easier to deal with for most.


[1] http://macromates.com/textmate/manual/bundles#getting_more_bundles
[2] http://macromates.com/wiki/Main/Blocklist
[3] We could introduce a [CREDIT] tag in the svn log message, to  
override the automatic credit given to the person doing the commit.