Mailman?

+1

Pierre

···

Le 11 déc. 2015 à 00:18, Daniel Vollmer via swift-evolution <swift-evolution@swift.org> a écrit :

Hello,

On 10 Dec 2015, at 23:34, Douglas Gregor via swift-evolution <swift-evolution@swift.org> wrote:

On Dec 10, 2015, at 11:27 AM, Jacob Bandes-Storch via swift-evolution <swift-evolution@swift.org> wrote:

Mailman is tried and true, but also a bit clunky. Many people might not like participating in these sorts of discussions by email.

Has there been any though of using something like Discourse (http://www.discourse.org/\) for the Swift mailing lists?

We’ll think about it, but the reality is that the people involved in setting up and administering the mailing lists are completely swamped right now.

FWIW, I really like mailing lists (although the default reply-to going to the sender and not the list may lead to quite a few replies being accidentally sent off-list). The embedded image tracking link from sendergrid.net aside.

  Daniel.

The same, and I can use my mail client offline.

Pierre

···

Le 11 déc. 2015 à 00:59, Greg Parker via swift-evolution <swift-evolution@swift.org> a écrit :

On Dec 10, 2015, at 3:40 PM, Jacob Bandes-Storch via swift-evolution <swift-evolution@swift.org <mailto:swift-evolution@swift.org>> wrote:

Can you describe what you like about mailing lists? To me, the lack of proper formatting, lack of control over links, and duplication of content are minuses. IMO, online forums like Discourse do a much better job of keeping topics organized and accessible (plus, you can choose to have notifications sent via email if that's your preferred medium). You can see an example installation at https://meta.discourse.org/

Advantage: I use my mail client regularly. I don't visit other web forums regularly.

Email notification can sometimes repair part of the problem, but it doesn't always work. My own StackOverflow participation dropped to zero because they changed their email notification system for the worse.

--
Greg Parker gparker@apple.com <mailto:gparker@apple.com> Runtime Wrangler

+1 for mailing lists.

a) they work offline
b) the mails are right there in my inbox in the morning, no new workflow is needed
c) Apple mail automatically groups the mail by thread so that problem is a non issue for me.

···

On 11 Dec 2015, at 01:41, Riley Testut via swift-evolution <swift-evolution@swift.org> wrote:

+1 for preferring alternatives to mailing lists. Threads are much harder to follow when through email, and honestly email is one of my least used forms of communication; I feel like the medium has an inherit "formality" that can hinder the rapid progression of ideas.

Case in point, email signatures. They seem like extra fluff and professionalism not needed for something like this. An online forum has accounts where you can get the same information without it polluting the public discussion.

I'm biased though, I really just dislike email :-)

On Dec 10, 2015, at 3:59 PM, Greg Parker via swift-evolution <swift-evolution@swift.org> wrote:

On Dec 10, 2015, at 3:40 PM, Jacob Bandes-Storch via swift-evolution <swift-evolution@swift.org> wrote:

Can you describe what you like about mailing lists? To me, the lack of proper formatting, lack of control over links, and duplication of content are minuses. IMO, online forums like Discourse do a much better job of keeping topics organized and accessible (plus, you can choose to have notifications sent via email if that's your preferred medium). You can see an example installation at https://meta.discourse.org/

Advantage: I use my mail client regularly. I don't visit other web forums regularly.

Email notification can sometimes repair part of the problem, but it doesn't always work. My own StackOverflow participation dropped to zero because they changed their email notification system for the worse.

--
Greg Parker gparker@apple.com Runtime Wrangler

_______________________________________________
swift-evolution mailing list
swift-evolution@swift.org
https://lists.swift.org/mailman/listinfo/swift-evolution

_______________________________________________
swift-evolution mailing list
swift-evolution@swift.org
https://lists.swift.org/mailman/listinfo/swift-evolution

Yes +1 for github ;) haha

···

On Tue, Dec 15, 2015 at 4:20 PM, Dennis Lysenko <dennis.s.lysenko@gmail.com> wrote:

James, I'm confused; don't you mean +1 for github issues?

On Tue, Dec 15, 2015 at 10:28 AM James Campbell via swift-evolution < > swift-evolution@swift.org> wrote:

+1 for mailing list.

This is what I had to do to contribute to swift.

1. Search for the Swift Repo
2. Navigate to Repo
3. File Issue and wait.
4. Get told I have to discuss in the mailing list.
5. Search for swift website
6. Find page for mailing lists.
7. figure out which one I'm interested in and click on it.
8. Enter my details.
9. go to my email client and confirm my subscription.
10. remember email address for mailing address.
11. type it into a new email and compose thoughts.
12. send it.
13. after much discussion, if people like it.
14. navigate back to the repo.
15. fork.
16. make changes.
17. open pull request.

Steps if we just did it via github issues:

1. Search for the Swift Repo
2. Navigate to Repo
3. File Issue and wait.
4. after much discussion, if people like it.
5. navigate back to the repo.
6. fork.
7. make changes.
8. open pull request.

I can't see why 17 steps is better for engagement and more people
contributing ?

On Tue, Dec 15, 2015 at 3:06 PM, Robert Schwalbe via swift-evolution < >> swift-evolution@swift.org> wrote:

Mailman is tried and true, but also a bit clunky. Many people might not

like participating in these sorts of discussions by email.

Has there been any though of using something like Discourse (<
http://www.discourse.org/ for the Swift
mailing lists?

Jacob Bandes-Storch

-1 for not using a mailing list (or +1 FOR using a mailng list).

Being able to keep a full searchable archive on my own hardware is
indispensable.
Big numbers in an inbox do not scare me. I am in full control in
maintaining the
archive and what I may not have any interest in today, I may have
tomorrow.

One day, the silos will disappear.

_______________________________________________
swift-evolution mailing list
swift-evolution@swift.org
https://lists.swift.org/mailman/listinfo/swift-evolution

--
 Wizard
james@supmenow.com
+44 7523 279 698
_______________________________________________
swift-evolution mailing list
swift-evolution@swift.org
https://lists.swift.org/mailman/listinfo/swift-evolution

--
 Wizard
james@supmenow.com
+44 7523 279 698

Additionally this isn't reworking the infrastructure all we have to do is
stop using mailman and start using github issues. It would take 2 seconds
and would save more time than having to redirect people here and maintain
mailman etc.

···

On Tue, Dec 15, 2015 at 5:06 PM, James Campbell <james@supmenow.com> wrote:

Exactly, if a discussion goes well. People are going to have to make an
account anyways to contribute their idea to swift. So we are picking
mailman to optimise for something that isn't actually an advantage at all.
Plus we have less power to filter than github.

On Tue, Dec 15, 2015 at 4:32 PM, Kevin Wooten <kdubb@me.com> wrote:

Agreed, +10

Somebody brought up the idea of needing “yet another account”. Just
wanted to point out that Github, and an it’s associated account, area
already required; and honestly who doesn’t have a Github account at this
point.

A lot of advantages have already been brought up but I would like to add…

— Being able to filter discussions that don’t interest me
In Github ‘watching' the project means I can get emails for all
discussions (issues or PRs). I can then selectively disable notifications
associated with a specific thread that doesn’t interest me. For people who
are mostly inactive the opposite is available; to opt-in to only interested
threads. This is something not available at all at the moment; even though
my Apple mail sorts nicely by thread it's not the same thing.

— Inline code coloring/formatting
Unless I am missing some great feature of Mailman, this is something
that’s a bit annoying at the moment. Yes I know I can got to an external
tool and copy out formatted code for my email but Github discussions
provide this in a much easier fashion. We are discussing “code” after all.

— One can make (Github notifications == Mailman) be true
If a person turns on email notifications for everything and they can
participate in discussions just like they do now; including
reading/responding entirely via email.

On Dec 15, 2015, at 8:28 AM, James Campbell via swift-evolution < >> swift-evolution@swift.org> wrote:

+1 for mailing list.

This is what I had to do to contribute to swift.

1. Search for the Swift Repo
2. Navigate to Repo
3. File Issue and wait.
4. Get told I have to discuss in the mailing list.
5. Search for swift website
6. Find page for mailing lists.
7. figure out which one I'm interested in and click on it.
8. Enter my details.
9. go to my email client and confirm my subscription.
10. remember email address for mailing address.
11. type it into a new email and compose thoughts.
12. send it.
13. after much discussion, if people like it.
14. navigate back to the repo.
15. fork.
16. make changes.
17. open pull request.

Steps if we just did it via github issues:

1. Search for the Swift Repo
2. Navigate to Repo
3. File Issue and wait.
4. after much discussion, if people like it.
5. navigate back to the repo.
6. fork.
7. make changes.
8. open pull request.

I can't see why 17 steps is better for engagement and more people
contributing ?

On Tue, Dec 15, 2015 at 3:06 PM, Robert Schwalbe via swift-evolution < >> swift-evolution@swift.org> wrote:

Mailman is tried and true, but also a bit clunky. Many people might not

like participating in these sorts of discussions by email.

Has there been any though of using something like Discourse (<
http://www.discourse.org/ for the Swift
mailing lists?

Jacob Bandes-Storch

-1 for not using a mailing list (or +1 FOR using a mailng list).

Being able to keep a full searchable archive on my own hardware is
indispensable.
Big numbers in an inbox do not scare me. I am in full control in
maintaining the
archive and what I may not have any interest in today, I may have
tomorrow.

One day, the silos will disappear.

_______________________________________________
swift-evolution mailing list
swift-evolution@swift.org
https://lists.swift.org/mailman/listinfo/swift-evolution

--
 Wizard
james@supmenow.com
+44 7523 279 698
_______________________________________________
swift-evolution mailing list
swift-evolution@swift.org
https://lists.swift.org/mailman/listinfo/swift-evolution

--
 Wizard
james@supmenow.com
+44 7523 279 698

--
 Wizard
james@supmenow.com
+44 7523 279 698

sorry for bumping this, but, it taking me a few days to get this far in my
inbox made me think it's worth adding my voice in to the mix, and say that
I'd like something forum-y as well.

re: following l-by-email: I haven't done a significant amount of research
on this, but my general suspicion is that most forums that scale to large
amounts of people wind up having an option to send email notifications
about new posts (and the ability to reply to the email to post).

-Zach

···

On Friday, December 11, 2015, Pierre Monod-Broca via swift-evolution < swift-evolution@swift.org> wrote:

Le 11 déc. 2015 à 00:59, Greg Parker via swift-evolution < > swift-evolution@swift.org > <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','swift-evolution@swift.org');>> a écrit :

On Dec 10, 2015, at 3:40 PM, Jacob Bandes-Storch via swift-evolution < > swift-evolution@swift.org > <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','swift-evolution@swift.org');>> wrote:

Can you describe what you like about mailing lists? To me, the lack of
proper formatting, lack of control over links, and duplication of content
are minuses. IMO, online forums like Discourse do a much better job of
keeping topics organized and accessible (plus, you can choose to have
notifications sent via email if that's your preferred medium). You can see
an example installation at https://meta.discourse.org/

Advantage: I use my mail client regularly. I don't visit other web forums
regularly.

Email notification can sometimes repair part of the problem, but it
doesn't always work. My own StackOverflow participation dropped to zero
because they changed their email notification system for the worse.

--
Greg Parker gparker@apple.com
<javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','gparker@apple.com');> Runtime Wrangler

The same, and I can use my mail client offline.

Pierre

All true, a-c.

Keep in mind, though, that Github issues and other similar mechanisms can still deliver messages to your inbox, and let you reply to them there. They look almost exactly like mailing lists if (like me) you’re an Apple Mail user.

However, they also let you subscribe/unsubscribe to individual threads (my dear wish on this list), and let people with a different preferred workflows use their tool of choice.

Cheers, P

···

On Dec 14, 2015, at 4:07 AM, Jeremy Pereira via swift-evolution <swift-evolution@swift.org> wrote:

+1 for mailing lists.

a) they work offline
b) the mails are right there in my inbox in the morning, no new workflow is needed
c) Apple mail automatically groups the mail by thread so that problem is a non issue for me.

I love to know whats going on but the mailing list is getting over
whelming. Even moving to discussing things via an Issue Tracker would be
better for me :)

···

On Mon, Dec 14, 2015 at 10:07 AM, Jeremy Pereira via swift-evolution < swift-evolution@swift.org> wrote:

+1 for mailing lists.

a) they work offline
b) the mails are right there in my inbox in the morning, no new workflow
is needed
c) Apple mail automatically groups the mail by thread so that problem is a
non issue for me.

> On 11 Dec 2015, at 01:41, Riley Testut via swift-evolution < > swift-evolution@swift.org> wrote:
>
> +1 for preferring alternatives to mailing lists. Threads are much harder
to follow when through email, and honestly email is one of my least used
forms of communication; I feel like the medium has an inherit "formality"
that can hinder the rapid progression of ideas.
>
> Case in point, email signatures. They seem like extra fluff and
professionalism not needed for something like this. An online forum has
accounts where you can get the same information without it polluting the
public discussion.
>
> I'm biased though, I really just dislike email :-)
>
> On Dec 10, 2015, at 3:59 PM, Greg Parker via swift-evolution < > swift-evolution@swift.org> wrote:
>
>>
>>> On Dec 10, 2015, at 3:40 PM, Jacob Bandes-Storch via swift-evolution < > swift-evolution@swift.org> wrote:
>>>
>>> Can you describe what you like about mailing lists? To me, the lack of
proper formatting, lack of control over links, and duplication of content
are minuses. IMO, online forums like Discourse do a much better job of
keeping topics organized and accessible (plus, you can choose to have
notifications sent via email if that's your preferred medium). You can see
an example installation at https://meta.discourse.org/
>>
>> Advantage: I use my mail client regularly. I don't visit other web
forums regularly.
>>
>> Email notification can sometimes repair part of the problem, but it
doesn't always work. My own StackOverflow participation dropped to zero
because they changed their email notification system for the worse.
>>
>>
>> --
>> Greg Parker gparker@apple.com Runtime Wrangler
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> swift-evolution mailing list
>> swift-evolution@swift.org
>> https://lists.swift.org/mailman/listinfo/swift-evolution
>
> _______________________________________________
> swift-evolution mailing list
> swift-evolution@swift.org
> https://lists.swift.org/mailman/listinfo/swift-evolution

_______________________________________________
swift-evolution mailing list
swift-evolution@swift.org
https://lists.swift.org/mailman/listinfo/swift-evolution

--
 Wizard
james@supmenow.com
+44 7523 279 698

+ 10,000 for this

···

On Fri, Dec 11, 2015 at 12:58 AM, Andrey Tarantsov via swift-evolution < swift-evolution@swift.org> wrote:

Something you've obviously thought about already, but still: wouldn't
GitHub issue & pull request discussions be an obvious choice?
_______________________________________________
swift-evolution mailing list
swift-evolution@swift.org
https://lists.swift.org/mailman/listinfo/swift-evolution

--
 Wizard
james@supmenow.com
+44 7523 279 698

Why couple two systems together that don’t need to be? Also, using issues as a discussion list is really abusing it’s purpose. Is someone really going to go through and mark certain ones closed and others not?

By coupling the two systems together, you make it significantly more challenging change how the source code is stored and where. You’ve arbitrarily said that GitHub is the way we are going to manage this project for all of time. How do you export all of the issues into another system now?

It might be more convenient for some, but it creates long-term problems for no measurable short-term gain.

Also, your list of steps conveniently leaves out the setup process for a GitHub account.

···

On Dec 15, 2015, at 9:11 AM, James Campbell via swift-evolution <swift-evolution@swift.org> wrote:

Additionally this isn't reworking the infrastructure all we have to do is stop using mailman and start using github issues. It would take 2 seconds and would save more time than having to redirect people here and maintain mailman etc.

On Tue, Dec 15, 2015 at 5:06 PM, James Campbell <james@supmenow.com <mailto:james@supmenow.com>> wrote:
Exactly, if a discussion goes well. People are going to have to make an account anyways to contribute their idea to swift. So we are picking mailman to optimise for something that isn't actually an advantage at all. Plus we have less power to filter than github.

On Tue, Dec 15, 2015 at 4:32 PM, Kevin Wooten <kdubb@me.com <mailto:kdubb@me.com>> wrote:
Agreed, +10

Somebody brought up the idea of needing “yet another account”. Just wanted to point out that Github, and an it’s associated account, area already required; and honestly who doesn’t have a Github account at this point.

A lot of advantages have already been brought up but I would like to add…

— Being able to filter discussions that don’t interest me
In Github ‘watching' the project means I can get emails for all discussions (issues or PRs). I can then selectively disable notifications associated with a specific thread that doesn’t interest me. For people who are mostly inactive the opposite is available; to opt-in to only interested threads. This is something not available at all at the moment; even though my Apple mail sorts nicely by thread it's not the same thing.

— Inline code coloring/formatting
Unless I am missing some great feature of Mailman, this is something that’s a bit annoying at the moment. Yes I know I can got to an external tool and copy out formatted code for my email but Github discussions provide this in a much easier fashion. We are discussing “code” after all.

— One can make (Github notifications == Mailman) be true
If a person turns on email notifications for everything and they can participate in discussions just like they do now; including reading/responding entirely via email.

On Dec 15, 2015, at 8:28 AM, James Campbell via swift-evolution <swift-evolution@swift.org <mailto:swift-evolution@swift.org>> wrote:

+1 for mailing list.

This is what I had to do to contribute to swift.

1. Search for the Swift Repo
2. Navigate to Repo
3. File Issue and wait.
4. Get told I have to discuss in the mailing list.
5. Search for swift website
6. Find page for mailing lists.
7. figure out which one I'm interested in and click on it.
8. Enter my details.
9. go to my email client and confirm my subscription.
10. remember email address for mailing address.
11. type it into a new email and compose thoughts.
12. send it.
13. after much discussion, if people like it.
14. navigate back to the repo.
15. fork.
16. make changes.
17. open pull request.

Steps if we just did it via github issues:

1. Search for the Swift Repo
2. Navigate to Repo
3. File Issue and wait.
4. after much discussion, if people like it.
5. navigate back to the repo.
6. fork.
7. make changes.
8. open pull request.

I can't see why 17 steps is better for engagement and more people contributing ?

On Tue, Dec 15, 2015 at 3:06 PM, Robert Schwalbe via swift-evolution <swift-evolution@swift.org <mailto:swift-evolution@swift.org>> wrote:
Mailman is tried and true, but also a bit clunky. Many people might not like participating in these sorts of discussions by email.

Has there been any though of using something like Discourse (<http://www.discourse.org/&gt;http://www.discourse.org/\) for the Swift mailing lists?

Jacob Bandes-Storch

-1 for not using a mailing list (or +1 FOR using a mailng list).

Being able to keep a full searchable archive on my own hardware is indispensable.
Big numbers in an inbox do not scare me. I am in full control in maintaining the
archive and what I may not have any interest in today, I may have tomorrow.

One day, the silos will disappear.

_______________________________________________
swift-evolution mailing list
swift-evolution@swift.org <mailto:swift-evolution@swift.org>
https://lists.swift.org/mailman/listinfo/swift-evolution

--
 Wizard
james@supmenow.com <mailto:james@supmenow.com>
+44 7523 279 698 <tel:%2B44%207523%20279%20698> _______________________________________________
swift-evolution mailing list
swift-evolution@swift.org <mailto:swift-evolution@swift.org>
https://lists.swift.org/mailman/listinfo/swift-evolution

--
 Wizard
james@supmenow.com <mailto:james@supmenow.com>
+44 7523 279 698 <tel:%2B44%207523%20279%20698>

--
 Wizard
james@supmenow.com <mailto:james@supmenow.com>
+44 7523 279 698
_______________________________________________
swift-evolution mailing list
swift-evolution@swift.org
https://lists.swift.org/mailman/listinfo/swift-evolution

Why couple two systems together that don’t need to be? Also, using issues as a discussion list is really abusing it’s purpose. Is someone really going to go through and mark certain ones closed and others not?

Abusing it’s purpose? That’s a bit of a stretch considering it was designed for specifically the purpose of discussing proposed changes.

It’s the entire tracking bit about it; someone needs to go in and do the hygiene to close out discussions. Just keeping discussions opened makes it harder to do queries over them and to see what threads are currently being discussed. Now labels are going to be need to applied. The reality here is that most of the threads that have started on this list are not actually talking about doing a specific change, but rather, they are gathering thoughts about what people think about a proposed change. That, to me, does not seem like a good use of GitHub issues.

By coupling the two systems together, you make it significantly more challenging change how the source code is stored and where. You’ve arbitrarily said that GitHub is the way we are going to manage this project for all of time. How do you export all of the issues into another system now?

Via API access you can export any data in your Github account should that day come.

True, we could write code to extract the issues and then write some more code to turn into a data format we wanted.

It might be more convenient for some, but it creates long-term problems for no measurable short-term gain.

There is quite a bit to gain actually as many have pointed out. You may disagree but don’t discount others opinions out of hand.

Also, your list of steps conveniently leaves out the setup process for a GitHub account.

He also left out the day he created his email account. Aside from it being required, it’s also not unreasonable to assume a developer has a Github account.

Well, GitHub accounts require an email address, so that already makes it a common requirement. And yes, it’s not unreasonable to have a GitHub account. So we’ve established that the barrier to entry is already quite low to get involved in Swift today.

I personally don’t see a huge advantage of GitHub Issues over mailing lists. I have my mail setup like this:

   - swift
      - swift-build-dev
      - swift-corelibs-dev
      - swift-dev
      - swift-evolution
      - swift-lldb-dev
      - swift-users

It provides a very easy overview of what is new, what I haven’t looked at, and what I’ve marked for follow-up later. Maybe with GitHub email notifications, it can serve a similar purpose. Maybe you can answer this, does GitHub issues support threading? I’ve not seen it do that. That’s another feature that would be missing that many that use mailing lists do use.

-David

···

On Dec 15, 2015, at 9:39 AM, Kevin Wooten <kdubb@me.com> wrote:

On Dec 15, 2015, at 10:28 AM, David Owens II <david@owensd.io <mailto:david@owensd.io>> wrote:

Another thing I think we are missing with regard to this is that it would add a bit of “formality” to the process.

Currently “the process” seems to be..

1. Toss random idea onto swift-evolution list
2. Discuss
3. Produce clearly thought out proposal (if people seem interested)
4. Discuss
5. Reline, repeat at step 4 if necessary
5. Accept/Decline

Using Github issues/PRs would rearrange that a bit…

1. Produce clearly thought out proposal as PR
2. Discuss
3. Refine, repeat at step 2 if necessary
4. Accept/Decline

In my opinion forcing people to think through and layout a clear proposal first is probably a good thing. I will say you might lose a bit of the ad hoc discussion that a list like this allows but I think that’s a worthy sacrifice considering anybody can make a PR.

···

On Dec 15, 2015, at 10:11 AM, James Campbell <james@supmenow.com> wrote:

Additionally this isn't reworking the infrastructure all we have to do is stop using mailman and start using github issues. It would take 2 seconds and would save more time than having to redirect people here and maintain mailman etc.

On Tue, Dec 15, 2015 at 5:06 PM, James Campbell <james@supmenow.com <mailto:james@supmenow.com>> wrote:
Exactly, if a discussion goes well. People are going to have to make an account anyways to contribute their idea to swift. So we are picking mailman to optimise for something that isn't actually an advantage at all. Plus we have less power to filter than github.

On Tue, Dec 15, 2015 at 4:32 PM, Kevin Wooten <kdubb@me.com <mailto:kdubb@me.com>> wrote:
Agreed, +10

Somebody brought up the idea of needing “yet another account”. Just wanted to point out that Github, and an it’s associated account, area already required; and honestly who doesn’t have a Github account at this point.

A lot of advantages have already been brought up but I would like to add…

— Being able to filter discussions that don’t interest me
In Github ‘watching' the project means I can get emails for all discussions (issues or PRs). I can then selectively disable notifications associated with a specific thread that doesn’t interest me. For people who are mostly inactive the opposite is available; to opt-in to only interested threads. This is something not available at all at the moment; even though my Apple mail sorts nicely by thread it's not the same thing.

— Inline code coloring/formatting
Unless I am missing some great feature of Mailman, this is something that’s a bit annoying at the moment. Yes I know I can got to an external tool and copy out formatted code for my email but Github discussions provide this in a much easier fashion. We are discussing “code” after all.

— One can make (Github notifications == Mailman) be true
If a person turns on email notifications for everything and they can participate in discussions just like they do now; including reading/responding entirely via email.

On Dec 15, 2015, at 8:28 AM, James Campbell via swift-evolution <swift-evolution@swift.org <mailto:swift-evolution@swift.org>> wrote:

+1 for mailing list.

This is what I had to do to contribute to swift.

1. Search for the Swift Repo
2. Navigate to Repo
3. File Issue and wait.
4. Get told I have to discuss in the mailing list.
5. Search for swift website
6. Find page for mailing lists.
7. figure out which one I'm interested in and click on it.
8. Enter my details.
9. go to my email client and confirm my subscription.
10. remember email address for mailing address.
11. type it into a new email and compose thoughts.
12. send it.
13. after much discussion, if people like it.
14. navigate back to the repo.
15. fork.
16. make changes.
17. open pull request.

Steps if we just did it via github issues:

1. Search for the Swift Repo
2. Navigate to Repo
3. File Issue and wait.
4. after much discussion, if people like it.
5. navigate back to the repo.
6. fork.
7. make changes.
8. open pull request.

I can't see why 17 steps is better for engagement and more people contributing ?

On Tue, Dec 15, 2015 at 3:06 PM, Robert Schwalbe via swift-evolution <swift-evolution@swift.org <mailto:swift-evolution@swift.org>> wrote:
Mailman is tried and true, but also a bit clunky. Many people might not like participating in these sorts of discussions by email.

Has there been any though of using something like Discourse (<http://www.discourse.org/&gt;http://www.discourse.org/\) for the Swift mailing lists?

Jacob Bandes-Storch

-1 for not using a mailing list (or +1 FOR using a mailng list).

Being able to keep a full searchable archive on my own hardware is indispensable.
Big numbers in an inbox do not scare me. I am in full control in maintaining the
archive and what I may not have any interest in today, I may have tomorrow.

One day, the silos will disappear.

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swift-evolution@swift.org <mailto:swift-evolution@swift.org>
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Why couple two systems together that don’t need to be? Also, using issues as a discussion list is really abusing it’s purpose. Is someone really going to go through and mark certain ones closed and others not?

Abusing it’s purpose? That’s a bit of a stretch considering it was designed for specifically the purpose of discussing proposed changes.

By coupling the two systems together, you make it significantly more challenging change how the source code is stored and where. You’ve arbitrarily said that GitHub is the way we are going to manage this project for all of time. How do you export all of the issues into another system now?

Via API access you can export any data in your Github account should that day come.

It might be more convenient for some, but it creates long-term problems for no measurable short-term gain.

There is quite a bit to gain actually as many have pointed out. You may disagree but don’t discount others opinions out of hand.

Also, your list of steps conveniently leaves out the setup process for a GitHub account.

He also left out the day he created his email account. Aside from it being required, it’s also not unreasonable to assume a developer has a Github account.

···

On Dec 15, 2015, at 10:28 AM, David Owens II <david@owensd.io> wrote:

On Dec 15, 2015, at 9:11 AM, James Campbell via swift-evolution <swift-evolution@swift.org <mailto:swift-evolution@swift.org>> wrote:

Additionally this isn't reworking the infrastructure all we have to do is stop using mailman and start using github issues. It would take 2 seconds and would save more time than having to redirect people here and maintain mailman etc.

On Tue, Dec 15, 2015 at 5:06 PM, James Campbell <james@supmenow.com <mailto:james@supmenow.com>> wrote:
Exactly, if a discussion goes well. People are going to have to make an account anyways to contribute their idea to swift. So we are picking mailman to optimise for something that isn't actually an advantage at all. Plus we have less power to filter than github.

On Tue, Dec 15, 2015 at 4:32 PM, Kevin Wooten <kdubb@me.com <mailto:kdubb@me.com>> wrote:
Agreed, +10

Somebody brought up the idea of needing “yet another account”. Just wanted to point out that Github, and an it’s associated account, area already required; and honestly who doesn’t have a Github account at this point.

A lot of advantages have already been brought up but I would like to add…

— Being able to filter discussions that don’t interest me
In Github ‘watching' the project means I can get emails for all discussions (issues or PRs). I can then selectively disable notifications associated with a specific thread that doesn’t interest me. For people who are mostly inactive the opposite is available; to opt-in to only interested threads. This is something not available at all at the moment; even though my Apple mail sorts nicely by thread it's not the same thing.

— Inline code coloring/formatting
Unless I am missing some great feature of Mailman, this is something that’s a bit annoying at the moment. Yes I know I can got to an external tool and copy out formatted code for my email but Github discussions provide this in a much easier fashion. We are discussing “code” after all.

— One can make (Github notifications == Mailman) be true
If a person turns on email notifications for everything and they can participate in discussions just like they do now; including reading/responding entirely via email.

On Dec 15, 2015, at 8:28 AM, James Campbell via swift-evolution <swift-evolution@swift.org <mailto:swift-evolution@swift.org>> wrote:

+1 for mailing list.

This is what I had to do to contribute to swift.

1. Search for the Swift Repo
2. Navigate to Repo
3. File Issue and wait.
4. Get told I have to discuss in the mailing list.
5. Search for swift website
6. Find page for mailing lists.
7. figure out which one I'm interested in and click on it.
8. Enter my details.
9. go to my email client and confirm my subscription.
10. remember email address for mailing address.
11. type it into a new email and compose thoughts.
12. send it.
13. after much discussion, if people like it.
14. navigate back to the repo.
15. fork.
16. make changes.
17. open pull request.

Steps if we just did it via github issues:

1. Search for the Swift Repo
2. Navigate to Repo
3. File Issue and wait.
4. after much discussion, if people like it.
5. navigate back to the repo.
6. fork.
7. make changes.
8. open pull request.

I can't see why 17 steps is better for engagement and more people contributing ?

On Tue, Dec 15, 2015 at 3:06 PM, Robert Schwalbe via swift-evolution <swift-evolution@swift.org <mailto:swift-evolution@swift.org>> wrote:
Mailman is tried and true, but also a bit clunky. Many people might not like participating in these sorts of discussions by email.

Has there been any though of using something like Discourse (<http://www.discourse.org/&gt;http://www.discourse.org/\) for the Swift mailing lists?

Jacob Bandes-Storch

-1 for not using a mailing list (or +1 FOR using a mailng list).

Being able to keep a full searchable archive on my own hardware is indispensable.
Big numbers in an inbox do not scare me. I am in full control in maintaining the
archive and what I may not have any interest in today, I may have tomorrow.

One day, the silos will disappear.

_______________________________________________
swift-evolution mailing list
swift-evolution@swift.org <mailto:swift-evolution@swift.org>
https://lists.swift.org/mailman/listinfo/swift-evolution

--
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+44 7523 279 698 <tel:%2B44%207523%20279%20698>

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See what I’m getting at here. There’s nothing your mail client and manual management does that Github doesn’t do “better”; although for people like yourself who enjoy using your mailbox exclusively you can just opt into all discussions and never log into Github again. I really don’t see how this change would harm you.

It doesn’t harm me. It really doesn’t matter to me if everything moved to GitHub. I think some things are lost and other things are gained. I think it poses a risk to conflate things that are actually happening with Swift versus what people are attempting to have happen with Swift. That clarity is lost.

Make it sound as time consuming as you want. It’s only in the unlikely event of complete Github collapse; I’m betting on Facebook shuttering before that at this point.

My intention wasn’t to make it sound time consuming; it was more about the tools that already exist for mailing lists.

YES. Also, as I said previously, it would allow you do opt-out of threads/discussions you are not interested in (which Mailman clearly does not do). It’s much more versatile than the current solution.

I was asking about threading conversations, like a hierarchical view. Like this:

I’ve only seen flat conversations that don’t allow conversations to fork naturally. If GitHub does support that, I’ve love to know about it, but I haven’t seen anything for it.

I agree that GitHub brings some nice features, but I think is also lacking in some as well.

-David

···

On Dec 15, 2015, at 10:27 AM, Kevin Wooten <kdubb@me.com> wrote:

Why couple two systems together that don’t need to be? Also, using issues as a discussion list is really abusing it’s purpose. Is someone really going to go through and mark certain ones closed and others not?

Abusing it’s purpose? That’s a bit of a stretch considering it was designed for specifically the purpose of discussing proposed changes.

It’s the entire tracking bit about it; someone needs to go in and do the hygiene to close out discussions. Just keeping discussions opened makes it harder to do queries over them and to see what threads are currently being discussed. Now labels are going to be need to applied. The reality here is that most of the threads that have started on this list are not actually talking about doing a specific change, but rather, they are gathering thoughts about what people think about a proposed change. That, to me, does not seem like a good use of GitHub issues.

To clarify, I am referring to Github PRs in general. As I laid out in my previous email. The PR is already part of the process so I don’t want to needlessly drag in “issues”.

Peruse your email for swift-evolution specifically. People are participating in threads of discussion on specific proposed changes. That’s equivalent to participating in a discussion about a PR for a proposal. By watching the project you can default into discussions for any and all PR’s for the project.

Nobody needs to “do the hygiene”. Leaveing all PRs open until they are accepted or author decides he wants it closed without acceptance. To see PRs currently being discussed sort appropriately (Yes it’s available “Recently Updated” and it’s a “sticky" option).

Searching can be done across in a specific PR or issue, across all PRs, across all issues, or the entire project.

Nobody is required to apply a label, that’s nonsense, it’s an optional feature.

See what I’m getting at here. There’s nothing your mail client and manual management does that Github doesn’t do “better”; although for people like yourself who enjoy using your mailbox exclusively you can just opt into all discussions and never log into Github again. I really don’t see how this change would harm you.

(PS No I don’t work for Github)

By coupling the two systems together, you make it significantly more challenging change how the source code is stored and where. You’ve arbitrarily said that GitHub is the way we are going to manage this project for all of time. How do you export all of the issues into another system now?

Via API access you can export any data in your Github account should that day come.

True, we could write code to extract the issues and then write some more code to turn into a data format we wanted.

Make it sound as time consuming as you want. It’s only in the unlikely event of complete Github collapse; I’m betting on Facebook shuttering before that at this point.

It might be more convenient for some, but it creates long-term problems for no measurable short-term gain.

There is quite a bit to gain actually as many have pointed out. You may disagree but don’t discount others opinions out of hand.

Also, your list of steps conveniently leaves out the setup process for a GitHub account.

He also left out the day he created his email account. Aside from it being required, it’s also not unreasonable to assume a developer has a Github account.

Well, GitHub accounts require an email address, so that already makes it a common requirement. And yes, it’s not unreasonable to have a GitHub account. So we’ve established that the barrier to entry is already quite low to get involved in Swift today.

I personally don’t see a huge advantage of GitHub Issues over mailing lists. I have my mail setup like this:

Great you don’t see an advantage. So if we switched you could “watch” the entire repo and then never login to Github again. Everybody wins.

   - swift
      - swift-build-dev
      - swift-corelibs-dev
      - swift-dev
      - swift-evolution
      - swift-lldb-dev
      - swift-users

It provides a very easy overview of what is new, what I haven’t looked at, and what I’ve marked for follow-up later. Maybe with GitHub email notifications, it can serve a similar purpose. Maybe you can answer this, does GitHub issues support threading? I’ve not seen it do that. That’s another feature that would be missing that many that use mailing lists do use.

YES. Also, as I said previously, it would allow you do opt-out of threads/discussions you are not interested in (which Mailman clearly does not do). It’s much more versatile than the current solution.

···

On Dec 15, 2015, at 11:07 AM, David Owens II <david@owensd.io> wrote:

On Dec 15, 2015, at 9:39 AM, Kevin Wooten <kdubb@me.com <mailto:kdubb@me.com>> wrote:

On Dec 15, 2015, at 10:28 AM, David Owens II <david@owensd.io <mailto:david@owensd.io>> wrote:

-David

GitHub is *extremely* lacking when it comes to large-scale discussions.
The issue infrastructure it has is just barely sufficient to track
actual issues and PRs, and it simply does not work for massive
discussions. I say this as someone who's been involved in many such
massive discussions on the Rust project (Rust eventually set up a
Discourse to handle discussions).

For me, mailing lists are far and away the best solution. Sure, forums
and GitHub and whatnot can often send to email, but anyone participating
with email in those ecosystems are effectively second-class citizens.
And I've never been able to actually stay active with a forum (not even
the Rust Discourse forum), I'm not really sure why, I just end up not
keeping up and eventually stop visiting it. So I'm really glad that
Swift is using mailing lists. Email has really wide compatibility (I can
even keep up with discussions on my iPhone without any trouble), it's
fast, it's publicly indexed, and it pretty much Just Works.

-Kevin Ballard

···

On Tue, Dec 15, 2015, at 10:52 AM, David Owens II via swift-evolution wrote:

I agree that GitHub brings some nice features, but I think is also
lacking in some as well.

Why couple two systems together that don’t need to be? Also, using issues as a discussion list is really abusing it’s purpose. Is someone really going to go through and mark certain ones closed and others not?

There are several projects (Mozilla jumps out at me immediately) that use their bug system for most of these kinds of discussions.

(leaking into related projects I suppose: 19371 – WebKit Needs T-Shirts )

That said, we are even more on track here for Issues usage, since every evolution item is a feature request against the language. It would be really nice to be able to point new issues against pre-existing request topics, and to clearly mark them as deferred or won’t fix so they stop triggering fresh discussion.

-DW

···

On Dec 15, 2015, at 10:28 AM, David Owens II via swift-evolution <swift-evolution@swift.org> wrote:

By coupling the two systems together, you make it significantly more challenging change how the source code is stored and where. You’ve arbitrarily said that GitHub is the way we are going to manage this project for all of time. How do you export all of the issues into another system now?

It might be more convenient for some, but it creates long-term problems for no measurable short-term gain.

Also, your list of steps conveniently leaves out the setup process for a GitHub account.

True but it also leaves out the steps to create a mail account.

And as previously stated, if someone wants to contribute to Swift; They
will need a email account, Github account and Mailman subscription. So
really it makes no diference that I left out setting up accounts. In fact
it reenforces the advantages as a user won't need a mailman subscription.or
need to wait for moderation.

···

On Tue, Dec 15, 2015 at 5:28 PM, David Owens II <david@owensd.io> wrote:

Why couple two systems together that don’t need to be? Also, using issues
as a discussion list is really abusing it’s purpose. Is someone really
going to go through and mark certain ones closed and others not?

By coupling the two systems together, you make it significantly more
challenging change how the source code is stored and where. You’ve
arbitrarily said that GitHub is *the* way we are going to manage this
project for all of time. How do you export all of the issues into another
system now?

It *might* be more convenient for some, but it creates long-term problems
for no measurable short-term gain.

Also, your list of steps conveniently leaves out the setup process for a
GitHub account.

On Dec 15, 2015, at 9:11 AM, James Campbell via swift-evolution < > swift-evolution@swift.org> wrote:

Additionally this isn't reworking the infrastructure all we have to do is
stop using mailman and start using github issues. It would take 2 seconds
and would save more time than having to redirect people here and maintain
mailman etc.

On Tue, Dec 15, 2015 at 5:06 PM, James Campbell <james@supmenow.com> > wrote:

Exactly, if a discussion goes well. People are going to have to make an
account anyways to contribute their idea to swift. So we are picking
mailman to optimise for something that isn't actually an advantage at all.
Plus we have less power to filter than github.

On Tue, Dec 15, 2015 at 4:32 PM, Kevin Wooten <kdubb@me.com> wrote:

Agreed, +10

Somebody brought up the idea of needing “yet another account”. Just
wanted to point out that Github, and an it’s associated account, area
already required; and honestly who doesn’t have a Github account at this
point.

A lot of advantages have already been brought up but I would like to add…

— Being able to filter discussions that don’t interest me
In Github ‘watching' the project means I can get emails for all
discussions (issues or PRs). I can then selectively disable notifications
associated with a specific thread that doesn’t interest me. For people who
are mostly inactive the opposite is available; to opt-in to only interested
threads. This is something not available at all at the moment; even though
my Apple mail sorts nicely by thread it's not the same thing.

— Inline code coloring/formatting
Unless I am missing some great feature of Mailman, this is something
that’s a bit annoying at the moment. Yes I know I can got to an external
tool and copy out formatted code for my email but Github discussions
provide this in a much easier fashion. We are discussing “code” after all.

— One can make (Github notifications == Mailman) be true
If a person turns on email notifications for everything and they can
participate in discussions just like they do now; including
reading/responding entirely via email.

On Dec 15, 2015, at 8:28 AM, James Campbell via swift-evolution < >>> swift-evolution@swift.org> wrote:

+1 for mailing list.

This is what I had to do to contribute to swift.

1. Search for the Swift Repo
2. Navigate to Repo
3. File Issue and wait.
4. Get told I have to discuss in the mailing list.
5. Search for swift website
6. Find page for mailing lists.
7. figure out which one I'm interested in and click on it.
8. Enter my details.
9. go to my email client and confirm my subscription.
10. remember email address for mailing address.
11. type it into a new email and compose thoughts.
12. send it.
13. after much discussion, if people like it.
14. navigate back to the repo.
15. fork.
16. make changes.
17. open pull request.

Steps if we just did it via github issues:

1. Search for the Swift Repo
2. Navigate to Repo
3. File Issue and wait.
4. after much discussion, if people like it.
5. navigate back to the repo.
6. fork.
7. make changes.
8. open pull request.

I can't see why 17 steps is better for engagement and more people
contributing ?

On Tue, Dec 15, 2015 at 3:06 PM, Robert Schwalbe via swift-evolution < >>> swift-evolution@swift.org> wrote:

Mailman is tried and true, but also a bit clunky. Many people might not

like participating in these sorts of discussions by email.

Has there been any though of using something like Discourse (<
http://www.discourse.org/ for the Swift
mailing lists?

Jacob Bandes-Storch

-1 for not using a mailing list (or +1 FOR using a mailng list).

Being able to keep a full searchable archive on my own hardware is
indispensable.
Big numbers in an inbox do not scare me. I am in full control in
maintaining the
archive and what I may not have any interest in today, I may have
tomorrow.

One day, the silos will disappear.

_______________________________________________
swift-evolution mailing list
swift-evolution@swift.org
https://lists.swift.org/mailman/listinfo/swift-evolution

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+1 to moving to an issue tracker, James. I've kept a lid on it so far but I
know I am going to lose track of all these emails flooding in at some
ponder.

···

On Mon, Dec 14, 2015, 5:25 AM James Campbell via swift-evolution < swift-evolution@swift.org> wrote:

+ 10,000 for this

On Fri, Dec 11, 2015 at 12:58 AM, Andrey Tarantsov via swift-evolution < > swift-evolution@swift.org> wrote:

Something you've obviously thought about already, but still: wouldn't
GitHub issue & pull request discussions be an obvious choice?

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Great points, its a good compromise in my opinion. There were so many
hurdles to even be able to discuss ideas for me.

···

On Mon, Dec 14, 2015 at 12:05 AM, Zach Drayer via swift-evolution < swift-evolution@swift.org> wrote:

sorry for bumping this, but, it taking me a few days to get this far in my
inbox made me think it's worth adding my voice in to the mix, and say that
I'd like something forum-y as well.

re: following l-by-email: I haven't done a significant amount of research
on this, but my general suspicion is that most forums that scale to large
amounts of people wind up having an option to send email notifications
about new posts (and the ability to reply to the email to post).

-Zach

On Friday, December 11, 2015, Pierre Monod-Broca via swift-evolution < > swift-evolution@swift.org> wrote:

Le 11 déc. 2015 à 00:59, Greg Parker via swift-evolution < >> swift-evolution@swift.org> a écrit :

On Dec 10, 2015, at 3:40 PM, Jacob Bandes-Storch via swift-evolution < >> swift-evolution@swift.org> wrote:

Can you describe what you like about mailing lists? To me, the lack of
proper formatting, lack of control over links, and duplication of content
are minuses. IMO, online forums like Discourse do a much better job of
keeping topics organized and accessible (plus, you can choose to have
notifications sent via email if that's your preferred medium). You can see
an example installation at https://meta.discourse.org/

Advantage: I use my mail client regularly. I don't visit other web forums
regularly.

Email notification can sometimes repair part of the problem, but it
doesn't always work. My own StackOverflow participation dropped to zero
because they changed their email notification system for the worse.

--
Greg Parker gparker@apple.com Runtime Wrangler

The same, and I can use my mail client offline.

Pierre

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