Say you want to contribute to a project and find out the only way to do so is by discussing the issue on IRC or the mailing list, then submitting the patch per email.

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    English
    69 months ago

    I agree with those saying mailing lists are intimidating. I don’t know if others are using dedicated tools or something but I find web based mailing list UIs just incomprehensibly bad and difficult to navigate.

    • @[email protected]
      cake
      link
      fedilink
      English
      49 months ago

      Most web-based mailing list UIs are honestly incredibly bad, but you don’t need to use them, you can choose any email client you want.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        39 months ago

        The problem with mailing lists is that no mailing list provider ever supports “subscribe to this message tree”.

        As a result, either you get constant spam, or you don’t get half the replies.

        • @[email protected]
          cake
          link
          fedilink
          English
          19 months ago

          I sort messages from mailing lists into different mail folders, and my client (Gnus) supports a threaded view of messages (and I can press ‘k’ on a message to mark the entire thread as read), so this isn’t a big issue for me.

    • @[email protected]OP
      link
      fedilink
      English
      1
      edit-2
      9 months ago

      If mailing lists had a view like reddit / lemmy / slashdot / hackernews, I might be more willing to use them, but that wouldn’t solve contributions for me. I have no idea how to format emails to comment on code and then follow ensuing discussions. And how would CI work?

      • Illecors
        link
        fedilink
        English
        29 months ago

        Email how to: https://useplaintext.email

        Small change: git diff origin master > mycontribution.patch and paste it into email body.

        Big change: same as small, but add as attachment.

        Subscribe to coreutils mailing list - low enough volume to not get overwhelmed and established enough to get a feel of the culture.