Re: [eigen] random thoughts -- we need more Gaels

[Benoit Jacob <jacob.benoit.1@xxxxxxxxx>]

2010/9/29 Cyrille Berger <cberger@xxxxxxxxxxx>:
> On torsdag 23 september 2010, Benoit Jacob wrote:
>
>> *** attracting more core contributors ***
>
>> Right now we have 2 really-really-core-contributors (Gael and me) and
>
>> 3 other sometimes-core-contributors (Hauke, Jitse, Thomas); and
>
>> perhaps 20 occasional contributors. We need to find a way to move
>
>> people from "occasional" to "core".
>
> Afaik, the best way to raise the number of "core" is to raised the numbers
> of "occasional". And once in a while one of those "occasional" guy will
> become a "core" guy. In my opinion, you should see those "core" guys as
> maintainers, and to be honest, you don't need so many of them, if you can
> get good contributions from many "occasional" people. Then the maintainers
> just have to ensure the contributions reach API standard and don't break
> existing features. And "occasional" contributors will come when they have an
> itch to scratch, and Eigen is in a very confortable position in that
> respect, since its users are developers, they will be willing to provide
> patches for the features they need :)
>
> But having a lot of "occasional" contributors is only worth it, if the
> experienced developers don't have to invest a lot of time in mentoring them.

Yes, thanks for putting my thoughts into words :-)

>
> Which leads us to...
>
>> We need more developer documentation, developer
>
>> tutorials, and we could even have a series of articles going through
>
>> expression templates and Eigen design, etc.
>
> Yes ! Eigen has an excellent "user" documentation, at least the tutorials,
> the actual API dox suffers a bit of doxygen poor support of templates. But
> right now, there is almost nothing for potential contributors. And eigen's
> code is not exactly the easiest code to dive into, even for experienced c++
> developers, reading and understanding is ok, but extending currently require
> a huge investment.
>
> To take my personal example :) I have a big itch, it is the lack of a
> symetric matrix, what prevents me to contribute one, is the balance between
> lack of time and complexity of such addition. I will probably dive in, one
> day, in the mean time I try to survive with normal matrix. But I am quiet
> certain with good tutorials on how to contribute I would dive earlier, and I
> don't know how many people are like me.

OK, I'll see if I manage to get at least _you_ hooked ;-)

Benoit

>
> --
>
> Cyrille Berger