On Tue, Aug 06, 2019 at 09:20:52AM -0400, Jeff King wrote: > On Mon, Aug 05, 2019 at 06:49:35PM -0700, Emily Shaffer wrote: > > > Are folks interested in writing and reviewing this kind of content? Any > > ideas for where we may be able to host (maybe git-scm)? > > I think it would make sense to have blog.git-scm.com (and .org) with > this content. I'd be happy to deal with the technical side of setting > the name up. I think it should live in a different repository than the > main site, though (which is an overly-messy Rails app). I'd certainly be happy with that setup if others agree, although the incorporation with Git Rev News sounds interesting too (I'll reply to that post also). > > There actually used to be a blog section on the site. It discussed > various high-level concepts that hadn't made it into the Pro Git book > (whose content makes up most of the site). But as most of those were > eventually added to the book, the blog posts became staler versions of > the same content, and we dropped them. > > Just to play devil's advocate for a moment: another venue for topics > like these: > > > - Using `git worktree` Effectively > > - Overview of the Git Object Store > > - Finding Regressions with `git bisect` > > - Life of a Git Remote Request > > might be to actually add them to the book (which started as a > single-author publication, but is CC-licensed and has taken lots of > community content over the years). The advantage there is that the book > content would always represent the most up-to-date coverage of those > topics, whereas blog posts sometimes grow stale over the years as nobody > is interested in updating them. To advocate your advocate, does the book content really stay so up-to-date? (I have no experience with that repo, so I really don't know.) An advantage of blog posts is that they come with a date and so users can judge for themselves how stale it is or is not. In fact I think it'd be odd to see reviews to update a blog post that's a few years old; if the content is so different I'd expect to see a brand new post and an editor's note on the top of the old one pointing forward, or at least marking it as obsolete. If it's a concept that's so specific that it really will stale out quickly (e.g. exactly how to use git worktree down to the commands without much context) vs. a higher level concept (how does git worktree work and conceptually how do you use it) then it probably does belong in the manpage or book. But I suppose I envision these types of posts doing the latter, instead. Hmmmmm. Maybe it's enough to say during review, "This seems like a good candidate to move to manual/tutorial/git-scm book". > > One downside is that it may be more annoying to try to integrate content > into the existing structure of the book. Another is that a blog is > something people subscribe to, so a post may generate attention/interest > in a topic (but nobody wants to see a feed of book updates!). A prime > example is something like a highlight of features after a new release, > which is not book content at all, and just serves to generate attention. > :) > > So I don't think I'm really seriously suggesting this as an alternative, > but maybe something to ponder. > > > It could make sense to review contributions like this on the mailing > > list, so that we get the attention of those who wrote the features > > that are being covered in the blog posts - are we okay with the > > additional traffic? > > Additional traffic is fine. I do suspect that blog posts in particular > would benefit from a more integrated review system like GitHub (or > similar): > > - I'd expect there to be a lot of images, and those systems make > image diffs easy to see > > - the formatted output is going to be important to review; a > browser-based review system makes it easier to see the formatted > output (especially if they're written in markdown) > > - we're more likely to get/want drive-by fixes like typo corrections, > so reducing friction for non-regular contributors is more important > > Obviously you can apply many of the same mailing list vs web review > arguments that we've already had for writing Git itself (e.g., is > reviewing formatted output much different than looking at the output of > a compiled program?). But I think the nature of blog posts pushes it a > bit further towards web-based review. I follow, especially re formatted output and images, but I also don't want to provide too much distance between the ML and these kinds of posts. I wonder if it makes sense to mandate use of GitGitGadget, and accept review comments both on the ML and the PR? > > -Peff
