[mythtv] Fw: DVB Big PATCH, Part I - for CVS pls

[Ben Bucksch]

Ramon Roca wrote:

>After my patch all of this will just behave like before.
>
No, it will ignore most of the fields. But forget it. If your patch goes 
in, I'll just fix these 2 lines myself.

>be where I'm not wellcome.
>
You are welcome and your contributions are very much valued. I am 
thankful for your MythChannels.

Reviews (like what I just did) are normal, and if a reviewer or 
maintainer asks requests from you to change something, then you are 
expected to do just that, unless it's unreasonable (=wrong or way too 
much work), and supply a new patch after you fixed all his/their 
objections (no sense to create 20 patches). Esp. so if he points out why 
your code may cause problems for users or other programmers. At least 
that's how it works in the Mozilla project and others. You should always 
expect that you may have to create another patch before it goes into CVS.

Of course, matters are different, if I comment about dvbchannel/recorder 
etc., which is code I wrote, and if I comment about your MythChannels. 
In the latter case, it's your code, I may only make a few well-intended 
suggestions, and it's completely up to you what you do with them. If you 
modify my code, I think I have a right to object to some changes which I 
think are wrong. I think you would feel the same, if I went and changed 
your MythChannels (in CVS) in a way you dislike.

A bit trivia: I fixed a Mozilla bug, which over 20 people voted for. 
Mozilla reviews are mandatory (otherwise I'm not allowed to check in), 
and it took 3 months for anybody to review it. He then asked some 
questions, but I can't answer them anymore, because it's too long ago, I 
forgot it. I have to restart from stratch. So, the patch is still lying 
around. Another Mozilla feature I implemented, which 200 people voted 
for (thus one of the most requested ones), waits for review since 1-2 
months already as well. During a Mozilla review, it's normal that every 
10th line is being critizised, for using the "wrong" string conversion 
function or whatever. There, your reviewer is like your boss - he asks 
you do to something, and you just do it, unless it's unreasonable 
(sometimes even then), otherwise you never get your review, because 
people are too busy to discuss with you (who supplied the patch). MythTV 
is not the Mozilla project, luckily, but just to get things into 
perspective.
Also, with my DVB patch, Isaac asked me to change *way* more than I 
asked you to change. I redid most of the classes and the database, and 
that although I tried to get things sorted out first on the mailing 
list, before I started coding. These changes took me maybe 12 hours 
coding, and I personally thought that the code was worse afterwards than 
my original code, but I had to do it to get it into MythTV. If Isaac 
hadn't been willing to some compromises, it would have been even worse.

I'm really trying to be nice and rational, but I don't have time to 
endlessly argue about every objection I have, neither can I allow you to 
break features that I added earlier, like the ability to record any PID 
streams, incl. esp. AC3 and subtitles, and I catched severe bugs in 
Kenneth's code, like memory fragmentation (even security holes?) or 
endless loops / CPU usage. Almost any maintainer would have rejected 
Kenneth's first "cleanup" patch. The current thread started with:

"This looks pretty good. Esp. the extensive comments in the DB scheme 
are helpful.

Comments/review:"

then 10 comments to a 1500 line patch. You accepted *none*, not a single 
one, of them. So, I don't think I am unreasonable here. I really 
appreciate your code, I do think that your patch is good, from what I 
saw, apart from these few things I mentioned.

I hope I didn't sound like an asshole here (I feel bad about this post), 
but I also invested time into that code and care about it.

I know how it feels for you, how frustrating it can be, I've been in the 
same situation, and I am really sorry for it and wanted to avoid that 
you and Kenneth feel that way, but I don't know how. It doesn't help 
that I currently have no time at all, so I cannot rethink every email 3 
times.

>Also for sure I'm not able to do something like this just alone.
>
You are not. I spent a lot of time to write the basic code, Zaheer fixed 
important bugs, you and Kenneth are working on it. Maybe somebody else 
helps with better player support (e.g. for 16:9) when HDTV takes off.

"Whatever." :-)

Ben