Quote:
Originally Posted by hakan42
@kiwidude do you already have the plugin source in a source management system somewhere? If not, would you mind putting it to a github project (where the core of calibre already is)?
This would make contributing to your plugins tremendously easier, especially with you being in a shortage of available time :-)
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There are a variety of problems with this. The first and foremost is the amount of time it would take me to work out how to use github sufficently well to upload them all and establish my routine for maintaining them. I don't use git in my day job, and I know from the work I did on Sigil a while ago it is not particularly intuitive to use - powerful/flexible - yes, user friendly - definitely not.
Secondly I then have to change how all my various batch files for testing plugins work, which are all currently setup to work with some specific paths where I keep the source on my drives. Not insurmountable, but more time.
Thirdly one of the advantages of my current approach is that I can locate my plugins within the calibre_plugins folder within the calibre source tree on my drive. Which lets Eclipse work quite nicely as far as its own validation and hyperlinking for code navigation etc. I don't know if that would still be possible or problematic to have plugins from another git source stuck within Kovid's git pull. I suspect it would be a problem. Maybe eclipse can be taught to cope with a parallel directory to still get the hyperlinks directly, but again it isn't something i use in my day job so is more hours of fiddling and frustration to experiment with.
Fourthly I have a "common_utils" file shared by all my plugins. I don't know how well that might play being outside of the plugin folder itself under a git scenario, in terms of pulling updates etc. Again maybe not an issue at all, but something to consider.
Fifthly even presupposing I spend several days getting this is all setup, there is no guarantee anyone else will actually bother making contributions. As that now introduces the same burden of learning git on any other developer wanting to contribute. Whereas right now they have the zip code of source right there, along with my email address in every code file to just send me a patch or via the threads here.
And finally even if there are indeed other developers out there who allegedly would contribute but only if the plugins were in git (and I remain sceptical of that claim as we are down to a minority of a minority of a minority...) I still would have to review changes to be sure people actually knew what the heck they were doing and not introducing new problems. Unless of course it was someone who knows far more than me like Kovid/chaley etc. So that still means more of my time...
I don't deny there would be some advantages. But I don't think that it is a game breaker or a roadblock preventing others from contributing. You already have the latest version of the source code in the zip file in every thread. If someone really feels strongly about contributing they can work with that. If someone feels strongly enough about a plugin to want changes to be made and they have the skills to make the changes, not being in git is not the problem!