Contributions to existing code: emacs/vim/etc

[Tim Johnson]

Hi:

I wrote the newlisp mode for emacs. I don't visit this forum frequently and was not aware 'til just now that there have been some modifications and some problems. I see that fontera has contributed some code.



Since emacs is an operating environment for a General Purpose lisp Programming Language (elisp, a 'cousin' of newlisp) I'm hoping that the emacs mode can be a community project and that someone who is a newlisp programmer (I'm not at this time) can take over as a Primary Maintainer.



I'd like to make a proposal for a way to constructively make this mode a organically growing system. For the most part, I think this is also relevant for vim and any other development system in the Open Source venue.



1)Let there be a Primary Maintainer - for now it is me, but I would like to see that change. The Primary Maintainer (PM) should be the one responsible for finalizing code changes.



2)Let there be a single location for publicly posted code modules. I recommend that it be http://newlisp.org/code/">http://newlisp.org/code/ or something like that...



3)If one has code changes to submit, post those changes to the forum, but take care to annotate the code changes so that the PM can easly identify the changes and document them. The contributor should let the PM know also whether he/she wants their email address posted, obfuscated or left out entirely. The PM should receive an email on this subject, a link to the topic in the forum would be sufficient.



4)The PM would then integrate the new code into the existing codebase and then submit it to Lutz for public posting.



5)If there are errors, the PM should be notified similarly as above.



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Of a practical nature, submiting code changes or additions to the original

author or the current maintainer for implementation creates a single 'code

repository' that allows changes to proceed from one point and would be a more

appealing alternative to numerous "code forks" IMHO.

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The following may be more pertinent to GNU emacs and XEmacs than to vim, but bears stating:

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Emacs is a very large, system. It is essentially an operating environment for a

General Purpose Programming Language (GPL) called elisp. Elisp modules that are

part of the system and included as part of the standard distribution have to

meet some exacting standards. Regardless of whether someone reading this is an

emacs user or uses some other development environment, you would probably agree

that it would be a good thing for a newlisp mode to be part of the standard emacs distribution.

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As soon as I have time, I'm going to add in fontera's changes and submit the revision to Lutz (unless Lutz tells me different).



To elaborate. This mode needs a PM that is a newlisp programmer, there are many fine points of the language that I am not informed of.

Furthermore, I believe that there will emerge an elegant solution to maintaining an embedded

  documentation resource from the newLISP source code documentation system, but

  that's going to necessitate someone with some newlisp knowledge.

I would be happy to support and help the new PM - I'm currently working on a major mode for rebol, and I've added numerous other features that  may translate to newlisp.



I was pleased to see that someone posted the opinion the newlisp mode is preferable to slime-mode - :-) thanks! but slime is *very* sophisticated and if I ever attain that level of expertise I'll be eating steak more and beans less. Besides, slime is a 'comint mode', not an editing mode....



Cheers everyone ....

Tim

[frontera000]

Sorry.  I didn't mean to add any confusion.

[Tim Johnson]

Sorry.  I didn't mean to add any confusion.

You didn't add any confusion! You added code. But I think we should have a system to grow the codebase "professionally" if you will. Think about CVS - a system to grow a code base with multiple contributors.



BTW: How would you like to be PM? (Primary Maintainer, not Prime minister:-))

[frontera000]

No thank you. THe newlisp mode in emacs works just the way I want now.