Re: [Kdiff3-user] Contributing and patch application

[Joachim E. <joa...@gm...>]

> Kdiff3 looks completely broken on my OSX/macports QT4 setup right now, and
> for some reason I thought I could try fixing it myself. 
https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&aid=3557902&group_id=58666&atid=488548
This seems to be the same issue the Ubuntu people already reported.
I am already working on that.

> Before spending
> time on this project I wanted to know how "sane" and "alive" it was, and
> source control changelogs and diffs are a very good way to measure that.
> Here things did not looked good and I was curious if it was you lacking
> time or if it was deliberate, and if I would be wasting my time trying to
> contribute here. Which does not seem the case.
Lacking time. (A baby and a small child ...) And sometimes I'm also doing 
other things.

But hey: Did you know? KDiff3 is now 10 years old. The first release was 
published on 2002-07-28. Time for a little celebration :-)

> I have not looked at sourceforge git support but this is certainly a good
> step forward. It will make it easier for you to just import patches with
> commit logs etc.
Yet I always wonder, why almost nobody wanted to get involved as a developer 
with direct access rights. I assume this is felt as a burden.

> :-). - How easy it is to build/test. Basically, how good is the README.
> Kdiff3 README is complete, but a little complicated. I would have expected
> to have one way to build it for all platforms (with minor tweaks on Windows
> as usual). Like cmake for everyone. 
Since Qt seems to be going in that direction too, your wish will come true. 
But I'm not so fluid in cmake. QMake is very easy for me.
And Windows still requires special treatment for different compilers, 64 bit 
vs. 32 bit etc.

> Maybe stress the KDE part a bit less.
On Linux the configure script I wrote myself work quite well. Does it also 
work on OSX?

> - Tests. No tests (or I missed them in the README and sources). 
Maurice van der Pot actually contributed an initial test suite (in 0.9.97).
But of course more could be done.

> - (Minor) Directory layout. The structure is not canonical for a subversion
> project, it is kdiff3/trunk/kdiff3 instead of just kdiff3/trunk. Not a big
> deal if you use subversion but complicates things if you use git or
> mercurial on top of subversion.
Yes. I will remove that extra kdiff3 subdirectory if its easy.

> In 2012, sourceforge feels clunky and oldish. ...
You are right about these aspects. Though at the moment I will still stick 
with sourceforge, but start with git. One change at the time ;-)

Best regards,
Joachim