mentoring

[James Liggett]

On Mon, 2007-05-14 at 13:56 -0500, Tom Spear wrote:
Hey Tom,
> My last question is this:  What is an acceptable amount of time I
> should wait before asking AJ what is wrong with a patch?  I see that
> patches get submitted and then the next day they are committed
> oftentimes.  However I would like I am pressuring him if I submit a
> patch, it didnt get committed the next day, and then I shortly after
> ask him what was wrong.  So, should I wait until day 2 or so?
> Unfortunately my company firewall blocks all of the IRC ports, so I
> can't get onto freenode from work, and by the time I get home, most
> times #winehackers (well #winehq anyways) is dead.  I'll check in
> winehackers next time..
> 
> Thank you very much for putting my fears to rest.  Now for the arduous
> task of starting over heheh.

If it's a big patch, it might take AJ 3-4 days to review it; with some
of my previous stuff, I waited a week just to be sure. That being said,
I second Stefan's advice. I've been where you are with the XEmbed
systray stuff, and I know it's tough, but it's doable--don't give up ;-)
Personally I think IRC is hands-down the best way to get advice from
Alexandre. I would have never gotten the systray stuff done if I had
never found him there. 

Also, it may be a good idea to let this stuff cool down a bit. This may
seem like a long time, but give it maybe three months or more before you
start messing with this again. What Stefan says about discussing patches
is true--it helps if there's not a lot of debate around a patch. 

If you're still having issues with some technical aspects of the patch,
try contacting the author of the original code. It's a bit of a long
shot if said developer isn't around anymore, but you might get lucky and
he may be able to give some guidance. I, for instance, was able to get
some help from the original author of the XEmebed systray patch to help
me get it in.

I'm really rooting for you. If I can do it, I know you can. Just be
patient and you'll pull through. :-)

Hope this helps,
James Liggett