On Thu, 1 Nov 2001 17:18:48 -0800, Chris Jeppesen wrote:
> To most of us, the mere mortal POV-Ray users, it is as if Pov appears
> magically on the web site, created from nothing by no one.

You mean that's not how it works?

> Would someone on the development team care to elaborate on the process which
> brings us this magnificent program? What methods do you use to discuss
> changes, track bugs, and convert the work of dozens of coders into one
> coherent program?

We discuss changes using English, usually.  Pick a technology that allows
you to send messages to someone else over the Internet and there's a good
chance that someone on the Team has used it to communicate with someone 
else on the Team at some point.  

Tracking bugs and keeping the source working is, as with most projects, the
work of a change management system.  It's not really that cool to look at
or to watch, but y'all get most of the entertaining stuff in the lists o'
changes that accompany beta versions (Well, it's sanitized a bit for your
protection.  I tend to check things in with comments like "Ron needs a
refresher course in Boolean Logic."[1] or "Actually fixed the bug my last
change was supposed to have fixed."  Y'all don't get those comments.)

In any case, there aren't really dozens of coders.  There are far, far fewer 
than a dozen people actually working on the core code.

> Best of all would be some kind of read-only "spectator" access to whatever
> forum the developers use.

I think Warp's comments are applicable here.  It's not likely, both for the
reasons he mentioned and because, while there is an official place that
most discussions that require the participation of everyone take place, there 
are always other things being talked about between one or two people in email 
or whatever.

Besides, it's like sausage or the law: if you like it, you don't want to 
know how it's made.

[1] Those of you with access to the raw, unedited change list will not find
this comment anywhere.  It's merely an example, and in fact it's drawn from
the change list of an entirely different project that someone is actually
silly enough to pay me to work on.

-- 
plane{-z,-3normal{crackle scale.2#local a=5;#while(a)warp{repeat x flip x}rotate
z*60#local a=a-1;#end translate-9*x}pigment{rgb 1}}light_source{-9red 1rotate 60
*z}light_source{-9rgb y rotate-z*60}light_source{9-z*18rgb z}text{ttf"arial.ttf"
"RP".01,0translate-<.6,.4,.02>pigment{bozo}}light_source{-z*3rgb-.2}//Ron Parker

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