Thread: Re: New idea for patch tracking
> ------- Original Message ------- > From: Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us> > To: PostgreSQL-development <pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org> > Sent: 05/05/07, 03:00:25 > Subject: [HACKERS] New idea for patch tracking > > As for #3, again, I don't want us to take on a burdensome patch tracking > process that is more effort than it is worth, and the lack of people > jumping to even manage a simple web page for current 8.3 patches has me > questioning what kind of support a burdensome tracking system would > receive. I don't recall hearing you ask for people to help with a web page. > What I think we can do simply is to have our email software automatically > number emails submitted to the patches list that already don't have a > number. This way, all followups, even if moved to the hackers list, would > maintain that patch number, and if an updated version is posted, the user > would keep the same number in the email subject. <snip tracker outline> Barring a few trivial details, that sounds almost identical to what I proposed. Regards, Dave
Dave Page wrote: > > > > ------- Original Message ------- > > From: Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us> > > To: PostgreSQL-development <pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org> > > Sent: 05/05/07, 03:00:25 > > Subject: [HACKERS] New idea for patch tracking > > > > As for #3, again, I don't want us to take on a burdensome patch tracking > > process that is more effort than it is worth, and the lack of people > > jumping to even manage a simple web page for current 8.3 patches has me > > questioning what kind of support a burdensome tracking system would > > receive. > > I don't recall hearing you ask for people to help with a web page. I want create and maintain a web page that tracks where we are on each 8.3 patch, but have had not takers. > > What I think we can do simply is to have our email software automatically > > number emails submitted to the patches list that already don't have a > > number. This way, all followups, even if moved to the hackers list, would > > maintain that patch number, and if an updated version is posted, the user > > would keep the same number in the email subject. > > <snip tracker outline> > > Barring a few trivial details, that sounds almost identical to what I > proposed. Well, Andrew says everyone he talks to doesn't want it. They want a more comprehensive solution that goes from bug to patch. -- Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us> http://momjian.us EnterpriseDB http://www.enterprisedb.com + If your life is a hard drive, Christ can be your backup. +
Bruce Momjian wrote: > Dave Page wrote: >> >>> ------- Original Message ------- >>> From: Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us> >>> To: PostgreSQL-development <pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org> >>> Sent: 05/05/07, 03:00:25 >>> Subject: [HACKERS] New idea for patch tracking >>> >>> As for #3, again, I don't want us to take on a burdensome patch tracking >>> process that is more effort than it is worth, and the lack of people >>> jumping to even manage a simple web page for current 8.3 patches has me >>> questioning what kind of support a burdensome tracking system would >>> receive. >> I don't recall hearing you ask for people to help with a web page. > > I want create and maintain a web page that tracks where we are on each > 8.3 patch, but have had not takers. are you thinking about something like http://developer.postgresql.org/index.php/Todo:WishlistFor83 on steriods (ie with more references to actual patches and discussion and explaination of functionality) or something completely different ? I'm a bit unsure on how this webpage would differ from a typical bugtracker ... Maybe you could give a concrete example for a particular patch in the queue so that everybody can follow ? Stefan
Stefan Kaltenbrunner wrote: > Bruce Momjian wrote: > > Dave Page wrote: > >> > >>> ------- Original Message ------- > >>> From: Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us> > >>> To: PostgreSQL-development <pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org> > >>> Sent: 05/05/07, 03:00:25 > >>> Subject: [HACKERS] New idea for patch tracking > >>> > >>> As for #3, again, I don't want us to take on a burdensome patch tracking > >>> process that is more effort than it is worth, and the lack of people > >>> jumping to even manage a simple web page for current 8.3 patches has me > >>> questioning what kind of support a burdensome tracking system would > >>> receive. > >> I don't recall hearing you ask for people to help with a web page. > > > > I want create and maintain a web page that tracks where we are on each > > 8.3 patch, but have had not takers. > > are you thinking about something like > http://developer.postgresql.org/index.php/Todo:WishlistFor83 on steriods > (ie with more references to actual patches and discussion and > explaination of functionality) or something completely different ? > I'm a bit unsure on how this webpage would differ from a typical > bugtracker ... > Maybe you could give a concrete example for a particular patch in the > queue so that everybody can follow ? At this point, just one line for each patch, and who is working on it: Patch, Author CommitterHOT Pavan ?XML misc Peteretc. -- Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us> http://momjian.us EnterpriseDB http://www.enterprisedb.com + If your life is a hard drive, Christ can be your backup. +
Bruce Momjian wrote: > Stefan Kaltenbrunner wrote: >> Bruce Momjian wrote: >>> Dave Page wrote: >>>>> ------- Original Message ------- >>>>> From: Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us> >>>>> To: PostgreSQL-development <pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org> >>>>> Sent: 05/05/07, 03:00:25 >>>>> Subject: [HACKERS] New idea for patch tracking >>>>> >>>>> As for #3, again, I don't want us to take on a burdensome patch tracking >>>>> process that is more effort than it is worth, and the lack of people >>>>> jumping to even manage a simple web page for current 8.3 patches has me >>>>> questioning what kind of support a burdensome tracking system would >>>>> receive. >>>> I don't recall hearing you ask for people to help with a web page. >>> I want create and maintain a web page that tracks where we are on each >>> 8.3 patch, but have had not takers. >> are you thinking about something like >> http://developer.postgresql.org/index.php/Todo:WishlistFor83 on steriods >> (ie with more references to actual patches and discussion and >> explaination of functionality) or something completely different ? >> I'm a bit unsure on how this webpage would differ from a typical >> bugtracker ... >> Maybe you could give a concrete example for a particular patch in the >> queue so that everybody can follow ? > > At this point, just one line for each patch, and who is working on it: > > Patch, Author Committer > HOT Pavan ? > XML misc Peter > etc. > that would be easy to do on either the wishlist or a seperate wiki page and I would volunteer to do that if you think it is useful. Stefan
Stefan Kaltenbrunner wrote: > Bruce Momjian wrote: > > Stefan Kaltenbrunner wrote: > >> Bruce Momjian wrote: > >>> Dave Page wrote: > >>>>> ------- Original Message ------- > >>>>> From: Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us> > >>>>> To: PostgreSQL-development <pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org> > >>>>> Sent: 05/05/07, 03:00:25 > >>>>> Subject: [HACKERS] New idea for patch tracking > >>>>> > >>>>> As for #3, again, I don't want us to take on a burdensome patch tracking > >>>>> process that is more effort than it is worth, and the lack of people > >>>>> jumping to even manage a simple web page for current 8.3 patches has me > >>>>> questioning what kind of support a burdensome tracking system would > >>>>> receive. > >>>> I don't recall hearing you ask for people to help with a web page. > >>> I want create and maintain a web page that tracks where we are on each > >>> 8.3 patch, but have had not takers. > >> are you thinking about something like > >> http://developer.postgresql.org/index.php/Todo:WishlistFor83 on steriods > >> (ie with more references to actual patches and discussion and > >> explaination of functionality) or something completely different ? > >> I'm a bit unsure on how this webpage would differ from a typical > >> bugtracker ... > >> Maybe you could give a concrete example for a particular patch in the > >> queue so that everybody can follow ? > > > > At this point, just one line for each patch, and who is working on it: > > > > Patch, Author Committer > > HOT Pavan ? > > XML misc Peter > > etc. > > > > that would be easy to do on either the wishlist or a seperate wiki page > and I would volunteer to do that if you think it is useful. OK, you have to go back to Tom's email stating where we are on each patch, then look over the patch application and find out which ones have been applied. Also you have to read the replies to find out who has taken ownership of patches. -- Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us> http://momjian.us EnterpriseDB http://www.enterprisedb.com + If your life is a hard drive, Christ can be your backup. +
Bruce Momjian wrote: > Dave Page wrote: >> Barring a few trivial details, that sounds almost identical to what I proposed. > > Well, Andrew says everyone he talks to doesn't want it. They want a more comprehensive solution that goes from bug to patch. Dave can speak for his own views, but I think you're misquoting me somewhat. I said that a majority of developers wanted to move to use of a tracking system, not "everyone". I did say that this patch tracker would be "at best a half measure in almost everyone's eyes". Note the "almost". That doesn't mean nobody wants it. Possibly some see significant benefit where I see little or none. Clearly Dave does. But it does mean that it's not what most people really want. I would be prepared to put considerable effort (say, comparable to what I have put into the buildfarm) into establishing and maintaining a feature/bug tracker system, if I thought there was enough buyin. I have not done so in the past because others (principally you) have been against it, and so it seemed doomed to failure. Unlike the buildfarm, which can stand on its own, a tracker requires cooperation from the developers in order to be effective. Our present change management methods strike me as being analogous to keeping track of a banking system in a spreadsheet (don't get me started). It's quite ironic (not to mention sad) given that we are producing a sophisticated database ... cheers andrew
Bruce Momjian wrote: > Stefan Kaltenbrunner wrote: >> Bruce Momjian wrote: >>> Stefan Kaltenbrunner wrote: >>>> Bruce Momjian wrote: >>>>> Dave Page wrote: >>>>>>> ------- Original Message ------- >>>>>>> From: Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us> >>>>>>> To: PostgreSQL-development <pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org> >>>>>>> Sent: 05/05/07, 03:00:25 >>>>>>> Subject: [HACKERS] New idea for patch tracking >>>>>>> >>>>>>> As for #3, again, I don't want us to take on a burdensome patch tracking >>>>>>> process that is more effort than it is worth, and the lack of people >>>>>>> jumping to even manage a simple web page for current 8.3 patches has me >>>>>>> questioning what kind of support a burdensome tracking system would >>>>>>> receive. >>>>>> I don't recall hearing you ask for people to help with a web page. >>>>> I want create and maintain a web page that tracks where we are on each >>>>> 8.3 patch, but have had not takers. >>>> are you thinking about something like >>>> http://developer.postgresql.org/index.php/Todo:WishlistFor83 on steriods >>>> (ie with more references to actual patches and discussion and >>>> explaination of functionality) or something completely different ? >>>> I'm a bit unsure on how this webpage would differ from a typical >>>> bugtracker ... >>>> Maybe you could give a concrete example for a particular patch in the >>>> queue so that everybody can follow ? >>> At this point, just one line for each patch, and who is working on it: >>> >>> Patch, Author Committer >>> HOT Pavan ? >>> XML misc Peter >>> etc. >>> >> that would be easy to do on either the wishlist or a seperate wiki page >> and I would volunteer to do that if you think it is useful. > > OK, you have to go back to Tom's email stating where we are on each > patch, then look over the patch application and find out which ones have > been applied. Also you have to read the replies to find out who has > taken ownership of patches. ok I did a rough sketch of how I interpreted your proposal on http://developer.postgresql.org/index.php/Todo:PatchStatus. This table is by far not complete yet(more of a PoC) but I wanted to get some feedback if I'm on the right track before I put more time into this. Stefan
> ------- Original Message ------- > From: Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us> > To: Dave Page <dpage@postgresql.org> > Sent: 05/05/07, 11:06:37 > Subject: Re: [HACKERS] New idea for patch tracking > > > <snip tracker outline> > > > > Barring a few trivial details, that sounds almost identical to what I > > proposed. > > Well, Andrew says everyone he talks to doesn't want it. They want a > more comprehensive solution that goes from bug to patch. > I don't recall him saying that, though I do know that's /his/ opinion. It's certainly *not* the opinion of most of the peopleI've spoken with. I don't disagree with the idea in principle though, but I don't believe it will work for us because it's so fundamentallydifferent from the way we currently work and still wouldn't solve the problem of capturing all the relevantdiscussion regarding a given patch (or bug) without a reasonable amount of manual work, or grafting a large partof what I'm proposing on the side. Regards, Dave
On May 5, 2007, at 11:40 AM, Dave Page wrote: >>> <snip tracker outline> >>> >>> Barring a few trivial details, that sounds almost identical to >>> what I >>> proposed. >> >> Well, Andrew says everyone he talks to doesn't want it. They want a >> more comprehensive solution that goes from bug to patch. >> > > I don't recall him saying that, though I do know that's /his/ > opinion. It's certainly *not* the opinion of most of the people > I've spoken with. > > I don't disagree with the idea in principle though, but I don't > believe it will work for us because it's so fundamentally different > from the way we currently work and still wouldn't solve the problem > of capturing all the relevant discussion regarding a given patch > (or bug) without a reasonable amount of manual work, or grafting a > large part of what I'm proposing on the side. IIRC, every recent debate about going to a bug/issue (and now patch) tracker has ultimately boiled down to the impact it would have on our current work processes: it has to work 100% painlessly off of the mailing lists. It's got to do more than just pipe changes to the mailing list; it's got to be able to be driven by the list as well. That's the real challenging part. People have suggested different trackers that have varying amounts of email capability, but I don't think any of them have had the full capability that we'd need. At best they might accept comments on a bug/issue via email, but to work for the community they'd need to go beyond that. You'd have to be able to resolve via email (preferably tied to -commiters). You'd need to be able to make a bug as invalid. You'd need to be able to open a new issue via email. And change status. And assign it to someone. And it would have to actually thread discussion to be useful. Probably some other things as well. Since a system like that doesn't exist I think it's going to be up to us to create one. When it comes to the full set of features you'd expect out of an issue tracker, it would probably make sense to start with an existing project and try and add this functionality. But right now I don't think such an effort would work well, because we don't know well enough how all these new features should work. But writing a patch tracker would be simpler than a full issue tracker. It's also something we could more easily do in a piece-meal fashion, since the only users will be developers. Building such a tool would provide a wealth of experience that could then be applied to tackling a full-blown issue tracking system. The system Bruce and Dave have outlined shouldn't be terribly hard to implement. Let's start with that and see what we learn (as I've already told Dave, this is something I'll help with). Otherwise we'll once again have spent another chunk of community effort on a tracker discussion that results in nothing being done (I guess it has been 6 months since it was last brought up, so we were due again anyway...) -- Jim Nasby jim@nasby.net EnterpriseDB http://enterprisedb.com 512.569.9461 (cell)
Jim Nasby wrote:
> People have suggested different trackers that have varying amounts of
> email capability, but I don't think any of them have had the full
> capability that we'd need. At best they might accept comments on a
> bug/issue via email, but to work for the community they'd need to go
> beyond that. You'd have to be able to resolve via email (preferably tied
> to -commiters). You'd need to be able to make a bug as invalid. You'd
> need to be able to open a new issue via email. And change status. And
> assign it to someone. And it would have to actually thread discussion to
> be useful. Probably some other things as well.
As I wrote few days ago. You can see how and what use e.g. Apache Derby
community. I guess more of mentioned issues they have solved and we can
take some of their ideas. However I still miss list of tracker
requirements - what tracker MUST have and what is nice to have.
And you describe current processes based on email communication. But if
we setup some tracker some process will be changed. I think first step
is determine what we really want and after we can discuss how to reach it.
> Since a system like that doesn't exist I think it's going to be up to us
> to create one. When it comes to the full set of features you'd expect
> out of an issue tracker, it would probably make sense to start with an
> existing project and try and add this functionality. But right now I
> don't think such an effort would work well, because we don't know well
> enough how all these new features should work.
Create own tracker is reinvent a wheel and waste a time. There are a lot
of trackers and I believe that one of them fit postgres requirements. I
agree with your idea to try one and if it will be necessary we can add
some functionality. But I think that there are not clear requirements
and I also afraid that there is not unified view of core team on this.
I suggest following process:
1) create list of requirements - MUST HAVE/NICE TO HAVE
2) create list of tracker
3) reject trackers which does not fit "MUST HAVE"
4) each member of core team create own order
5) results will be put together and one tracker will be select for testing.
Zdenek
On May 7, 2007, at 7:47 AM, Zdenek Kotala wrote: > Jim Nasby wrote: > And you describe current processes based on email communication. > But if we setup some tracker some process will be changed. I think > first step is determine what we really want and after we can > discuss how to reach it. If we lived in an ideal world I'd agree with you 100%. But we live in PostgreSQL-community-world. :) There is a *lot* of resistance in the development community to going to any kind of a tracker, even if it would mean essentially zero change to how the development has to work. If you don't believe me go look in the archives; I believe this debate happens about twice a year, and every time the result is the same: lots of emails, zero change. > Create own tracker is reinvent a wheel and waste a time. There are > a lot of trackers and I believe that one of them fit postgres > requirements. I agree with your idea to try one and if it will be > necessary we can add some functionality. But I think that there are > not clear requirements and I also afraid that there is not unified > view of core team on this. Yes, when it comes to doing a full-blown tracker it would be a huge amount of wheel reinvention. But that's not the case with a simple patch tracker. Let's take the baby step of a patch tracker first and see what we learn from it. -- Jim Nasby jim@nasby.net EnterpriseDB http://enterprisedb.com 512.569.9461 (cell)