[OPEN-ILS-DEV] Sandboxes for Bug Squashing Days

[Kathy Lussier]

Hi all,

Following up on the bug squashing day discussion from yesterday's dev 
meeting, I'm following up on my action item to continue discussion of 
test sandboxes for the Bug Squashing Day.

During the meeting, MOBIUS volunteered a test server to be used as a 
Sandbox (thank you Justin!). The Koha community has Sandboxes available 
for use by the community, and Galen described them as being fairly 
automated. A user specifies a bug number in the interface, and, a few 
minutes later, an Evergreen instance is running with the patch applied. 
We were discussing the need to probably do a more manual process for 
Evergreen sandboxes. Testers would need to volunteer to test patches 
ahead of time to give people time to set up the Sandboxes.

However, after the meeting, I talked with Jason Stephenson and Thomas 
Berezansky at MVLC about the possibility of using a MassLNC server for 2 
to 3 VM's that could be used as sandboxes on bug squashing day. They 
also have ideas for making the process automated, similar to the 
sandboxes that are used in the Koha community, and would be able to 
share code with MOBIUS and anyone else who might want to volunteer a 
server. If they're successful, then I don't think it's as critical for 
people to claim bugs ahead of time. We can report back when Jason and 
Thomas have made more progress.

I think the availability of Sandboxes raises some other questions. If 
the idea is for the Sandboxes is to make it easier for more people to 
test patches, do we also expect those people to do git signoffs too. If 
so, I think it might be a good idea to have some screencasts showing 
people how to do a git signoff with something like Git GUI, but I also 
wanted to raise the question of whether it is necessary or if we might 
want to accept LP bug comments as a sign off?

Are there other potential issues people see with the use of these Sandboxes?

Thanks!
Kathy

-- 
Kathy Lussier
Project Coordinator
Massachusetts Library Network Cooperative
(508) 343-0128
klussier at masslnc.org
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/kmlussier