[OPEN-ILS-DEV] a request regarding development communication in the bug tracker

[Kathy Lussier]

Hi Chris,

Thank you for sending this e-mail! For the past week, I've been mulling 
over the issue of how we can improve the process of proposing 
development projects, particularly those that are large in scale or 
change existing functionality, and to see more collaboration among 
developers earlier on in the process. I think we can all agree there was 
a breakdown in the process for this particular project.

Development plans were shared early on through Launchpad and through an 
e-mail to the general list. However, I think one constant challenge is 
capturing the attention of fellow developers to get their feedback at 
the time you need it. Let's face it, we're all busy, and we all have 
been in a situations where we're so wrapped up in other projects (i.e. 
our jobs) that we might not be able to give feedback on a project at the 
time it is sought. Sometimes, you hit gold and  you get a lot of early 
feedback that helps you adapt your development plans. But it doesn't 
always happen.

I give a +1 for these discussions occurring on the general list, but I 
would like to think more about how to improve that collaboration early 
on to help the process run more smoothly. A couple of ideas I've had:

- IRC discussions about a particular project need to be recorded 
somewhere. I understand that the real-time nature of IRC sometimes makes 
it easier to collaborate on a development project, but, once those 
conversations are over, they need to be recorded either on the Launchpad 
report or in the ongoing e-mail thread.  I would like to see 
reservations or support for a particular development approach to be 
recorded in the LP report or e-mail thread as well.

- I would like to propose that proposals for large development projects 
or those that change existing functionality be placed on the agenda for 
developers meetings. The plans should be shared a few days before those 
meetings to give developers a chance to review them. I think this helps 
the issue where development projects shared via the proper channels 
don't always receive the feedback they otherwise would have received if 
everyone were paying close attention. The developers meetings are one 
time during the month where one developer can get the attention of all 
the other committers in the community. Of course, the results of those 
discussion should also be recorded in any ongoing e-mail threads.

Thanks again Chris!

Kathy


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

On 3/5/2014 8:58 AM, Sharp, Chris wrote:
> Good Morning All,
>
> I've had my head down with local projects since early January, so I'm just now able to tune in a bit on 2.6 development.  I was just chatting with Ben Shum about some 2.6 new features and I came across the discussion happening on https://bugs.launchpad.net/evergreen/+bug/1198465.  The discussion goes pretty deeply into the rationale for the features being proposed and/or developed, and I would like to request that those sorts of discussions happen here on this list rather than within the dark depths of Launchpad.
>
> I happen to subscribe to Launchpad bug mail, so I get every communication of new bugs, status changes, and comments added, but I don't always have the time/bandwidth to tune in to every email that comes through (especially during bug retargeting times like now).  I do, however, read every email that comes to this and the Open-ILS-General lists.  When I first started learning about the inner workings of Free and Open Source Software projects, I purchased "Producing Open Source Software" by Karl Fogel (http://producingoss.com/), which I think is a great guide for projects like ours written by a veteran of the Subversion project (one of our SFC cousins, incidentally).  In his chapter on communication, he has a section entitled "No Conversations in the Bug Tracker", that I think is worth a read: http://producingoss.com/en/bug-tracker-usage.html.
>
> Given the availability and higher visibility of this list, the difficulty of navigating/searching Launchpad, and perhaps most importantly, the fact that we have recurring discussions about ditching Launchpad in favor of some other bug tracker, I'd like to request that we have discussions like the one on bug 1198465 on the public lists instead.  I'm welcome to alternative opinions on this, so feel free to respond frankly!
>
> Thanks,
>
> Chris
>