[boost] Re: Regression report for Releases?

From: David Abrahams (dave_at_[hidden])
Date: 2005-03-21 10:07:06

Aleksey Gurtovoy <agurtovoy_at_[hidden]> writes:

> David Abrahams writes:
>> Agreed, it's too hard, but that shouldn't stop us from talking about
>> what we would be doing in an ideal world.  Accordingly:
>>
>>   - A health report for the latest release should always be available
>>     on the website.  
>
> Meaning user-oriented report showing whether she can use a specific
> library on a specific platform, or something else?

Yes.

>>
>>   - Regressions from the previous release are nice to know but less
>>     important.  
>
> I disagree. The are crutial for current Boost users, in particular in
> deciding whether to upgrade or not.

Okay, I buy that.

>>     I realize we show both in one report, but this may
>>     help us adjust our emphasis or coloring 
>
> ? We didn't establish yet that we _want_ to adjust our emphasis.

Chill, my friend.  I only meant, "should we decide it's neccessary."  

>>     (maybe it's already perfect in the user report; I don't know)
>
> I'm sure it's not perfect (and the user reports are currently in
> flux), but it's our current understanding that the needs of developers
> and users are different enough to warrant different
> emphasis/coloring/etc.

Agreed.

>>   - A health report for the current state of the repository should
>>     always be available on the website.
>
> I submit that a "health report" without regressions/explicit markup
> information is useless. What's your use case for it?

None.

>>   - There should be a way for a developer to request testing of a
>>     particular branch/set of revisions
>
> This can easy get out of control, though. How do we ensure that not
> all our resources are used to test something on some branch and the
> main trunk still gets what it needs to be tested on a regular basis?

Prioritization, lots of computing resources, and incremental rebuilds.

>>   - There should be enough computing power to handle all these tests
>>     in a timely fashion.
>
> Right, and some mechanism to make sure that when it's not the case,
> the mainstream testing gets priority.

Sure.

-- 
Dave Abrahams
Boost Consulting
www.boost-consulting.com