Re: [boost] [1.35.0] Tickets, Milestone, Testing

From: David Abrahams (dave_at_[hidden])
Date: 2007-12-03 10:10:18

on Thu Nov 08 2007, David Abrahams <dave-AT-boost-consulting.com> wrote:

> on Thu Nov 08 2007, Marshall Clow <marshall-AT-idio.com> wrote:
>
>>>  >  My point was that we should focus on making
>>>  > 
>>>http://svn.boost.org/trac/boost/query?status=new&status=assigned&status=reopened&group=severity&milestone=Boost+1.35.0&order=priority
>>>>  (the list of tickets assigned to the 1.35.0 milestone) a meaningful
>>>>  report for this release.
>>>>
>>>>  That means establishing a 1.36.0 milestone, declaring the criteria for
>>>>  including a ticket in 1.35.0, telling people that if they want an
>>>>  exception they have to get you to okay it, and maybe making any
>>>>  assignments of tickets to 1.35.0 and 1.36.0 that are obvious.  Then we
>>>>  all have a list of issues to focus on killing off and we don't need to
>>>>  pester people as much.
>>>>
>>>>  If you would like me to take on some of these tasks, please ask me.
>>>
>>>[dead silence since Monday]
>>>
>>>Am I really the only one that thinks this matters?  I realize that as
>>>a project we don't have a lot of experience with effective use of bug
>>>and task tracking, but we also haven't been all that effective in the
>>>run-up to a release.  Using the tools we have effectively can make a
>>>big difference.
>>
>> FWIW - I think you're on the right track here.
>>
>> The bugs in this report are the ones that someone has decided "need
>> to be dealt with" for this release, 
>
> I'm not so sure.  I don't think we've been paying enough attention to
> guarantee that anyone really made a conscious decision about which
> milestone each issue should be in, so while the report above should be
> meaningful, I think it probably isn't meaningful yet.
>
> That means, IMO, that all open tickets should be reviewed for
> milestone assignment.

It's even worse than that, as
http://svn.boost.org/trac/boost/ticket/1079 shows, we have completely
inconsistent practices as relates to the bug tracker.  Some people
actually close tickets that they plan to deal with later.  That means
we need to review even the closed tickets.

If we want Boost-wide reports to make any sense, this confusion has to
stop.  We need a consistent set of practices that everyone will use to
deal with tickets.

I'll add some more "rules" to
http://svn.boost.org/trac/boost/wiki/TicketWorkflow.  These are, of
course, negotiable, but I really hope nobody will negotiate too hard
against them ;-).  In the meantime, I've added a 1.36.0 milestone so
anyone with a ticket they want to handle sometime down the road can
the milestone to that.

Regards,

-- 
Dave Abrahams
Boost Consulting
http://www.boost-consulting.com