Re: [boost] Library Review Tool (paging Jeff Garland) -- was : Re: [xint] Formal Review Result

Subject: Re: [boost] Library Review Tool (paging Jeff Garland) -- was : Re: [xint] Formal Review Result
From: Thomas Heller (thom.heller_at_[hidden])
Date: 2011-05-04 08:40:51

On Wed, May 4, 2011 at 2:28 PM, Hartmut Kaiser <hartmut.kaiser_at_[hidden]> wrote:
>> > Some time ago we all had a discussion like this and I believe Jeff
>> > Garland had mentioned Smart Bear's CodeCollaborator to aid in Boost
>> > Reviews. I used their product for a short time and was just taking a
>> > look at their web site again:
>> >
>> > <http://smartbear.com/products/development-tools/code-review/features/
>> > >
>> >
>> > I know there are other tools also (like Crucible) but CodeCollaborator
>> > also allows reviews of html docs which will obviously be handy. IIRC
>> > Jeff had mentioned that SmartBear might be willing to provide
>> > licensing for Boost (or opensource .. it is all fuzzy). I believe Jeff
>> > was in contact with them... but my memory might be failing (Jeff?? Are
>> > you there?)
>> >
>> > I would be willing to investigate this path further, including the
>> > administration and such of the tool, if it is of interest to the
>> > community.
>> >
>> >
>> > michael
>> >
>>
>>
>> Some of us on IRC (Thomas Heller, Jeroen Habraken, and I) played with demo
>> projects this past hour in both CodeCollaborator and Crucible. So far,
>> Crucible seems the easiest to follow. The interface provides general
>> threaded discussions also. The only thing that seems lacking at first
>> glance is the ability to review HTML docs.
>>
>> Feel free to take a look and provide some feedback!
>>
>> http://sandbox.fisheye.atlassian.com/cru/CR-822
>>
>>
>> The main Crucible site can be found here:
>> http://www.atlassian.com/software/crucible/
>
> How permanent are those reviews? Will we be able to go back in a couple of
> years and see what went on? Generally mailing lists have proven to be quite
> resilient to websites going down, that's why I somehow prefer having all
> discussions here...

If we decide to use tools like these, we most certainly need to set up
our own servers.
The Boost maintainer will have full control over the saved content
(reviews). This is similar
for having trac for bugs instead of sending patches around by mail, or
having svn as
source code management instead of sending tarballs around by mail.

After playing around with this tool a bit, I think it has several
advantages over email discussions:
1) The code can be reviewed directly. You have a code browser where
reviewers can comment directly
    inside the code.
3) Discussions are directly related to the reviewed library. The ML
discussion "noise" is gone.
    An implication of this is also that one can easily find
information related to one specific review, without
   having to wade through millions of mailing list messages/threads.
4) You can see exactly how has reviewed, or will be reviewing the library.
5) You can set the review schedule in the tool, basically getting the
review schedule for free.
6) It provides a "Snippet" tool similar to codepad.org which can be
linked to during a review, being a persistent
    replacement for codepad for showing some simple code.

Since crucible has a plugin system, I am pretty sure we can come up
with a solution that sends the discussions going
on to some boost review mailing list, serving as backup to this web interface