On Wed, Jun 1, 2011 at 11:50 PM, MZMcBride z@mzmcbride.com wrote:
I'm still trying to understand the nature of this problem. I think that's what's bothering me the most at the moment. It's frustrating that I still can't quite figure out exactly what the issue is [with code deployment being so slow] and why it isn't being resolved (even if I don't hold out much hope for an actual resolution being implemented). To me, the solution seems a lot more obvious than it does to others, a point that I'm still struggling with in my head.
As far as I can tell, the people in charge have just prioritized other projects over reviewing volunteers' code. Presumably that's because they think those projects are more important than reviewing volunteers' code. It seems pretty straightforward to me.
On Thu, Jun 2, 2011 at 12:10 AM, Brandon Harris bharris@wikimedia.org wrote:
Your solution, as you've described it in the past, comprises "people do code review or orf wit' dere heads".
I know of no professional developer who has dignity who will work under those conditions. So it's untenable.
I propose we stop focusing on the "do this or you're fired" style thinking and instead move towards more constructive process.
Um, how is "please spend today reducing the code review backlog" any different from "please spend today working on further issues in ArticleFeedback" or whatever? Developers are assigned to particular tasks by managers. You can't just assign them to any old task as though they're automatons, but I don't see what exactly is so untenable about assigning people to do code review. Wikimedia did it for 1.17. Tons of other organizations that produce open-source projects assign their employees to spend part of their time reviewing code: Mozilla, Google (for things like Chromium and WebKit), Apple (WebKit), etc., etc.
So I really don't get what you're saying here. Superficially, you seem to be saying that managers cannot assign developers to do specific things at all, but you can't possibly mean that. Do you feel there's some reason it's less practical to assign people to review code than to write it?
On Thu, Jun 2, 2011 at 12:35 AM, Tim Starling tstarling@wikimedia.org wrote:
In case anyone's wondering what I think of this, I was pretty blunt last time around:
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2011-April/052893.html
To be any more blunt than that, I'd have to press the caps lock key ;)
Do you think this should be the policy for all code? Because I'm noticing a pretty decent number of commits being deployed right now:
http://svn.wikimedia.org/viewvc/mediawiki/branches/wmf/1.17wmf1/?view=log
Some of them are things like "Merge ArticleFeedback to trunk state". Do you feel that projects like ArticleFeedback should also be deployed only once every few months? Or are they different for some reason?