On Wed, Jun 1, 2011 at 9:09 PM, Russell N. Nelson - rnnelson rnnelson@clarkson.edu wrote:
I've done release engineering before. It is my considered opinion that one person needs to be on point for each release. It's possible that that person could rotate in and out, but one person needs to be running through the checklist of "things that need to be done".
I've mentioned on several occasions in the past that we should try this. If each branch (REL1_17, 1.17wmf1, REL1_18) had someone to babysit it, it would lead to less turnaround for things to get merged to various branches because someone would be the "go-to" person for getting a trunk change into the branch in question.
Prior to the 1.17beta1 release, a *huge* number of revs got queued up in CR because Roan stopped merging and then I finally noticed the list. As a result, I ended up having to sort through quite a few merges (in SVN, no less...) that were messy because we'd let too much time pass before merging them to where they need to be. Having someone who's job it is to keep an eye on their branch would ensure timely merges as well as keeping the branches in better shape IMO.
-Chad