Erik Moeller wrote:
First, there are many people with CVS access, and
there will be many more
soon. At some point, it is about as likely that all of them are
unavailable as the danger that all Wikipedians are suddenly unavailable to
fix a vandalized page.
Well, and currently there are so many with CVS but too few (23 vs 1)
checking and installing all those things. In fact I get the feeling that
there are great difference between CVS and 'live'-php files. We are in
'code-frezze' for about 2 weeks or so, if you remember.
Second, the idea is to use the test.wiki for experimenting, and to
announce it as such to our users. So they would help with the debugging
process.
Nice idea. Where is the german test-wikipedia? I only know about the
english one. Did not help a second to check if LanguageDE.php is working.
Give me another hint.
Third, nothing would stop us from doing emergency
bugfixes if absolutely
necessary.
Well. That's exactly the problem I see. Last ''good'' example was the
kernel. There was a mail about that one of them only supports 500MB and the
other 2GB. Unfortunaly Jimbo did't know that, before the reboot - pity. And
nobody switched the ''automatic'' (here called default) kernel. Fortunatly
someone remembered, but is the default kernel now switched? Are you sure?
took a look? - I'm paranoid, I know.
While I like having an admin do things manually, the
number of different
installations involved and the many people working on CVS code makes this
quite tricky. It seems like an obvious job for scripts. It works for
Debian, why shouldn't it work for us?
Sorry? What at debian works automaticlly and don't ask all 5 or 10 updates,
do you want it this way or that? I have a stable woody running as a server
and it ask me questions. Thats not automatic the way you described it.
But (nerver without one), write these nice scripts, get them running, if
possible yesterday because I bet the avtive and the CVS version of
LanguageDE.php have a diff of at leased 2 weeks, I don't know about the
rest. Well, possibly the last changes involved even some patches in other
files, I start forgetting these information. I think you will need about a
whole day to check the diffs between CVS and the installed version and the
english version for _one_ other language. And than still nothing is done.
And I still get querys about some missing translations, which I have to
answer: Sorry, everything in CVS for about 2 or 3 weeks. Let's wait. I
can't fix it. And I know there is a version of the Language file which
needs a patch in the SearchEngine. Simply installing only the Language file
won't work.
I don't complain someone personaly, don't missunderstood. I complain that
too few of all those guys having access to the machines help Brion with
that work. If those guys don't can/want or whatever do it, find one or two
others. Or make a script. Clone Brion. Do that twice. But don't wait to
long, because users starts easily loosing interests in projects nobody
seems to react. You and I, we know about this problems or can imagine them,
but others will took a look and say: What, this typo can't be fixed in
about 2 weeks? And they have how may Users? Ok, let's go somewhere else.
There is no difference between GNU or comecial software, the customers only
see how long it tooks to solve the problem.
And I do it the same way. There a code frezze for about 2 weeks now. Noboby
knows if Brion and Lee are working on the targets behind that code frezze,
or 20 other developers are twiddeling thumbs. And my reaction as a
developer? Why starting some further code, if I still not know about the
code 3 weeks old? Asking about some coding style guidance, no answers for
that mail, so coding restults will be put in CVS and you wait until someone
complains. Sorry that's usually no way to work and you switch to another
project. (Usually I talk to the project manager, give him a list and say:
"call me if the problems on this list are fixed, I took the nice weather to
take a nap of sunshine and you know that the customer will be angry if he
pays a lot of money for me doing that." Never seen problems fixed that fast
;)
Just call if everthing works as you proposed Erik :)
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