[teampractices] Phabricator terminology change (blocking->subtasks)

[Kevin Smith]

(Mostly) Max: Jira only allowed 3 levels of tasks, which was frustrating.
If phab adds "types" of subtasks, I hope it doesn't fall into that same
trap.

(Mostly) Joel: Yes, I would definitely favor distinguishing between
blocking tasks and subtasks. Trying to cover both cases with one set of
terms is very awkward, as one of my examples demonstrated:  "implement X"
certainly doesn't feel like a subtask of "document X", but that's how it
will appear in phab right now.




Kevin Smith
Agile Coach, Wikimedia Foundation


On Fri, Jul 1, 2016 at 11:27 AM, Max Binder <mbinder at wikimedia.org> wrote:

> Technically, yes.
>
> This distinguishes tasks that are subtasks of already-estimated (story
> pointed) tasks, so to avoid double estimation. JIRA, for example, has
> blocking tasks and subtasks, presumably for this purpose.
>
> On Fri, Jul 1, 2016 at 10:40 AM, Joel Aufrecht <jaufrecht at wikimedia.org>
> wrote:
>
>> aren't those both parent/child relationships?  What's the difference?
>>
>>
>>
>> *-- Joel Aufrecht*
>> Team Practices Group
>> Wikimedia Foundation
>>
>> On Fri, Jul 1, 2016 at 10:39 AM, Max Binder <mbinder at wikimedia.org>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> I know my teams would love to distinguish between subtasks (of tasks
>>> with story points) and children (of epics). I don't think that is possible
>>> right now, so they often use the title prefix "[Subtask]".
>>>
>>> On Fri, Jul 1, 2016 at 10:25 AM, Joel Aufrecht <jaufrecht at wikimedia.org>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Should we make (or find and join) a request that they provide a way to
>>>> differentiate between the two cases?  Possible uses:
>>>>
>>>> different display in the UI
>>>> use in data analysis, e.g., summing up tasks by summing up their
>>>> subtasks (and not dependencies)
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> *-- Joel Aufrecht*
>>>> Team Practices Group
>>>> Wikimedia Foundation
>>>>
>>>> On Fri, Jul 1, 2016 at 9:56 AM, Kevin Smith <ksmith at wikimedia.org>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> This week, phabricator changed the terminology it uses for managing
>>>>> dependencies between tasks. What has been called "Blocking"/"Blocked by" is
>>>>> now called "Parent"/"Subtask". Ignoring phab terminology for a minute, here
>>>>> are the two basic cases these terms are covering:
>>>>>
>>>>> 1. *Sequential dependencies.* For example, if "Implement feature X"
>>>>> needed to be complete before "Document feature X", then the implementation
>>>>> task would Block the document task, and the document task would be blocked
>>>>> by the implement task.
>>>>>
>>>>> 2. *Composition relationships/task breakdown.* For example, if
>>>>> "deploy feature X" consisted of "implement feature X" and "document feature
>>>>> X", then the deploy task might be a parent, while the implement and
>>>>> document tasks would be subtasks.
>>>>>
>>>>> Until recently, phab has used the blocking/blocked by term to cover
>>>>> both cases. A parent task would be blocked by its subtasks. There was a
>>>>> command to create a subtask, which would create the appropriate blocking
>>>>> relationships.
>>>>>
>>>>> Now, phab uses the parent/subtask terminology to cover both cases. In
>>>>> the sequential tasks case, the endpoint would be considered the parent, so
>>>>> in the example above, "document" would be the parent, and "implement" would
>>>>> be its subtask. Note that a task may have multiple "parents".
>>>>>
>>>>> A nice feature they added is the ability to manage the parent/subtask
>>>>> relationship from either end. While editing a task, you can change its
>>>>> subtasks or its parents. Previously, you could only edit one direction.
>>>>>
>>>>> I created T139181 as a task to update our wiki phab documentation.
>>>>>
>>>>> Kevin Smith
>>>>> Agile Coach, Wikimedia Foundation
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> teampractices mailing list
>>>>> teampractices at lists.wikimedia.org
>>>>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/teampractices
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
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