Problems with release note generator

[Kathey Marsden <km...@sbcglobal.net>]

I am playing with the release note generator and attempting to generate 
release notes using the instructions at:

 http://wiki.apache.org/db-derby/ReleaseNoteProcess

I am making some sort of mistake because I keep on getting empty release 
notes. I think it might be in how I create the xml  reports, 
fixedBugsList.xml   and  releaseNotesList.xml.  To generate 
fixedBugsList.xml I took a report in Jira and then chose XML then saved 
as XHTML only.  For releaseNotesList.xml I don't have any issues needing 
release notes at this time, so I just made a copy of fixedBugsList.xml 
and editted out the items.  The net result was that the release note 
generator ran without errors but does not list any changes in 
RELEASE-NOTES.html

Any ideas what I might be doing wrong. I am attaching the two files.

Kathey

Re: Problems with release note generator

[Myrna van Lunteren <m....@gmail.com>]

On 11/5/07, Rick Hillegas <Ri...@sun.com> wrote:
> Kathey Marsden wrote:
> > Well, I found my problem, The issue was that my release version  did
> > not match the fix version in the fixedBugsList.xml.  I am not sure the
> > best way to address this.  There are three options I can think of.
> >
> > 1) Change the release note generator to ignore the version in the
> > fixedBugsList.xml file.
> > 2) Merge version 10.3.1.5 to 10.3.2.0 when we bump the version so that
> > there is a match.
> > 3) Mark issues fixed in 10.3.1.5 also fixed in 10.3.2.0
> >
> > I tend to think option 1 makes the most sense. Since the user is
> > already generating the list of fixed bugs from a query in Jira. Thoughts?
> >
> > Kathey
> >
> >
> Hi Kathey,
>
> It appears that the 10.3 version of the ReleaseNotesGenerator has
> diverged from the version in the development mainline. The mainline
> version does something very simple: it just includes all of the bug
> fixes from the report which you produced. That is, it assumes that your
> jira query did all the necessary filtering. The 10.3 version takes
> another approach. The 10.3 version filters the jira report. I think the
> motivation behind this was that jira filtering wasn't competent enough
> to produce just the list of bugs we want to describe.
>
> It would be nice to steer toward the following goals:
>
> 1) A canonical jira query which can be cooked up just from the current
> and previous release ids. If we had such a query, then the
> ReleaseNotesGenerator could build this query itself and you would not
> need to produce the bugs list by hand.
>
> 2) A clear understanding of what additional filtering is done by the
> ReleaseNotesGenerator on the canonical jira report.
>
> Right now the division of labor between (1) and (2) is unclear to me. It
> seems to me that right now each release manager has to figure out what
> query to use for (1) and then has to adjust (2) accordingly.
>
> Your solution to your immediate problem is probably correct. It's hard
> for anyone else to say because we don't know what query you used to
> produce (1). I would say do what makes sense to you and fold your edits
> into the 10.3 version. Maybe when we come to 10.4 we can transfer the
> 10.3 lessons into the mainline version of ReleaseNotesGenerator and
> steer closer to our goals.
>
> Hope this is helpful,
> -Rick
>

My 2 cents: For 10.3, when I tried to get a useful xml report out of
JIRA (I used the 10.3/java/build/org/apache/derbyBuild/JiraConnector
for this) I found that the queries would not support multiple
conditions. This got progressively worse with each release candidate.
After attempting to figure this out for a long time, I went the path
of least resistance and - as Rick guessed - I edited the
ReleaseNotesGenerator.

Myrna

Re: Problems with release note generator

[Rick Hillegas <Ri...@Sun.COM>]

Kathey Marsden wrote:
> Well, I found my problem, The issue was that my release version  did 
> not match the fix version in the fixedBugsList.xml.  I am not sure the 
> best way to address this.  There are three options I can think of.
>
> 1) Change the release note generator to ignore the version in the 
> fixedBugsList.xml file.
> 2) Merge version 10.3.1.5 to 10.3.2.0 when we bump the version so that 
> there is a match.
> 3) Mark issues fixed in 10.3.1.5 also fixed in 10.3.2.0
>
> I tend to think option 1 makes the most sense. Since the user is 
> already generating the list of fixed bugs from a query in Jira. Thoughts?
>
> Kathey
>
>
Hi Kathey,

It appears that the 10.3 version of the ReleaseNotesGenerator has 
diverged from the version in the development mainline. The mainline 
version does something very simple: it just includes all of the bug 
fixes from the report which you produced. That is, it assumes that your 
jira query did all the necessary filtering. The 10.3 version takes 
another approach. The 10.3 version filters the jira report. I think the 
motivation behind this was that jira filtering wasn't competent enough 
to produce just the list of bugs we want to describe.

It would be nice to steer toward the following goals:

1) A canonical jira query which can be cooked up just from the current 
and previous release ids. If we had such a query, then the 
ReleaseNotesGenerator could build this query itself and you would not 
need to produce the bugs list by hand.

2) A clear understanding of what additional filtering is done by the 
ReleaseNotesGenerator on the canonical jira report.

Right now the division of labor between (1) and (2) is unclear to me. It 
seems to me that right now each release manager has to figure out what 
query to use for (1) and then has to adjust (2) accordingly.

Your solution to your immediate problem is probably correct. It's hard 
for anyone else to say because we don't know what query you used to 
produce (1). I would say do what makes sense to you and fold your edits 
into the 10.3 version. Maybe when we come to 10.4 we can transfer the 
10.3 lessons into the mainline version of ReleaseNotesGenerator and 
steer closer to our goals.

Hope this is helpful,
-Rick

Re: Problems with release note generator

[Kathey Marsden <km...@sbcglobal.net>]

Well, I found my problem, The issue was that my release version  did not 
match the fix version in the fixedBugsList.xml.  I am not sure the best 
way to address this.  There are three options I can think of.

1) Change the release note generator to ignore the version in the 
fixedBugsList.xml file.
2) Merge version 10.3.1.5 to 10.3.2.0 when we bump the version so that 
there is a match.
3) Mark issues fixed in 10.3.1.5 also fixed in 10.3.2.0

I tend to think option 1 makes the most sense. Since the user is already 
generating the list of fixed bugs from a query in Jira. Thoughts?

Kathey