Post Branch Enhancements (was Re: Ofbiz Contribution Proposal)

[Chris Howe <cj...@yahoo.com>]

I sense this discussion may be hijacking Karl's thread, thus the
subject change.  Karl's proposal looks very interesting and deserves
its own thread.

<trying to turn this to constructive dialog>
Jonathon, which enhancement are you speaking of that hasn't had the
opportunity to be reviewed sufficiently?  

As soon as the formal vote concludes on the branch, I'm sure there will
be a lot of dialog about direction and features and approaches to bug
fixes in the coming days and weeks.  

If someone replies to this, please cut of the (was...) in the subject


--- Jonathon -- Improov <jo...@improov.com> wrote:

> David,
> 
>  > "We" do not now, nor have we ever, turned away a contribution
> because it
>  > was complex.
> 
> Very well, I'll just use the word "you" then. I take it that you do
> not turn away contributions 
> because they were complex.
> 
> The question from me would be whether you do or do not turn away,
> knowingly or not, contributions 
> that are valid but too complex for review. It's not rhetorical, but
> you're free to do your own 
> sanity/verification checks on that supposed phenomenon and deem it
> rhetorical or invalid.
> 
>  > Could you do us all a big favor Jonathon? Your comments seem to be
>  > fairly consistent along these lines. I think what would be helpful
> to
>  > you, and to anyone reading and agreeing with your comments, is to
> step
>  > back and try to explain why things are the way they are. Feel free
> to
>  > share that with the group for a sanity check if you'd like.
> 
> I'm not so sure of the "why" of things, but am only more certain of
> the "what" of things. Things 
> are the way they are, no matter how we interpret the "why".
> 
> So, for now, I continue to merge in (to my own SVN) several
> contributions that are deemed too 
> difficult to review/merge by the committers. I continue to keep such
> enhancements in step with 
> updates from OFBiz trunk. And I continue in my failure(?) to feed
> such "compatibilized/merged" 
> enhancements back to OFBiz trunk even though they really are the same
> license.
> 
> And the phenomenon of several of us (incompatible contributors?)
> holding on to our own 
> enhancements will continue. Some of us may not know how to keep in
> step with OFBiz trunk updates; 
> others may. Those of us who can keep in step will continue to benefit
> from OFBiz progress, but be 
> unable to feed the benefit back to OFBiz. There will still be
> enhancements out there that are kept 
> away/apart from OFBiz. That's the way of things? Or maybe not?
> 
> I stand corrected. I think I am "helping" OFBiz in the wrong way.
> I'll stop that. :) Thanks for 
> reminding me.
> 
> I was waiting to dump the loads of my enhancements into your trunk,
> but I think I should take a 
> sanity check for now. Anyway, there needs to be at least one
> stabilizing branch (save point, so to 
> speak) before we can go full steam with the trunk. And there's still
> no such branch yet.
> 
> Jonathon
> 
> David E. Jones wrote:
> > 
> > On Apr 20, 2007, at 9:04 PM, Jonathon -- Improov wrote:
> > 
> >> We shouldn't turn away complex contributions anymore.
> > 
> > "We" do not now, nor have we ever, turned away a contribution
> because it 
> > was complex.
> > 
> >> I myself have loads of enhancements (mostly to widget module) that
> I 
> >> feel uneasy about releasing to the community, simply because of
> this 
> >> odd use of trunk: it's used like a slow-moving release branch that
> is 
> >> unable to handle introductions of radical enhancements.
> >>
> >> Yet, this somewhat slow-moving trunk isn't still enough and
> focused 
> >> enough on achieving release-quality stability. It's the worst of
> both 
> >> worlds: it's not rapid enough to allow for radical progress, and
> not 
> >> calm and focused-on-cleaning-up enough to produce a stable release
> for 
> >> non-OFBiz developers.
> > 
> > Could you do us all a big favor Jonathon? Your comments seem to be 
> > fairly consistent along these lines. I think what would be helpful
> to 
> > you, and to anyone reading and agreeing with your comments, is to
> step 
> > back and try to explain why things are the way they are. Feel free
> to 
> > share that with the group for a sanity check if you'd like.
> > 
> > -David
> > 
> > 
> 
> 

Re: Post Branch Enhancements (Re: Ofbiz Contribution Proposal)

[Jacopo Cappellato <ti...@sastau.it>]

Jonathon,

Jonathon -- Improov wrote:
> Chris,
> 
> I don't know offhand which enhancements (currently on Jira) are not 
> reviewed. I only know those I have with me.
> 

What are these enhancements? Are they in Jira?

> I feel we should never let newcomers (or even old timers) hear something 
> like "please dump your stuff in that corner, and we'll get to it in 
> time". No, not that we'd be rude. Just that we'd lose that contribution! 
> We're on the receiving end, so I suggest we start begging for the 
> contribution instead.
> 

Who said this? Jira is not a 'corner', it's the main (and only, for non 
committers) channel for accepting a contribution.

> Being reasonably experienced/adept with version control systems 
> (SVN/CVS), I can't see why we can't have someone perform a wholesale 
> merge (to resolve incompatibilities) on a "crazy, no holds barred branch".
> 

I think it's funny that, because you don't like Jira, you are proposing 
to make everyone a committer.

Jacopo

Re: Post Branch Enhancements (Re: Ofbiz Contribution Proposal)

[Jonathon -- Improov <jo...@improov.com>]

Chris,

I don't know offhand which enhancements (currently on Jira) are not reviewed. I only know those I 
have with me.

I feel we should never let newcomers (or even old timers) hear something like "please dump your 
stuff in that corner, and we'll get to it in time". No, not that we'd be rude. Just that we'd lose 
that contribution! We're on the receiving end, so I suggest we start begging for the contribution 
instead.

Being reasonably experienced/adept with version control systems (SVN/CVS), I can't see why we 
can't have someone perform a wholesale merge (to resolve incompatibilities) on a "crazy, no holds 
barred branch".

Then we may ask, "ok, so who's gonna test that crazy branch and deem it adequately 
compatilibized/merged to be patched back into trunk"? That's why I'm guessing that our 
(contributors') main motivation for donating codes is to have the latest and greatest of OFBiz 
work with our tested enhancements. The code contributor himself will start using that crazy 
branch, just to see his own enhancements working in tandem with the latest and greatest of OFBiz.

Jonathon

Chris Howe wrote:
> I sense this discussion may be hijacking Karl's thread, thus the
> subject change.  Karl's proposal looks very interesting and deserves
> its own thread.
> 
> <trying to turn this to constructive dialog>
> Jonathon, which enhancement are you speaking of that hasn't had the
> opportunity to be reviewed sufficiently?  
> 
> As soon as the formal vote concludes on the branch, I'm sure there will
> be a lot of dialog about direction and features and approaches to bug
> fixes in the coming days and weeks.  
> 
> If someone replies to this, please cut of the (was...) in the subject
> 
> 
> --- Jonathon -- Improov <jo...@improov.com> wrote:
> 
>> David,
>>
>>  > "We" do not now, nor have we ever, turned away a contribution
>> because it
>>  > was complex.
>>
>> Very well, I'll just use the word "you" then. I take it that you do
>> not turn away contributions 
>> because they were complex.
>>
>> The question from me would be whether you do or do not turn away,
>> knowingly or not, contributions 
>> that are valid but too complex for review. It's not rhetorical, but
>> you're free to do your own 
>> sanity/verification checks on that supposed phenomenon and deem it
>> rhetorical or invalid.
>>
>>  > Could you do us all a big favor Jonathon? Your comments seem to be
>>  > fairly consistent along these lines. I think what would be helpful
>> to
>>  > you, and to anyone reading and agreeing with your comments, is to
>> step
>>  > back and try to explain why things are the way they are. Feel free
>> to
>>  > share that with the group for a sanity check if you'd like.
>>
>> I'm not so sure of the "why" of things, but am only more certain of
>> the "what" of things. Things 
>> are the way they are, no matter how we interpret the "why".
>>
>> So, for now, I continue to merge in (to my own SVN) several
>> contributions that are deemed too 
>> difficult to review/merge by the committers. I continue to keep such
>> enhancements in step with 
>> updates from OFBiz trunk. And I continue in my failure(?) to feed
>> such "compatibilized/merged" 
>> enhancements back to OFBiz trunk even though they really are the same
>> license.
>>
>> And the phenomenon of several of us (incompatible contributors?)
>> holding on to our own 
>> enhancements will continue. Some of us may not know how to keep in
>> step with OFBiz trunk updates; 
>> others may. Those of us who can keep in step will continue to benefit
>> from OFBiz progress, but be 
>> unable to feed the benefit back to OFBiz. There will still be
>> enhancements out there that are kept 
>> away/apart from OFBiz. That's the way of things? Or maybe not?
>>
>> I stand corrected. I think I am "helping" OFBiz in the wrong way.
>> I'll stop that. :) Thanks for 
>> reminding me.
>>
>> I was waiting to dump the loads of my enhancements into your trunk,
>> but I think I should take a 
>> sanity check for now. Anyway, there needs to be at least one
>> stabilizing branch (save point, so to 
>> speak) before we can go full steam with the trunk. And there's still
>> no such branch yet.
>>
>> Jonathon
>>
>> David E. Jones wrote:
>>> On Apr 20, 2007, at 9:04 PM, Jonathon -- Improov wrote:
>>>
>>>> We shouldn't turn away complex contributions anymore.
>>> "We" do not now, nor have we ever, turned away a contribution
>> because it 
>>> was complex.
>>>
>>>> I myself have loads of enhancements (mostly to widget module) that
>> I 
>>>> feel uneasy about releasing to the community, simply because of
>> this 
>>>> odd use of trunk: it's used like a slow-moving release branch that
>> is 
>>>> unable to handle introductions of radical enhancements.
>>>>
>>>> Yet, this somewhat slow-moving trunk isn't still enough and
>> focused 
>>>> enough on achieving release-quality stability. It's the worst of
>> both 
>>>> worlds: it's not rapid enough to allow for radical progress, and
>> not 
>>>> calm and focused-on-cleaning-up enough to produce a stable release
>> for 
>>>> non-OFBiz developers.
>>> Could you do us all a big favor Jonathon? Your comments seem to be 
>>> fairly consistent along these lines. I think what would be helpful
>> to 
>>> you, and to anyone reading and agreeing with your comments, is to
>> step 
>>> back and try to explain why things are the way they are. Feel free
>> to 
>>> share that with the group for a sanity check if you'd like.
>>>
>>> -David
>>>
>>>
>>
> 
>