[fdo-dev] FDO bugs, fixes and reviewing

[Frank Warmerdam]

Dan Stoica wrote:
> It may be much quicker and easier but it may be not the correct thing to
> do.
> Say somebody else is doing a sync and runs into problems. Then he/she
> will want to revert the changes to the previous revision - which is not
> a pleasant thing to do. 

Dan,

This is of course a situation I live in every day on every other software
project I work on, and I don't generally find it that uncomfortable.
Occasionally sloppy commits may break a build (or operation) of software
and I will either fix the problem (if it is straight forward), or
regress my local copy till the problem is fixed if needed.

I will of course follow the FDO development rules to complete my contract.
But it is unlikely I'd be interested in future unfunded work on FDO under
a "zip, review, then commit" policy.  This sucks the joy right out of making
a little improvement.

> The goal of the review is to a) get good ideas for free and 

A post commit review can also provide good ideas, and with a reduction
in overhead it will be at least closer to free.

 > b) minimize the risk of breaking existing code.

This is certainly accomplished.  However, if the goal is ensuring there is
a "stable development version", this could also be accomplished maintaining
a branch which is basically the "trunk" but only updated after a review.

I'd add that different policies might be appropriate for fdocore, vs.
providers.

> As for " having to zip up source files with correct paths is a pain"
> there is an utility \GRANITE\packchanges.bat that eases the pain :-) 

I'm not too sure where/what \GRANITE is, but even if I had that script,
I generally try to do my development on linux and I suspect it won't help me.

Overall I am happy enough to shelve this discussion for now, but I think it
will need to be revisited by an FDO Project Steering Committee once such a
thing is formed as part of OSGeo incubation.  At that point I will no doubt
try and promote a process that tries to encourage contribution and involvement
with a manageable level of overhead.

Best regards,
-- 
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I set the clouds in motion - turn up   | Frank Warmerdam, warmerdam at pobox.com
light and sound - activate the windows | http://pobox.com/~warmerdam
and watch the world go round - Rush    | President OSGeo, http://osgeo.org