[Qgis-developer] Rethinking the testing and release procedure of QGIS

[Andreas Neumann]

 yes - I think it should be the goal that developers can work full time 
 on QGIS. And a policy should be introduced that all newly implemented 
 features should have tests.

 I wouldn't only blame the paying customers for not wanting the unit 
 tests, it is just as much the duty of the developer to educate the 
 customer about the unit tests/testing infrastructure. We do some 
 substantial funding of QGIS, but we were not aware about the problem of 
 the lacking tests until just recently. I don't see a problem to pay an 
 extra amount dedicated to testing the new features.

 Sandro Santilli (strk) is a Postgis developer who did some work for us. 
 He is always doing the testing and documentation as part of the 
 contract. I think this should also be the case for QGIS development.

 But for the existing functionality of QGIS we need to find a different 
 solution. Strk said that he would be available to help in building a 
 test infrastructure if we can find funding. We from our part would be 
 willing to help funding such an effort (of course there would have to be 
 a couple other organizations to help as well).

 Thank you for your thoughts,
 Andreas

 On Thu, 7 Jul 2011 10:35:54 +0200, Tim Sutton wrote:
> Hi Andreas and others
>
>
> I wrote a bit of an essay on this a week or two back:
> http://linfiniti.com/2011/06/some-thoughts-on-the-future-of-qgis/
>
> Believe me we have tried just about every suggestion including having
> a policy of unit tests for new features and bug fixes. The truth is
> that until we have undirected funding sufficient for the project to
> employ some of us developers to work full time on QGIS, things will
> probably never improve - developers need to earn a living which means
> they do work on QGIS based on client requirements or do other work 
> and
> work on QGIS in their spare time. Most clients don't mandate tests be
> written to accompany the work they commission. With so many things
> that need working on, testing etc just doesnt attract the attention 
> it
> should. So the idea of creating some kind of fund that is aimed at
> having a group of developers working full time on stabilising and
> professionalising QGIS is where we need to head for. I have already
> been having some behind the scenes discussions with potential funding
> sources on this, but so far nothing has materialised. I believe in 
> the
> future it will come to pass that we can do this. From your side you
> can help too - when you contract developers to create new features,
> mandate unit tests to be part of the deliverables. If every
> organisation who was paying to add functionality to QGIS did this we
> would already be in a lot better  shape!
>
> Regards
>
> Tim
>
> On Sat, Jul 2, 2011 at 10:51 AM, Sandro Santilli <strk at keybit.net> 
> wrote:
>> On Sat, Jul 02, 2011 at 09:32:14AM +0200, Paolo Cavallini wrote:
>>> Il 30/06/2011 21:55, Andreas Neumann ha scritto:
>>>
>>> > Maybe the establishment of a testing infrastructure, as proposed 
>>> by Strk
>>> > and others, would also help to maintain/raise the quality.
>>>
>>> Agreed: AFAICT this is a major task: any idea of how much work 
>>> would be necessary for
>>> reasonable results? An order of magnitude would be enough for now.
>>
>> I belive a 30k figure might get things going far enough that 
>> developers
>> could have a policy of no functional change and no bugfix w/out a 
>> test
>> accompanying would be allowed.
>>
>> --strk;
>>
>>  ()   Free GIS & Flash consultant/developer
>>  /\   http://strk.keybit.net/services.html
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>>
>
>
>
> --
> Tim Sutton - QGIS Project Steering Committee Member (Release  
> Manager)
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 Andreas Neumann
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