[Qgis-psc] Handling the Travis CI situation

Thu Nov 12 05:00:49 PST 2020

thanks everyone for the all the information and feedback, it was really
helpful in preparing the budget proposal.

cheers Marco

On Mon, 9 Nov 2020, 10:40 Alessandro Pasotti, <apasotti at gmail.com> wrote:

> Great, thanks!
>
> You've done a really good job there.
>
> Cheers
>
> On Mon, Nov 9, 2020 at 10:20 AM Denis Rouzaud <denis.rouzaud at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> > Le lun. 9 nov. 2020 à 09:06, Alessandro Pasotti <apasotti at gmail.com> a
> écrit :
> >>
> >> On Mon, Nov 9, 2020 at 12:55 AM Nyall Dawson <nyall.dawson at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >> >
> >> > On Fri, 6 Nov 2020 at 20:57, Matthias Kuhn <matthias at opengis.ch>
> wrote:
> >> > >
> >> > > This would be desirable.
> >> > >
> >> > > It's unfortunately a bit of complexity included. As Alessandro
> said, the rendering tests are a good example of tests which are hard to
> maintain and - unfortunately - not well defined functions like we happen to
> have on e.g. database engine unit tests.
> >> > >
> >> > > To recall, when we started with CI some 5 years ago we were in the
> situation that we had a set of tests, which randomly passed on some dev
> machines and some on others. So effectively you had no chance to know if a
> test doesn't pass because of your machine or your patch.
> >> > >
> >> > > At least now we have a reference platform and know if a patch
> actually does cause changes. Which is the most important information.
> >> > >
> >> > > Currently many of the tests are already cross platform. And nobody
> is actively writing CI centric tests. It's just a matter of fact that the
> tests have a requirement to at least pass on the CI env because it's the
> only thing that can be enforced.
> >> > >
> >> > > When tests are updated to a new platform (ci or not), many of them
> will pass on a wider variety of platforms. Because bugs are fixed or they
> are made more generic. And some will just have reference images for one
> more platform added.
> >> > >
> >> > > So whatever we do we will do a step into the right direction. But
> there will be no guarantee that every test passes on your machine except if
> you make them all pass on your machine - which would be very welcome!!
> >> > >
> >> > > What you could also do is listing tests that are generic / platform
> independent (e.g. the expression tests would be a very good example) and
> then always just run these instead of the whole set of tests.
> >> >
> >> >
> >> > Just to add a few extra thoughts to the already comprehensive replies
> >> > given by Matthias and Denis:
> >> >
> >> > - we had to do a very similar effort with updating existing tests when
> >> > we moved from Qt 4 -> Qt 5. We'll probably have to do another similar
> >> > effort in another 18-24 months or so. It's going to be a regular,
> >> > recurring task to go through and update all the tests which have been
> >> > introduced since the previous effort and ensure that they are
> >> > sufficiently tolerant to pass under different environments/software
> >> > versions. (Maybe we should consider adding "test maintenance" as a
> >> > regular yearly expense of the nature of 1.5 weeks?)
> >> > - we really should do a similar effort to get the existing tests
> >> > passing under mac os and windows too. I suspect there's some valid
> >> > bugs that the test suites would reveal if we could reliably run them
> >> > under windows/mac, but the real issues are drowned in the noise of
> >> > tests which haven't been designed to be cross platform compatible.
> >> > (This could be a good grant proposal idea for future funding rounds!)
> >> >
> >> > And then my personal 2c:
> >> >
> >> > We have a great test suite, and fantastic tools for making and
> >> > managing tests. Sure, there's a learning curve involved with them.
> >> > Sure, they ARE different to the test suites used by gdal, or geos, or
> >> > <insert other project here>. But that's just business as usual in
> >> > software development, and not at all reflective of inferiority in the
> >> > test suites. Can we please move on from this recurring point once and
> >> > for all and focus on the current relevant parts of this discussion
> >> > instead?
> >> >
> >> > Nyall
> >> >
> >> >
> >>
> >>
> >> Hi,
> >>
> >> While I agree on all points, there is one important thing that we
> >> should make it better while we work on it:
> >> make sure the test suite can **easily** run locally using the same
> >> docker images we are using in the CI process, I can do it but I cannot
> >> say it was easy to set up and it's probably overly complicated for
> >> most people.
> >
> >
> > The new github workflow is far more simple and easier to read than the
> travis config.
> > Everything is in one file and should be easily replicable.
> >
> https://github.com/qgis/QGIS/blob/test-focal/.github/workflows/run-tests.yml#L101-L124
> >
> >>
> >> Also, making the test suite independent from the particular CI we will
> >> use (GH workflows, Travis & C.) will make it easier to move it to
> >> another CI if needed.
> >
> >
> > It should!
> > Let's when we move the CI for 3.16 to Github: the base image will remain
> (bionic) and we shouldn't have anything to touch in the tests.
> >
> >>
> >>
> >> This is of course also a matter of producing a good documentation for
> >> the process and the tools.
> >>
> >> Kind regards.
> >>
> >> --
> >> Alessandro Pasotti
> >> QCooperative:  www.qcooperative.net
> >> ItOpen:   www.itopen.it
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> Qgis-psc mailing list
> >> Qgis-psc at lists.osgeo.org
> >> https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/qgis-psc
>
>
>
> --
> Alessandro Pasotti
> QCooperative:  www.qcooperative.net
> ItOpen:   www.itopen.it
> _______________________________________________
> Qgis-psc mailing list
> Qgis-psc at lists.osgeo.org
> https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/qgis-psc
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