Re: [ros-dev] Improving our procedure

[Ged Murphy]

>  From a publicity perspective the changelog and release
> notes are very 
important for the project.

It’s very unfair that Victor spent the first half of his day filling out the
changelog because other people didn’t do it. It’s also very considerate of
him to do so and he deserves a big thank you for doing that!

 

Considering our last release was July (Yes, f**king July), when I first read
through the changelog to compile the release notes one of the sentences I
found myself writing was “This version is anticipated as a compatibility and
stability release rather than the usual large architectural changes the
releases bring”. 

After thinking something was wrong considering  5 months of work, I looked
back through the SVN log and realised we only had about 10% of the changes
filled out.....

 

Filling out the changelog is part of being a reactos developer and if
generating this at release time isn’t convenient then steps to fix this need
to be taken.

 

Personally, I’ve never been a fan of using a commit log script. In my
opinion such a thing will be too unreliable, produce unmeaningful ‘commit
log messages’ instead of meaningful ‘change log messages’ and it takes the
fun out of writing comical/banter oriented commit messages.

 

Back in the day .... we didn’t used to have any problems in writing commit
logs. Devs were proud to get their changes into the log and did so in a
timely fashion with easily decipherable output.

What’s changed? Why has it become so difficult to do this in the recent
years?? 

 

The lack of a complete changelog has held the release back for around a week
now.

It’s a shame that it came to this, but I propose that we continue to hold up
releases until commit logs are complete. They really are that important both
for having a ‘wow factor’ log to show to the public and to have some
substance with which to write appealing release notes. The release notes
especially are read by a huge number of people and is our chance to sell
ourselves.

 

Ged.

 

P.S. We are still missing changelog entries........

 

 

 

From: ros-dev-bounces(a)reactos.org [mailto:[e-mail]] On
Behalf Of victor martinez
Sent: 15 December 2009 13:39
To: ros-dev(a)reactos.org
Subject: [ros-dev] Improving our procedure

 

Hi,
This is incredible. I can understand a delay in a release because fixing
Blockers, i can understand a delay because we are afraid of "2012" movie.But
i can not understand why the Changelog is not made!!. On 3rd of November
Aleksey sent an email saying a Blocker was present to release 0.3.11, this
means that on 3rd of November a full Changelog should have been done and
just  2 lines (explaining the Fix,if needed) should have been added
afterwards. But the fact is that the Blocker has been solved more than one
week ago, that we are still waiting for changelog to be done(after more than
a month) and that the binaries are stored in SF waiting indefinitely to link
them.
So this strikes again, what is happening with Changelogs?What happens if
noone wants to write his Changelog?Are we going to stay here waiting it
indefinitely?Is our actual procedure correct?Or is it not practical?How can
we shorten the time for a release?What happens if one of the Steps before
releasing (like Changelog Step) is not properlly done?Do we have a PlanB?

Let´s review our Teorical steps before a release and finding Bottlenecks as
i do in my work:
1) Coding Time.During this time Devs creates ReactOS code.Since 0.3.9 also
the GoldenApps and CandidateApps are being tested during this time in
regular basis to reduce the possible Blockers.
2) Choosing Minute. An ISO is chosen as Candidate. Doubts: When the
Candidate is chosen?Following which criterias?Why sometimes we take an ISO
after one month and other times after 2 months?
3) Colin creates a Pre-release ISO. 
4) Colin creates the 0.3.XX wikipage.Tests begins and Changelog begins to be
written.
5) Performing Testing on Candidate. It usually takes less than a week, and
thanks to previous testings in Coding Time, there are less Blockers each
time.
6A) Blocker found. If a Blocker is found, a regression testing begins(if
needed) and a patch/hack is made.GoTo 7
6B) Blocker not found. prerelease ISO is released as definitive.END.
7)Patch is added to release branch, Colin creates a second RC and testers
perform a full test focusing in the regression. Release.END.

Let´s begin studying the 0.3.11 case.
Step 1 was done correctly.We have devs still working on ROS.great!
Step 2 was a CHAOS. I have been asked to select first an ISO before asking
Colin to make a prerelease ISO of it. Testing that first ISO we found the
Vmware regression but it took a little(more than a month to fix it) so we
select a different ISO and we performed a full testing (again) before asking
Colin to create a prerelease.
Changing the ISO is not inside the Teorical steps,but since the patch for
Vmware wasnt made and we had time it didnt suppose really a lose of time.
Step 3.First bottleneck. It took a little to contact with Colin,because he
was busy with RL, so we had to wait him to create a Branch,include the
reverts and create the prerelease.If I recall correctly it took more than a
Week. Without the prerelease done is impossible to test anything.We should
have an alternative to Colin in case Colin is busy with RL.We dont have a
PlanB for this situation.
Step4. Colin creates the Wikipage.
Step5.Test begins but Changelog didnt begin to be written, it has been asked
twice via ML, and zillions via IRC. Currently we are waiting for having it
complete.

And now second bottleneck:
In 0.3.11 case,Blockers were solved BEFORE prerelease was made, so when
Colin uploaded the prerelease iso it doesnt have any Blocker and it is ready
to be released.And then the bottleneck comes:Changelog. Changelog can be
created without hurry if we are in step 6A(a Blocker found) but in case 6B
(as 0.3.11 prerelease is) you dont have real time to create it. When a
Blocker is found,Changelog can be created during the extra time of
regtesting+finding a patch+adding to branch+creating a new iso+performing
again all the Tests, (this extra time is usually 4 weeks). But when non
Blocker is found in Step6, Changelog stops our release.You cant made a
proper Changelog of 2 months changes in a week. So our procedure currently
is not optimal at all.

First bottleneck: Relying in just one guy to merge stuff in the
branch+create the ISO should be solved.
Second bottleneck: If we expect that our prereleases doesnt have any
blocker,then Changelog will be stopping our releases. To avoid this i
propose a new procedure for 0.3.12, which is more multitasking.

STEP1: Create 0.3.12 Changelog page.Open to include the changes since the
Beginning.
STEP2: Coding time. Meanwhile,testers tests goldenapps and candidateapps.
STEP2: Choosing minute.The candidate ISO is selected, Devs are warned in
Changelog page which is the latest revision to include the changes and that
just they have one week to finish their Changelogs. 
STEP3: Release Engineers(not just Colin) creates the branch and the
prerelease iso. 
STEP4: Release Engineers creates a Test 0.3.12 wikipage.
STEP5: Tests are performed. This gives one week of extra time to have the
Changelog done(more if a blocker is found).

If Changelog is critical for releasing, then we need a PlanB if a Dev
rejects or cant make a changelog.This is called SCRIPT. I´m really bored of
those guys who doesnt want the Script but doesnt write their changes in
Changelog neither.
we should have a Script that by request or by lazyness of the devs can make
a Changelog giving a revision range,a component or|and an author.This will
make the life easier and healthier.Btw, some Devs doesnt want to waste the
time writting Changelogs and prefer coding, so this tool is a must.I dont
want to see devs sending less code to avoid writting a changelog.

Sorry about this long post.My fingers were trained in our Wiki this morning,
btw, i hope someone can review my recent changes on the Changelog 0.3.11 to
be sure i put the commits in their correct place.Thanks.






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