Slower past couple of weeks; a lot of focus on burning down failing tests. We're at 5 weeks without a build lead (details on the role here: https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/CASSANDRA/Build+Lead). I've taken on the role a few times myself this year already and it's really helpful to get a solid understanding of where some of the weaknesses in our CI infra are, where some test infra and code is brittle or weak, and to help keep visibility in the project to test failures as we burn them down leading up to 4.1's GA. Please don't hesitate to reach out via email or slack if you have the bandwidth to help out (a few hours over the course of the week) and I'll be happy to mentor anyone through their first run as build lead.
Checking in on 4.1: https://butler.cassandra.apache.org/#/ At about 10 failures up from 8 last check in 2 weeks ago. It's been pretty consistent and a lot of folks are working on burning those down; 4.1 ci has been a lot more stable recently: https://ci-cassandra.apache.org/job/Cassandra-4.1/. Still have 28 tickets that are beta blockers here: https://issues.apache.org/jira/secure/RapidBoard.jspa?rapidView=484&quickFilter=2454. 4 in need of review down from 6 last time. It looks like almost all the tickets are either trivial or test fixes. [New contributor Getting Started] Check out the 12 unassigned tickets we have marked as beta blockers - many are great candidates for someone new to the project and will help us move towards our goal of releasing 4.1: https://issues.apache.org/jira/secure/RapidBoard.jspa?rapidView=484&quickFilter=2454&quickFilter=2160 Reference the "Getting started" guide on our website for help with setting up your environment: https://cassandra.apache.org/_/development/index.html, and the dev community hangs out on https://the-asf.slack.com in #cassandra-dev. We have 13 @cassandra_mentors in the chat room, and feel free to float any questions you have to the channel at large as we're a 24/7 type of community around the world. [Dev list Digest] https://lists.apache.org/list?dev@cassandra.apache.org:lte=2w: The thread about slow custom unit tests running on Mac OS X continues here: https://lists.apache.org/thread/tt2mmkvp5p0os9k15lwssdbsbqff28s6. This isn't something I've personally seen running on OSX (outside a containerized / docker environment) but if anyone's run into this type of issue, please chime in! The last biweekly status email (https://lists.apache.org/thread/tt2mmkvp5p0os9k15lwssdbsbqff28s6) brought over conversation from JIRA about when we make backwards API breaking changes. That conversation is still ongoing; a couple of days ago Ekaterina advocated for us documenting what we consider "public API's" and investing energy into keeping that up to date and I have to say I agree. All too often you can make a change to a tool or subsystem without realizing there would be external parsers or code coupled with that output or interfaces; the more clarity we can provide both for devs working on C* and consumers of these APIs, the smoother working on this will be for all of us. The conversation on the shape of the syntax for CEP-15's multi-key transactions seems to be winding down (https://lists.apache.org/thread/khr33obyxvfhfpjoyzgwbmh7535mf7hv). A lot of great discussion, probing, and collaboration's gone on on that thread. If you have an opinion, perspective, or question that hasn't been covered already in that thread please pipe up as this is going to be a new foundational primitive for us in the database so the cost of revving that API in the future is high. Last but not least, there's been discussion around the Cassandra Corner / Apache Cassandra Corner podcast, nominal use of the mark, whether it needs the Apache branding on it or not, who has access, etc. (https://lists.apache.org/thread/m4j3r8sofpqsqdgfjkjfr2rjc5w0bqj2). It's fantastic to see things like this in the community, for the community, and coordinated openly with the dev community at large and the PMC. Thanks Aaron for everything you're doing with that podcast and being such a great partner to everyone! [CI Trends] https://butler.cassandra.apache.org/#/ Let's diff last biweekly update vs this 3.0: 13 -> 10 3.11: 23 -> 19 4.0: 2 -> 3 4.1: 8 -> 19 (flaky CI run, probably ~ 10) trunk: 20 -> 16 So all but 4.1 trending in the direction we want. A ton of focus is on 4.1 right now so I don't see that as a long-term problem; let's keep up the pressure! [Release progress] https://issues.apache.org/jira/secure/RapidBoard.jspa?rapidView=484&quickFilter=2175 4.1 alpha: Forbidding writetimes and ttl functions for multicell columns hit in CASSANDRA-17628, applying back to the 3.0 line as well. 4.1 beta: 3 test failure fixes, a change to nodetool clientstats to keep the output backwards compatible in CASSANDRA-17715, and a case where writes with CL=ONE + counters + a network partition could lead to timeouts in CASSANDRA-17411 all landed. Summertime in the northern hemisphere can be a bit spotty with a lot of folks taking vacation, but we're keeping things moving in the right direction. Reach out on the dev list or in slack if you have any questions or ideas! ~Josh
