Some history: Of course, when Marvin-the-bot was started (can't recall who the orig author was at this point), it was named after Marvin from Hitchhikers Guide.
> On Oct 4, 2015, at 7:43 AM, sebb <seb...@gmail.com> wrote: > > A related comment: > > if there are to be any other mail-bots, please can they use a name > that is unlikely to be confused with human, particularly an ASF > member? > > On 30 September 2015 at 16:03, Sam Ruby <ru...@intertwingly.net> wrote: >> On 09/30/2015 10:33 AM, Jim Jagielski wrote: >>> >>> What I liked is that Marvin had 1 job: send reminders. As a general >>> rule of thumb, I dislike large monolithic platforms because they >>> become much too unwieldy, hence my "hesitation" in folding >>> it into Whimsy. But it is obvious that that position is no >>> longer tenable, esp when even when Marvin does its job correctly, >>> it gets "blamed" for "incorrect" postings and instead of fixing >>> what exists, people decide to recreate the wheel... But, after >>> all, if that's what people wish to do, who am I to get in the >>> way :) >> >> >> It is a matter of perspective. I have taken occasion to look at Marvin and >> what I didn't like is that what I saw was a large monolithic script. By >> contrast, what whimsy has become is a collection of tools, with common code >> factored out into libraries. >> >> Add to that the fact that I couldn't see a way to run Marvin on my machine >> and I couldn't find any tests, and I largely stayed away. >> >> I see this as mostly a matter of history. The secretarial workbench (one of >> the whimsy applications) is largely the same way. Other than being able to >> run it on your own machine (or VM), it is also monolithic and with no tests. >> >> By contrast, what the board agenda tool has become is a set of components >> and small scripts, each focused on a single task, and with tests. The role >> call application that Craig uses is for all practical purposes a separate >> application that is embedded in the board agenda. I have similar plans for >> the roster tool: the "add a committer to a PMC" tool will be small >> component. >> >> Similarly, I hope that sending reminders becomes a small (as in one printed >> page) script that doesn't do anything more than check the date, load a list >> of intended recipients, and send a emails. Everything else is factored out, >> and the underlying data (PMCs, podlings, etc) can be displayed and updated >> using a web application. Backed and supported by a set of people who are >> able to run the small scripts on their machine, make changes, run tests, and >> push the changes out to production. >> >> It will take time, but if I can get people to join me, I'm confident that >> together we will get there. >> >> "You may say I'm a dreamer >> But I'm not the only one >> I hope some day you'll join us >> And the world will be as one" >> >> - Sam Ruby >> >> >>>> On Sep 30, 2015, at 10:14 AM, Sam Ruby <ru...@intertwingly.net> wrote: >>>> >>>> On 09/30/2015 09:24 AM, Jim Jagielski wrote: >>>>> >>>>> Please kill Marvin the bot. Sam wants to take over its functionality >>>>> within Whimsy and I see no reason to continue any work at all in >>>>> Marvin. People prefer adding stuff to Whimsy instead of fixing >>>>> Marvin, which is fine by me. >>>>> >>>>> So just trash Marvin totally and completely... I will no >>>>> longer work on it or bother with it at all. >>>> >>>> >>>> First, a big thanks for maintaining Marvin to this point! I'm aware of >>>> how thankless that job can be, and how it often involves taking >>>> responsibility for fixing things that are outside your control. >>>> >>>> - - - >>>> >>>> Second: Gulp. The biggest "problem" with Marvin the bot is that it has >>>> (had?) one primary maintainer. A problem that Whimsy shares. >>>> >>>> I plan to address that problem. >>>> >>>> For the near term, my focus will be on making it possible for people to >>>> run individual whimsy tools on their own machine (Mac OS/X, Linux, docker >>>> container, Vagrant VM) so that people can try out changes before >>>> contributing them back. >>>> >>>> With respect to the incubator, what I would like to see is podlings >>>> integrated into both the roster[1] and agenda[2] tools. >>>> >>>> I'm currently rewriting the roster tool to take advantage of things I >>>> learned with the latest agenda rewrite. The goal is to make the roster >>>> tool >>>> totally read/write: there will no longer be a need to ssh into >>>> people.apache.org to run a Perl script to update committee info. Everything >>>> should be doable from a web interface. >>>> >>>> What this also means is that cron jobs will tend to be small scripts. >>>> Take a list of items (a list which you can see using the web interface, for >>>> example, a list of board agenda items which are missing) and perform an >>>> action (like send an email). >>>> >>>> When this is done there should never again be a need to edit podlings.xml >>>> with a text editor. >>>> >>>> I'm also planning to take the following to heart: http://s.apache.org/hZ >>>> >>>> As applied to the incubator, what I plan to do is to rough in podling >>>> support and leave it to others to fill in the details. >>>> >>>> - - - >>>> >>>> Places to get started (in preferred order): >>>> >>>> >>>> https://svn.apache.org/repos/infra/infrastructure/trunk/projects/whimsy/README >>>> >>>> https://github.com/rubys/whimsy-agenda#readme >>>> >>>> >>>> https://svn.apache.org/repos/infra/infrastructure/trunk/projects/whimsy/www/test/roster >>>> >>>> Preferred place for discussion: >>>> >>>> dev@whimsical.apache.org >>>> >>>> - Sam Ruby >>>> >>>> [1] https://whimsy.apache.org/roster/ >>>> [2] https://whimsy.apache.org/board/agenda/ >>> >>> >>
