2016-11-22 13:16 GMT+01:00 Vincent Massol <[email protected]>: > > > On 22 Nov 2016, at 12:13, Guillaume Delhumeau < > [email protected]> wrote: > > > > Hi everybody. > > > > Today I would like to speak about an issue that annoys me for years. > > > > We are working on a tool whose one of the objectives is to stop > scattering > > information in multiple places. It's even the main argument explained in > > the video integrated on the home page of XWiki: > > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QTWrZ7OfzI. > > > > But on the other hand, we, developers of XWiki, do the opposite in > > practice. We discuss on mailing lists that are archived on Markmail, we > > report issues on Jira and we do investigations on design.xwiki.org, and > I > > don't even count Github. > > Honestly I don’t see the relationship between the tool we develop and how > it’s developed. These are completely separate things! >
We develop a tool that centralize information and we don't use it to centralize our own informations, except documentation. > > Using a car is pretty easy but creating one is hard. That’s normal and > expected :) > Yes but if you also create a tool to help you creating a car and you don't use it yourself, you're giving a bad image to your product. > > Now if your point is to brainstorm about how we could improve the tools we > use to develop, sure, let’s brainstorm! :) > Yes, that is what really matters. > > I like that we have several tool such as: > - one tool for the issue tracker (jira) > - one tool for proposal/decisions (mailing list and nabble forum - > bidirectional) > - one tool for archiving discussions (markmail) > - one tool for design proposals (wiki) > - one tool for storing code (github) > - one tool for translations (l10n) > - one tool for live discussions (IRC) > - one tool for documentation (xwiki.org) > - one tool for quality reports (sonar.xwiki.org) > - one tool for CI (jenkins at ci.xwiki.org) > - one tool for storing our artifacts (nexus, at nexus.xwiki.org) > - one tool for storing xwiki extensions (extensions.xwiki.org) > > Is that complex? Yes. Is development easy? No. Do we want to do it well? > Yes. > OK so let's forget my point about centralization and focus at the list of problems I have mentioned. > They’re all required! All the tools are listed here BTW: > http://dev.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Community/DevelopmentPractices# > HGeneralDevelopmentFlow :) > > Now we can discuss and decide if each of these tools is the best. For > example replacing some ML with a forum other than Nabble; don’t forget that > we do have a forum at http://dev.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Community/Forum. > The main problem I see with Nabble is that it requires 2 sign ups. > That's a pretty big one. > > > A newcomer have to understand the role and the > > functioning of each tool. It's quite complex. > > > > I don't think we should give up Jira because it is the best tool > available > > in its domain and there is no serious competitor. > > > > However, concerning the mailing lists, it's very different. Let me list > > some problems: > > > > - We recently had troubles with some emails that were lost because of > > subtleties in the email protocols. > > - Someone who just want to discuss once have to register to the mailing > > list and then receive thousands of emails every year. > > - Some emails are lost in the SPAM catchers. > > - You cannot use serious text formatting. As far as I know, HTML is not > > supported on the ML nor in Markmail. > > - You cannot send attachments. > > - People looking at messages on Markmail do not always understand how to > > answer (I've seen some people trying to answer directly on Markmail > because > > they believe it WAS the messaging tool). > > - This is "so 90s"! > > > > It still have some advantages: > > - Users can use their beloved email client. > > - Mail lists are quite standards in the Open Source world. > > > > However it does not balance the drawbacks. > > > > To fix this, I see several options: > > Also see these discussion threads from the past: > * "Do we need a forum?: http://markmail.org/message/gbdnyb7jbh4ha5ja > * "Drop mailing lists in favor of a forum software”: > http://markmail.org/message/dyfhqyuug7xgjru2 > * Jeremie worked on a mail archiving app: see http://markmail.org/message/ > dyfhqyuug7xgjru2 and http://extensions.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Extension/ > MailArchive+Application > > > A - Evaluate and improve the Forum Application ( > > http://extensions.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Extension/ForumApplication) > and > > use our own Dog Food. > > B - If it is too costly, use any PHP forum that the Open Source world > have. > > phpBB for example is the common choice. However, it does not centralize > > everything but it replaces the couple ML/Markmail and these tools are > very > > well-known. > > C - Use JIRA tickets with a certain label for development discussions > > because sometime the debates are spread between issues and threads, so it > > could be better to have everything directly on the issue. (FTR I don't > > think JIRA is the right tool for that but I wanted to list all options). > > > > This is not an action plan but a first step in that direction. Let me > hear > > what you think. > > My global POV (will reply with more details later on, need to finish > something first): > > We need a solution that’s not too costly (in term of development, > maintenance, etc). At first sight, I’d say it’s not our objective to > develop a forum (nor an issue tracker) and whatever solution we develop > would definitely not be a best of breed solution. Personally I like best of > breed solutions. > So a dedicated forum would definitively be a better tool than a ML :) > > Note that In the other threads I mentioned there were other solutions > proposed such as stackoverflow, etc. > > I think the first thing to do Guillaume is to read the previous threads > and come up with a design page on design.xwiki.org about the features > (user stories, use cases) we’d like to have in a our tool to replace the ML. > You are right. I am going to read the propositions and the arguments of each party to understand the problem. > > Thanks > -Vincent > > > Thanks, > > Guillaume > _______________________________________________ > devs mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/devs > -- Guillaume Delhumeau ([email protected]) Research & Development Engineer at XWiki SAS Committer on the XWiki.org project _______________________________________________ devs mailing list [email protected] http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/devs
