Hi, all
I invite everyone to submit ideas as to how we can improve the release
process: versioning, builds and testing. It seems like almost everytime a
0.X.0 release comes out, there is almost instantaneously a showstopper bug
that necessitates a 0.X.1 release, as happened this time.
I don't want to dictate how things would work - we have a lot of good
developers here who do configuration management, source control and testing
in real life just as I do - but here are a few obvious ideas.
1) Believe it or not I can actually guarantee to do builds on a given date,
now that I have a system for doing the CHANGES file rather rapidly. So once
we have decided on a given date for a release, I suggest that we mandate a
code freeze starting N days before the release. At the start of the freeze I
build a pre-release distro, and it will be labelled as a pre-release (PR
suffix maybe?) During those N days (2 days, 3 days?) everyone will have an
opportunity to test the release, and find those bad bugs that somehow never
showed up before.
2) More comprehensive build tests. I am not so much concerned with how the
PDF looks as just making sure we get no exceptions. Petr Andrs' font
embedding examples, if used as build tests, would have caught a bad bug, for
example. This testing is complementary to the testing Keiron Liddle has laid
the groundwork for, which is oriented towards conformance testing.
3) Versioning and build numbers: I hate putting up FOP-0.20.0, and 24 hours
later putting up FOP-0.20.1, just for a bug fix. Granted, it was an important
defect, and needed to be addressed right away, but I don't think it rates
that kind of revision increment. I don't have any good suggestions (I know
how I do things at work, but that's different). Any thoughts?
I am sure there is other stuff also. My goal here is to develop a formal
process document that describes exactly what I do, so that anyone with commit
privileges can easily duplicate the complete release process.
Thanks.
Arved
--
Fairly Senior Software Type
e-plicity (http://www.e-plicity.com)
Halifax, Nova Scotia
Wireless * B2B * J2EE * XML
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