Re: Proposal: moving tests to GitHub

On 31/01/2013 18:13 , Arthur Barstow wrote:
> As I said during one of the testing breakouts in Lyon, ultimately I
> suspect the saying "beggars can't be choosy" will trump. However,
> AFAIK, currently, only one of WebApps' thirty active specs actually
> has an "outside" contribution. As such, and without any information
> about a relatively high probability we will get contributions from
> others, this move still seems like a lot of "make work".

Aside from the external contributions that others have already pointed 
out, I think it's worth putting this statement in some literary perspective.


"But Mr Dent, the plans have been available in the local planning office 
for the last nine months."

"Oh yes, well as soon as I heard I went straight round to see them, 
yesterday afternoon. You hadn't exactly gone out of your way to call 
attention to them, had you? I mean, like actually telling anybody or 
anything."

"But the plans were on display ..."

"On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them."

"That's the display department."

"With a flashlight."

"Ah, well the lights had probably gone."

"So had the stairs."

"But look, you found the notice didn't you?"

"Yes," said Arthur, "yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a 
locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the 
door saying 'Beware of the Leopard'."

-- Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams


Seriously: we've had our test suites locked up on an unknown server, in 
an obsolete version control system that's protected by credentials that 
are hard to get. Shockingly enough, we have seen *some* external 
contribution.

Additionally, we also have to take the productivity of existing 
contributors into account. Even if no external contributor shows up, 
switching to git will already save work from existing contributors fast 
enough that any work involved in transitioning will be made up for 
within weeks.

> Before a CfC is started, I would like to hear from Kris and/or PLH re
>  how the move went for the HTMLWG. For instance, were there any some
>  major "gotchas", were there any negative side-effects, etc. Kris,
> PLH - would you please provide a short summary of the move?

It went like a breeze. The major difficulty was the submissions backlog, 
but then it's better for it to be a problem than to just linger on as 
had been the case to date.

One thing to watch out for is that it seems to have been relatively 
common for tests in the "submissions" directory to be *copied* to 
"approved" without being removed from their original directory. I 
detected quite a lot of that going on.

So overall, zero negative effects, afar better workflow, and new 
contributors we'd never heard of before.

> Re section numbers - that seems like make work, especially for
> short-ish specs (e.g. Progress Events). I think using section numbers
> should be optional (and that metadata be included in the tests
> themselves). Are you actually proposing to add section numbers for
> every test suite that you copy?

Section numbers don't fly, but using section IDs to produce a tree of 
tests works really well (and you can automate the creation of the 
initial tree trivially).

It's far better than metadata because metadata is copied, goes awry, 
etc. whereas a file's location tends to just be correct. It's metadata 
but with usability taken into account.

> What is the expectation for what I will characterize as "legacy"
> specs like Marcos' widget test suites? Marcos?

I would say: whoever wants to include their stuff can include it, so 
long as it's legit content related to a spec.

-- 
Robin Berjon - http://berjon.com/ - @robinberjon

Received on Monday, 4 February 2013 13:39:27 UTC