CSS validator patching process

Hi Peter,

I'm answering some of your questions in the developers' list, since I  
think your questions touch things that would benefit from being  
documented. I hope you do not mind.

On Jul 13, 2006, at 19:28 , Peter Zhelezniakov wrote:
>  First, how are fixes reviewed, whom should i
> send them and in what form? Is 'cvs diff -u' ok?

There is no formal review process, but let me give you an overview of  
how things would generally be done:

- you make a patch (cvs diff -u is indeed perfect)

- if this is a patch to a bug present in bugzilla, you can upload it  
there, so that the reporter of the bug can see there's work being  
done on the bug. If there's no entry in bugzilla, then I guess you   
can send the patch to the qa-dev list, but I suppose the best is to  
add a new entry in bugzilla for it, for the sake of consistent  
recording.

- note that bugzilla entries (and also cvs commits) are also sent to  
a public mailing-list:
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-validator-cvs/

- depending on time and availability, the patch should be peer- 
reviewed by those who have a good knowledge of the tool in question.  
For the CSS validator, that would be Yves, myself to a minor extent,  
and now Jean-Guilhem too.

- If a patch may be controversial, it may be a good idea to discuss  
it. Discussion can take place on the bugzilla, but for a wider  
audience, the CSS validator's mailing-list is a good place to have a  
discussion:
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-validator-css/

- When the steps above have been cleared, the patch is committed to  
CVS. When you get more comfortable with the tool and its code, you  
will get direct write access to the CVS repository, and you can then  
use your judgement to either send in patches directly, or have them  
go through the process above.

- We have a test instance of each of our tools on the qa-dev.w3.org  
server. Have I created an account for you there yet? If not, let's  
coordinate so that I can create one for you. Many of the "test  
instances" for our tools are automatically updated from CVS, but not  
the CSS validator - which needs to be rebuilt. Still, it's fairly  
easy to have it up to date with the latest code, and it provides a  
useful public pointer.

I'll answer your questions on bug #2344 and #2421 promptly, in  
another mail.

cheers,

olivier
-- 
olivier Thereaux - W3C - http://www.w3.org/People/olivier/
W3C Open Source Software: http://www.w3.org/Status

Received on Friday, 21 July 2006 01:15:22 UTC