[RFC] Platform champions

[Ian Clatworthy]

Robert Collins wrote:

>> Is this a good idea? If so, is it worth generalising the page so people
>> can volunteer for various things w.r.t. a platform? Perhaps just these
>> things to begin with?
> 
> I don't think so, I think its extra friction and we should gear our
> process to catch things earlier.

In principle, yes. In practice, things always have a chance to break on
everything *except* whatever PQM is running on. I don't think a process
where PQM must pass all tests on 10+ platforms each pqm-submit is
sensible either. Heh, just running all tests on both Python 2.4 and
Python 2.5 would be nice :-) , let alone doing multiple Python's on
multiple platforms.

> I'm interested in what defects - what things are going wrong - that this
> is aimed at changing?
> 
> I'm wary of having nominated champions for a few reasons, but I'll
> enlarge on that once I understand what you're trying to fix.

The trigger leading to this email was some information from vila re how
well selftest goes on Solaris 10 right now. :-(

I've been working towards having a few VMs here at home to cover at
least more frequent Ubuntu LTS and Windows testing. But in a broader
sense, having a person to talk to has value regardless of whatever
automation is in place. People provide "local" knowledge about user
communities and what they expect. That's useful throughout the lifecycle
IMO.

As I said, I'm very open to alternative ideas. I also have some
reservations re champions but I posted this RFC because I felt the
benefits outweigh the negatives. FWIW, they truly do exist (e.g. Alex)
in reality and it might be worth documenting/formalising that?

Ian C.