Clarifications about Kubuntu Automation branches and development

[Walter Lapchynski]

Santa,

As much as I generally support the notion of making use of branches with
version control for e.g. new features or varying states of the code base
(e.g. release versions), it sounds to me that based on the tooling we have,
we have no other choice. I'm not sure I see expediency and/or limited
userbase as sufficient justification to avoid any good design/architecture
(though it is often used in the business world), but if what I'm hearing is
that you'd like to see branches implemented, but have a long road to get to
that, I'm totally in support.

One thing that I would think would be wise is to outline the process to get
a fix reviewed and implemented in README.hacking. As you can see from the
penultimate link in your email, I struggled to grok that.

On Fri, Nov 18, 2016 at 10:03 AM, José Manuel Santamaría Lema <
panfaust at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> during the last Kubuntu Vision meeting we had a discussion about how KA
> should
> be handled.
>
> One of the things proposed was having stable/master branches. So far we had
> just one branch: 'master' where it's the tooling we are using to provide
> new
> packages in the PPA's and the archive.
>
> I asked why do you think the KA code was handled in just a single branch
> and
> the answer I got was very disappointing. Here are some technical reasons
> why
> the KA code was handled so far in a single master branch:
>
> 1. Code that needs to be changed constantly with packaging changes:
> A good example of this is the current package-names-list script:
> https://git.launchpad.net/~kubuntu-packagers/+git/kubuntu-automation/tree/
> package-name-list?id=3ec6c0ef56f5783c016980f8706462a6b64dd1dc
> See line 14 and below.
>
> 2. Embedded data that needs to be constantly updated with new packaging.
> For instance:
> https://git.launchpad.net/~kubuntu-packagers/+git/
> kubuntu-automation/commit/
> dev-package-name-lists/plasma-zesty.json?
> id=543816b3e81fce90c8d5732b8970c632df9eaa71
>
> 3. The package status page (and its configuration which we have to adjust
> from
> time to time) is also in the KA master branch, see:
> https://git.launchpad.net/~kubuntu-packagers/+git/
> kubuntu-automation/commit/
> build-status-conf?id=d08e64cb16955415737195f714adec240ab52a42
>
> 4. Some time ago with the feedback from other developers, I proposed and
> worked on the implementation of a new design for KA. That's what we, the
> developers, usually call "the new tooling" @ IRC. The implementation of the
> 'new tooling' is still a bit unmature, so we still need to do constantly
> some
> improvements to make sure it fits our needs. Still, I think even in its
> slighly
> unmature state the "new tooling" is working better than the old one. So
> far we
> used it succesfully to provide some of the packaging you are using right
> now
> since the end of the Yakkety cicle.
>
> So as you can see, when I rejected the idea of having stable branches it's
> not
> actually "my way or the highway", it's a bit more like "we did it like
> that,
> because it was the only feasible way".
>
> That being said, *maybe* in the future we could have stable releases of
> Kubuntu Automation, but we can't in it's current state. So please be
> patient
> and don't try to rush weird proposals about how to handle the KA code if
> you
> don't actually understand the KA code. It was very 'creepy' to see non-
> technical people throwing random proposals about how to handle the KA code
> (no offense intended of course).
>
> Since we can't really have stable/development branches we are doing
> something
> slightly different to alleviate the problem of people getting bugs from KA
> after pulling something from the master branch:
> https://irclogs.ubuntu.com/2016/11/11/%23kubuntu-devel.html#t22:23
>
> Also, FYI a chat we had about KA branches:
> https://irclogs.ubuntu.com/2016/11/08/%23kubuntu-devel.html#t22:52
>
> Cheers.
>
>
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