Package branch freshness

[Barry Warsaw]

On Jul 18, 2011, at 10:17 PM, John Arbash Meinel wrote:

>I have a branch in PQM now that adds a version check whenever you access
>a Launchpad packaging branch (http://pad.lv/609187). I have the feeling
>there is still a bit of polish needed, but I would like to get some
>feedback from people actually using it.

I grabbed lp:bzr and played with it a little bit.  In general, I really
appreciate you adding this.  Package import failures will probably never be
exactly zero, and the less users expects an import to be out of date, the more
important I think it will be to warn them when that does happen.  (If you
agree, that could influence the default output choices.)

I tried it with ubuntu: branches, and it works the same way as lp:ubuntu
branches (as expected).  Yay!

I also tried it with debianlp: branches and it kicks in there too.  Yay!

The output could be a little clearer I think, and here are just some random
thoughts based on quick tests.

- The output is a little too verbose.
- the version numbers are a bit difficult to pick out in the output.

Suggestions follow.

Case 1: everything is up-to-date

1.4.1-4 is CURRENT in Oneiric

Case 2: packaging branch is out-of-date

1.0.2-0ubuntu1 is OUT-OF-DATE (Ubuntu Oneiric has: 1.0.4-0.1)

If you want to expose a configuration/cli knob, then the above would be less
verbose output, with more verbose output possibly being:

Case 1:

Most recent Oneiric version: 1.4.1-4
Packaging branch status: CURRENT

Case 2:

Most recent Oneiric version: 1.0.4-0.1
Packaging branch version: 1.0.2-0ubuntu1
Packaging branch status: OUT-OF-DATE

I thought about not even printing a status report in case 1 for less verbose
output, but I think it's still useful to print the version number and status
in that case.  I suppose a "quiet" option would only print a warning when the
published version isn't available.

I noticed a *very* slight additional delay for `bzr branch` but I can
certainly live with it for the additional information!

>I'm a little worried it will be too verbose, or ignored or confusing, so
>any feedback is useful. Even better if you can use it for a while and
>see how it feels. This landed as bzr.dev 6033, so it should get built
>into the dailies soon.

I'll continue to use lp:bzr for the next few days packaging work.

Cheers,
-Barry
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