dw_dev | dev chat meeting: 2014-08-09 12:00 EDT

If you weren't able to make today's meeting in #dreamwidth-dev, the next meeting will be on Saturday, August 23, at 12 pm EDT. Also there will be another hack date on Sunday, August 17, also at 12 pm EDT.

Here's a list of topics we discussed today, and most of them will probably be revisited next time:
code push tomorrow, should fix issues with new mobile styles
Github Issues revamped, updated docs on wiki
possible alternative project trackers and chat platforms
scheduled another social hack time for 8/17
encourage "what are we working on" discussion/issues outside of IRC
reconsidering how we name/advertise release branches
In attendance were myself, Afuna, zorkian, exor674, and V_PauAmma_V.
11:04 < Kareila> hello all, sorry I'm late. anyone here for dev chat?
11:05 < Afuna> hi! I'm around
11:05 < zorkian> I also am around
11:05 < zorkian> and even got up early to go get coffee!
11:05 < Kareila> I am terribly behind on dev stuff from the past couple of
      weeks so don't know as I'd be terribly good at moderating today!
11:05 < Afuna> haha smart of you zorkian
11:05 < Kareila> but I am game if people are awake
11:06 < Afuna> I am awake but don't have much to say other than that there's a
      code push coming up this weekend (monday morning my time, should be
      sunday evening us folks time)
11:07 < Kareila> oh, right, I should put that on my calendar but I think I can
      be around for that
11:08 < Afuna> oh awesome
11:08 < Afuna> it should be mostly styles stuff -- fixes, additional options,
      and the like
11:08  * V_PauAmma_V is kinda here?
11:08 < zorkian> hey!
11:08 < Afuna> though I can see that mark just merged in a couple bugfixes from
      denise!
11:08 < Afuna> so three's a couple more things going on *g*
11:09 < zorkian> Oh yeah, I was looking at outstanding reviews
11:09 < Afuna> haha awesome thanks
11:09 < Kareila> my kids are back in school now, so I should have more time to
      work on stuff :)
11:09 < Afuna> hmm. Kareila did you have an agenda coming in? I vaguely recall
      we had some things left over from last dev chat because that one ran late
11:10 < Afuna> oh cool :) I look forward to it!
11:10 < Afuna> karzilla smash ;)
11:11 < Kareila> uhhhh
11:11 < Kareila> hmm
11:12 < Kareila> "revisit mobile styles" I think that's waiting on the feedback
      from after the code push yeah?
11:12 < Afuna> yeah. I'm hoping the code push fixes all the big issues that
      users have reported
11:13 < Afuna> but yeah at his point it's wait on the push and see
11:13 < Kareila> and I know GHI updated its interface and kab did a lot of wiki
      work to get updated docs on that
11:13 < Afuna> yes! that was pretty fantastic work of kab
11:14 < Kareila> and I still want to do the alternate non-dev project tracking
      thing but that will probably have to wait another week at least, as
      alierak is swamped at work right now
11:14 < Afuna> okay! I'd love to hear more about that when that happens, see if
      it makes people happy :)
11:15 < zorkian> yeah
11:15 < Kareila> oh, and I saw the alternate chat thing that Mark set up, I
      need to look at that other than over alierak's shoulder
11:16 < Afuna> I haven't looked at that much yet, just briefly
11:16  * Afuna ponders
11:16 < V_PauAmma_V> Alternate chat thing?
11:16 < zorkian> I've been thinking about the thing people have mentioned re:
      IRC being very temporal and decisions getting missed
11:16 < zorkian> but real-time communication is actually very useful
11:17 < zorkian> so I don't want to lose it
11:17 < zorkian> and also, I want to be realistic and know that we won't always
      go copy things into dw_dev or whatever, if we think they're small things
      or whatnot
11:17 < zorkian> so I've been experimenting with a 'real-time but persistent
      communication' system that has good mobile integration and APIs etc
11:19 < Kareila> I like the idea, but I'm hoping it can actually replace some
      of the existing IRC channels instead of becoming an additional thing I
      feel like I have to keep up with
11:20 < zorkian> oh yeah
11:20 < zorkian> I wouldn't want to bifurcate
11:20 < Kareila> that's such a great word.
11:20 < zorkian> :D
11:20  * V_PauAmma_V wonders whether it has a bitlbee or web interface, or
      something of the kind.
11:21 < zorkian> yeah, they have XMPP and IRC gateways so you can use those clients
11:23 < Kareila> another thing I was wondering, since I wasn't around two weeks
      ago, was whether the scheduled hack time was productive and if we want to
      schedule another one of those
11:25 < zorkian> well, it was productive for me at least :) since it actually
      got me to sit down and do some work
11:26 < Afuna> I got some stuff too! I'd definitely like another one -- I think
      we had a couple people drop in and ask questions about things they were
      stuck on in their current projects
11:27 < Afuna> so I feel like that worked on that level too
11:28 < Kareila> great! so.... next weekend? do we want to do a Sunday again?
11:29 < zorkian> I might be busy all next weekend, not sure yet, but yes :)
11:29 < Kareila> do I recall correctly that you are on vacation the weekend
      after that, Mark?
11:30 < zorkian> yup
11:31 < Kareila> then let's plan on next weekend, and I'll try to be around
      this time :)
11:31 < Afuna> sounds good :)
11:31 < Afuna> I'm hoping to wrap up the mobile stuff soon and then focus on
      the new update page
11:31 < Afuna> (because that hasn't gotten any love in way too long)
11:33 < Kareila> one other thing I've been wanting to bring up, which goes back
      to the "not everyone hangs out in IRC" issue
11:35 < Kareila> without monitoring IRC, it's hard to know how people are
      spending their development time, what issues they might be working
      (or stuck) on
11:36 < Kareila> I was wanting to brainstorm ways we could encourage people
      to share that information outside of IRC
11:36 < Afuna> hmmm
11:36 < Kareila> most projects encourage their developers to keep programming blogs
11:37 < Afuna> oh I like that idea
11:38 < Afuna> but I admit I haven't been very good at updating even my personal
      blog *g*
11:38 < Kareila> I've had one for a couple of years (karzilla) but I've been
      terrible about updating it
11:38 < Afuna> yeah I'm in the same boat
11:39 < Kareila> so, here's an idea
11:40 < Kareila> what if every week or two, we were to have a roundup post in
      one of the development comms with links to any dev-related personal blog
      posts during that time?
11:40 < Kareila> that would index them, direct attention to them, and remind
      people to post their own progress
11:41 < exor674> blah, I really still need to get my dev env set back up ;_;
11:41 < Afuna> hmmm. that could work. would it put pressure on people though
      in an unpleasant way?
11:42 < Afuna> oh hmmm no I suppose it might not since it's not "everyone post"
      it's "if you posted we'll link to it"
11:42 < V_PauAmma_V> How would we(FSVO) know about those programming journals
      in the first place?
11:42 < Kareila> I'm aiming for "encouraging" without "pressuring"
11:43 < Afuna> yeah seems like a fine balance but I think that it does manage
      to toe that line -- if it doesn't we can talk about it on the succeeding
      dev chat
11:43 < Kareila> we'd have to rely on self-reporting. if someone starts a new
      programming blog, they could comment saying "I posted this week, here's
      the link" and we'd add it.
11:44 < Afuna> so two blog entries, one inviting people to link, another to do
      the actual linking?
11:44  * V_PauAmma_V was wondering about posting a reminder with each questions
      thread, or would that be too much like pressure?
11:44 < Afuna> oh actually -- would it be hijacking the volunteers social thread
      to include a "hey if you have any entries about..."
11:44 < Afuna> hahaha great minds ;)
11:45 < Afuna> though actually yeah the questions thread might be the better fit
11:46 < Kareila> anyway, just wanted to throw that out there. we can think about
      it some more before we try to implement anything
11:46 < Kareila> I think it's worth trying though
11:46 < Afuna> okay! but I do like the idea
11:46 < Afuna> wyeah
11:47 < V_PauAmma_V> Speaking of the questions thread, I moved it to dw_dev for
      this month, with a link from _training.
11:47  * Afuna nods
11:48 < Afuna> has there been any negative reaction to tha?
11:48 < V_PauAmma_V> (to Afuna) No reaction at all so far, in that there has
      been no question, but this is par for the course.
11:49  * Afuna nods okay!
11:51 < Kareila> I think that's all I have for today. I should probably save my
      hands for catching up on changelog digest and doing a code tour
11:51 < V_PauAmma_V> But I think if we use it as a reminder to collect dev
      journal entries, it should remain there anyway.
11:51 < Kareila> (I'm assuming code tour by hand is still the order of the day)
11:51 < zorkian> I had one more thing to ask, for some feedback. minor thing.
11:51 < Kareila> sup?
11:52 < zorkian> I propose renaming the release branches to include dates
11:52 < zorkian> release-2014-08-10 or something
11:52 < Afuna> ahhhh hmmm
11:52 < zorkian> well, renaming brnaches going forwad
11:52 < Kareila> the date of the code push?
11:52 < V_PauAmma_V> Instead of release-1.23?
11:53 < Afuna> I don't have super strong feelings about this
11:53 < zorkian> yeah, the date of the push
11:53 < Afuna> think the dates could be useful for context sure
11:53 < Kareila> hmm
11:53 < Kareila> it's a lot more to type :)
11:53 < Afuna> hahaha
11:53 < V_PauAmma_V> What if there are 2 pushes the same day, for fixes? Or does
      that never, ever happen?
11:54 < Afuna> V_PauAmma_V: fixes go on the same branch so that's fine
11:54 < Afuna> Kareila: hmmm I know i just automated away all of that with git
      aliases
11:54 < Afuna> "git checkout-release" and the like
11:54 < Afuna> maybe I should see about putting those up on the wiki
11:54 < Kareila> I can see where it might be confusing to people that we might
      be continuing to update the branch after that date, that it's not a fixed
      point in time
11:54 < zorkian> true
11:55 < V_PauAmma_V> Hmm. That means release-2014-... what Kareila said.
11:58 < zorkian> Okay, tabled :)
11:58 < Kareila> I agree that we might want to revisit how we advertise releases,
      just not sure adding the push date to the branch name is the most helpful
      change to make :)
11:59 < V_PauAmma_V> Do we have any feedback from other sites on that?
12:00 < V_PauAmma_V> On the way we advertise releases and make them available,
      I mean?
12:01 < Kareila> I think most projects use tags instead of branches for releases,
      and add a new point release tag every time they make a hotfix
12:01 < zorkian> Dropbox pushes master. All day errday.
12:01 < zorkian> No release branches, no tags, no nada.
12:02 < zorkian> ^ is actually a very bad system, everybody agrees.
12:02 < Kareila> but they can't agree how to fix it?
12:02 < V_PauAmma_V> (to zorkian) Reminds me of early LJ...
12:03 < zorkian> Well, actually, it was mostly because we used Mercurial which
      is really bad at branches, so we had the policy to just use default. As of
      three weeks ago I co-lead a project that migrated our main repository to
      git, so now we can finally talk about branches, and now we're working on
      the mechanics.
12:03 < Afuna> most places would still want hotfixes on a separate branch
      though, because otherwise you can't have other unrelated development ongoing...
12:03 < zorkian> The likely outcome is that we do all development on "master",
      then we cut a release branch at 1pm for the daily push. But release
      branches are deleted a few days later, we record the revisions pushed
      live, so we can always roll back to them.
12:05 < Kareila> well, obviously there's more than one way to do it :)
12:05 < V_PauAmma_V> (to zorkian) Does Dropbox have clone/child/whatever sites?
      The pic is different if you do, as DW does IIRC
12:07 < zorkian> Pau: We do internally, in the sense that there are teams that
      use the same codebase but they do their own modification/deployment with
      it on separate hardware, etc.
12:08 < zorkian> But I am not proposing the DBX model for DW, fwiw, just
      providing an industry example :)
12:09 < zorkian> We would definitely keep release names forever (a long time)
12:11  * V_PauAmma_V nods.
12:13 < Kareila> okay, we can continue to think about that and maybe look for
      other examples?
12:13 < Afuna> okay!
12:13 < zorkian> sg
12:14 < Kareila> any other topics anyone wants to bring up?
12:15 < Afuna> not from me
12:16 < zorkian> noope
12:16 < Kareila> all right then
12:17 < Afuna> whoo
12:17 < Afuna> and just over an hour today!
12:17 < Kareila> next hack time is 8/17 - about the same time, 9AM pacific?
12:17 < Kareila> and next chat is 8/23
12:18 < Afuna> sounds good
12:18 < zorkian> +1
12:19 < Kareila> thanks for coming :)
12:19  * V_PauAmma_V kicks his lag.
12:20 < V_PauAmma_V> But no, nothing to add either.