[maemo-developers] Fwd: How to use extras-testing correctly?

[From: Jeremiah Foster]

Sorry, sent to the wrong list.

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Jeremiah Foster <jeremiah at jeremiahfoster.com>
> Date: September 16, 2009 3:48:59 PM GMT+02:00
> To: List for community development <maemo-community at maemo.org>
> Subject: Re: How to use extras-testing correctly?
> Reply-To: List for community development <maemo-community at maemo.org>
>
>
> On Sep 16, 2009, at 14:15, Till Harbaum wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> i have been asked to upload osm2go to extras-testing. It's not quite
>> clear to
>> me how this is actually supposed to work. I see several  
>> possibilities:
>>
>> 1) Just upload something. Others will do some testing and i can  
>> upload
>> a fixed version of they see problems. The new version will then go
>> though
>> the same testing again. This is how i think it was initially meant
>> to work.
>
> Yes, this is what happens. Please see http://wiki.maemo.org/Extras-testing
>  for more information.
>
>>
>> 2) Upload only things that have gone through my own testing to
>> increase
>> the likeliness that it will go straight through testing without any
>> problems.
>> This is the way i will use it.
>
> Sounds good.
>
>> I see several problems with 1):
>>
>> - If something broken doesn't pass the tests and i keep uploading new
>> versions people will likely get tired of me and my perhaps perfect
>> version will stay in testing forever because nobody wants to test my
>> app over and over again
>
> The testing is designed to check policy (at least my testing is, there
> are other tests as well) but it will not necessarily stop your upload,
> just produce a report indicating 'best practices'. Best practices are
> something we can all agree on; things that ease the user's experience
> of installing packages and make the developer's life easier too.
>
>>
>> - If something broken actually passes the testing things get even
>> worse
>> as a bug fix has to go through testing again and the broken version
>> will
>> stay there until the bug fix passes testing
>>
>> To me this means two things:
>>
>> 1) don't update too often, so people/testers don't get bored
>> 2) put some extensive internal testing before promoting something
>> to extras-testing
>>
>> This also means that i will delay the promotion of  osm2go as i am
>> currently
>> running my own tests.
>>
>> I somehow think this is not the way it should work ... Any ideas how
>> to use
>> it in a more efficient way?
>
> I think if we emulate the debian quality assurance methodology that
> might be good. Ideally, you'll run the tests on your package locally
> _before_ you upload to the builder, this would be like using linitan
> in debian. I am not sure how the builder tests and Niel's tests will
> work, but I am certain those can be explained by the people working on
> them.
>
> Jeremiah
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