30 Jan
2019
30 Jan
'19
11:37 a.m.
Hi Vincent,
On 30/01/2019 09:05, Vincent Massol wrote:
--
Simon Urli
Software Engineer at XWiki SAS
simon.urli(a)xwiki.com
More about us at http://www.xwiki.com
Hi guys,
No opinions ?
Thanks
-Vincent
> On 25 Jan 2019, at 09:31, Vincent Massol <vincent(a)massol.net> wrote:
>
> Hi devs,
>
> Context
> =======
>
> It’s been since we’ve deviated from the original purpose of the Release Notes by also
adding developer-oriented release notes.
>
> The goal of the Release Notes was to **highlight** important novelties for our
**users**, because looking at the JIRA list is too technical (otherwise we could simply
use the Release feature of JIRA! :)).
>
> So you may ask why we do have a “Developer” Category in the RN app. These were not
for pure developers but for XWiki users who are more advanced and can write scripts in
wiki pages. And when it’s the case we **must** add examples, otherwise, it’s completely
useless.
>
> For example this morning I saw this RN added:
> https://www.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/ReleaseNotes/Data/XWiki/11.0/Change004/
>
> This is typically something that has very little value to me:
> * It’s for pure developers (java devs)
> * It’s not understandable by anyone except the person who coded it or participated to
the dev mailing list discussion about it
> * It doesn’t say more than what’s in the JIRA issue so what’s the point?
> * There are no examples at all in it!
> * Real developers can simply look at the reference documentation or can read the
JIRAs. We always link the JIRA issues in the RN anyway (it was for this reason that we’re
listing them).
> * It takes time to write RN items and thus it needs to have high value
>
> Proposal
> ========
>
> * Go back to the original idea and only list developer RN items when they are for
scripting users and not APIs. For example, document some new script service or some
additions to existing script services. Of course Groovy would allow you to call any API so
being able to use it from Groovy is not a good criteria. I’d say that the criteria should
be whether the Release Note Change is useful for Velocity users.
> * Rename “Developers” into “Scripters” or or “Advanced Users” (any better name?)
> * Always put an example when writing a “developer” change and take the time to
explain properly what it’s about.
>
> WDYT?
Actually reading the examples you give, I'm a bit mixed: I agreed that
for the first one "the PropertyDisplayType" an example might be given:
can be good to actually have the "example" box in the RN form.
For the second one about legacy profile activated, actually I don't
really know what's the impact for the users, and if he could change
something about it. So I don't see how we could provide an example.
So I have the feeling that the first one could be indeed adressed to
Scripters (and even there, it's not a new scripting API, they could only
use it in groovy scripts). And that the second one can be important for
some administrators, but not for Scripters on the contrary.
I might be wrong here but "Scripters" does not fit IMO and trying to
find a new name might lead to create new categories actually.
To be a bit more constructive I'd say that maybe for those changes we
should not focus on a role but just say "Advanced changes".
My 2 cents,
Simon
Thanks
-Vincent