15 Nov
2015
15 Nov
'15
1:02 p.m.
Hi Denis,
Thanks for your feedback, see below.
On 15 Nov 2015 at 12:30:13, Denis Gervalle (dgl@softec.lu(mailto:dgl@softec.lu)) wrote:
On Fri, Nov 13, 2015 at 9:48 PM, vincent(a)massol.net
wrote:
This is what I was trying to say with “for me a blocker is a blocker”. I think we’re
saying the same thing here:
* We need a way to mark (in JIRA) very important issues that affect some user-feature of
xwiki (since RN are for users)
* I agree that regressions don’t have to be blockers (and they’re not all, there are
several regressions we don’t mark as blockers because they’re not…). You should know since
the Mail API has had a few regressions you introduced and they’re marked as regressions
but not blockers ;)
On 13 Nov 2015 at 19:35:56, Eduard Moraru (enygma2002(a)gmail.com(mailto:
enygma2002(a)gmail.com)) wrote:
I can only speak for myself, but I do as well. Now it depends of the nature
of the blocker. All regression are blockers, but the regression could still
be minor and not so annoying for most users. In that case, I do not. Up to
now, what we put at the top in error box were blocker that we think make
the release unrecommended for most users. And IMO, we should continue doing
this manually at least.
I am +1 to keep doing what we have been doing so
far, which is, on a
case-by-case basis and depending on the importance of the blocker, to
manually add a notice (/error macro) in the release notes, informing
users.
If we want to document this as a best practice,
I`m ok with it.
I`m not a fan of increasing maintainance/work load in this aspect, but
that`s just my opinion.
I agree that low maintenance when possible is always better. That was the
point of the automated approach BTW. Even though automated has limitation
don’t you think it’s better than what we’re doing ATM (i.e. adding stuff
when we think about it, i.e. missing 80% of what we should do)?
About this, I don’t agree that what we’ve been doing is good because we
almost never do it. AFAIR I’ve been almost the only one doing it (I could
be wrong please correct me if that’s the case) and pushing others to do it
and I would prefer not to have to continue doing this all the time. An example was
later today, we created a
very important blocker and fixed it and yet we didn’t add it to the RN of
7.3 until I raised it and added it myself. I’d rather not be the one having
to think about this and pestering others about it...
I’d like a common agreement on whether we want to add blockers to RN or
not. If we think it’s not a good idea then I’m fine and we shouldn't add
them.
We already add know issue we know about to the RN, so adding blockers at
the top is not really adding them to the RN, but making them more visible.
This could be a good idea but not in replacement to our current practice,
since it is less understandable, and more common then our current practice,
making the information less meaningful for users. This could even cause
more confusion, if those blocker are minor regression on specific areas.
What I’m not fine about is saying that we think we should add blockers and
then not to do it, that doesn’t make sense.
Regarding importance of blockers, for me a blocker is a blocker, otherwise
it’s not named correctly and we should fix this :)
This is not so true, blocker means we don’t want this in the next release,
and as I said, it is generally true for any regression. But the actual
blocker could have several level of importance for different kind of user,
and in the end only affect very few of them but so hardly that it is still
blocker. If you look at your sample, I am even afraid by what users will
understand of them. Either they will be afraid so much, that they will not
upgrade, or they will not understand and consider they are not affected.
See XWIKI-12502, XWIKI-12342, XWIKI-12251, what users will think of them ?
Yes that’s the risk and that’s the reason we have created manual release notes indeed.
Because just listing jira issues is not user-friendly enough.
And on the other side, XWIKI-12218, while we want it
in the next release,
was it really so blocker for end users ?
Again, there’s only a global process which is to separate real blockers from a user POV
(which we want highlighted in the RN) from important issues that we want fixed but that
are not really blockers for users.
The only question is when do we do this separation:
* Proposal 1 (Vincent): Do this sorting in JIRA and have a generic query in the RN for
listing those issues
* Proposal 2 (Denis, Edy): This is what we do now. Continue doing this sorting at random,
by random people when they think about it. In most cases it’s forgotten and not added to
RN.
I’m in favor of proposal 1, ie improve our JIRA tagging so that we identify real user
blockers and list them automatically in the RN. This would be the same process as we have
now, ie we review issues being created every day
I’d be also ok for proposal 2 but only if we can define a process so that we don’t forget
about them (and that it’s not me doing it most of the time and being the bad guy reminding
everyone).
In your example above, those that
could be interesting and understandable warnings for some users are
XWIKI-12612, XWIKI-12160 and XWIKI-11993.
So listing them in red at the very top may be too much, or confusing IMO.
This does not mean the the could not list them somewhere in the RN, maybe
in a {{warning}} macro, below the possible {{error}} we do manually. This
could also help us think about doing a red one, when looking at the RN.
I think listing in red at the top is ok for really serious issues (ie real blockers from
user POV), i.e. to tell users to NOT use this version if they used the feature mentioned.
What afraid me in the end, is that we do less blockers
just because we know
they will appear in RN and they are so technical that nobody will get it.
That would be fine IMO because it would mean they’re not real blockers and that releasing
without them is ok. In the end what should be blocking us from a release is the real end
user blockers.
So the next question is, does all of them represent
what you wanted at the
top, compare to other issues ? Is those blocker more significant ? Should
we change the way we use blocker ?
Yep I think this is the real question.
I am not sure we should change anything in our current
usage of blocker, we
may want to have them enhanced in RN, but it does not mean all the
information will be so significant.
I’m ok to not change our current usage of blockers but I don’t understand what you’re
suggesting for RN. You’re not addressing the reason for this thread in the first place,
which is that I feel that we just add warning at random and we forget a lot and that it’s
mostly me doing it. How do we prevent what happened Friday (ie. Marius not adding the
blocker to the top of the 7.3 RN)?
Thanks
-Vincent
Thanks,
>
> Thanks for your feedback Edy. I’m curious to know what the others think at
> this point! :)
>
> Thanks
> -Vincent
>
> > Thanks,
> > Eduard
> >
> > On Fri, Nov 13, 2015 at 8:21 PM, vincent(a)massol.net
> > wrote:
> >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > On 13 Nov 2015 at 19:14:11, Eduard Moraru (enygma2002(a)gmail.com
> (mailto:
> > > enygma2002(a)gmail.com)) wrote:
> > >
> > > > Hi,
> > > >
> > > > Another problem with automatic is that we don`t always tag
> > > affects-version
> > > > on the actual version when it was introduced, but the version we
> actually
> > > > tested with. This might lead to displaying blockers on the release
> notes
> > > of
> > > > versions that were not responsible with introducing the actual
> problem.
> > > >
> > > > Until now, we haven`t had that many cases and the 7.2, 7.3 releases
> could
> > > > be considered (from my POV) exceptions which had multiple issues due
> to
> > > the
> > > > nature/complexity of the changes they introduced.
> > > >
> > > > So, in the end, I believe I`m +1 to stick to manual.
> > >
> > > Whether manual or automatic, are you +1 that we do this as a best
> practice
> > > (ie always add blockers to RN, at the top and using an error macro)?
> > >
> > > Thanks
> > > -Vincent
> > >
> > > >
> > > > Thanks,
> > > > Eduard
> > > >
> > > > On Fri, Nov 13, 2015 at 7:00 PM, vincent(a)massol.net
> > > > wrote:
> > > >
> > > > > To summarize:
> > > > >
> > > > > Pros and cons of automatic:
> > > > > + Not missing any
> > > > > - Technical descriptions
> > > > >
> > > > > Pros and cons of manual:
> > > > > + Nice hand-made messages
> > > > > - Usually missing some, unless we add a process (like have the
RM
> > > ensure
> > > > > that none are missing the previous release notes)
> > > > >
> > > > > WDYT?
> > > > >
> > > > > Thanks
> > > > > -Vincent
> > > > > On 13 Nov 2015 at 17:56:00, vincent(a)massol.net
(vincent(a)massol.net
> )
> > > wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > OTOH if we do it automatically we won’t have as nice description
as
> > > what
> > > > > we can have when we hand-make them. For example on
> > > > >
> http://www.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/ReleaseNotes/ReleaseNotesXWiki71
> > > we
> > > > > have:
> > > > >
> > > > > “
> > > > > This release introduces a bug concerning the upgrade of the
> subwikis
> > > > >
([[XWIKI-12208>>http://jira.xwiki.org/browse/XWIKI-12208]])208]]). You
> can
> > > > > still upgrade them via Distribution Wizard but only at the same
> time
> > > you
> > > > > upgrade the main wiki. You can also upgrade your subwiki's
UI like
> any
> > > > > other extensions, by clicking on "Check for updates".
> > > > >
> > > > > The best is to wait for the release of 7.1.1 which will fix
this
> > > problem
> > > > > and should be ready really soon.
> > > > > "
> > > > >
> > > > > And if we use the strategy below we get:
> > > > > https://www.evernote.com/l/AHfEQXsj4mNH4pjXgxuiL4uZiomR5kUpkpA
> > > > >
> > > > > As you can see on the screenshot if we do it manually we’re
> missing a
> > > lot
> > > > > of blocker issues.
> > > > >
> > > > > WDYT?
> > > > >
> > > > > Thanks
> > > > > -Vincent
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > On 13 Nov 2015 at 17:51:50, vincent(a)massol.net
(vincent(a)massol.net
> )
> > > wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > Hi devs,
> > > > >
> > > > > I’d like to suggest a new best practice which would consist in
> > > > > systematically adding blockers issues in the release notes
> > > corresponding to
> > > > > the affects versions, at the top, using an error macro. For
example
> > > I’ve
> > > > > updated the release notes for 7.2 and 7.3:
> > > > > -
> http://www.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/ReleaseNotes/ReleaseNotesXWiki72
> > > > > -
> http://www.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/ReleaseNotes/ReleaseNotesXWiki73
> > > > >
> > > > > The idea would be to update our Release Notes template to
> automatically
> > > > > list them using this template snippet (example for XWiki 7.2):
> > > > >
> > > > > "
> > > > > {{error}}
> > > > > The following blocking issues were found after this version was
> > > released.
> > > > > You should verify if you're using the affected features and
if so,
> you
> > > can
> > > > > click on them to see in which version they are fixed):
> > > > >
> > > > > {{jira url="http://jira.xwiki.org"
style="list" source="jql"}}
> > > > > category = "Top Level Projects" and affectedVersion
in
> > > > > ("7.2-milestone-1", "7.2-milestone-2",
"7.2-milestone-3",
> "7.2-rc-1",
> > > > > "7.2") and fixVersion > "7.2" and
priority = Blocker and
> resolution =
> > > Fixed
> > > > > {{/jira}}
> > > > > {{/error}}
> > > > > “
> > > > >
> > > > > The goal is to make it easy for our end users to see blocking
> issues
> > > in a
> > > > > given release. The goal is also to make it visible to us how
many
> > > blockers
> > > > > we introduce in each release and work on reducing this number
as
> much
> > > as
> > > > > possible.
> > > > >
> > > > > WDYT?
> > > > >
> > > > > Thanks
> > > > > -Vincent