/srv/irclogs.ubuntu.com/2010/09/02/#launchpad-meeting.txt

=== Ursinha is now known as Ursinha-afk
rockstarbac, is the meeting today or tomorrow?00:29
bacrockstar: that is really an existential question00:29
bacit is your today00:29
bacbut it is thursday00:29
bacat greenwich00:29
* rockstar hates at timezones.00:30
bacrockstar: so, in summary, it is in 30 minutes00:30
rockstarbac, okay, I'm going to have to relocate soon then.00:30
bacare you at your fancy coworking spot?00:31
rockstarbac, after this semester, I'll probably go back to the Euramerican meeting.00:31
baci do that about once a month00:31
rockstarbac, yeah, for night cow orking.00:31
baccoworking, i mean00:31
bacok, see you soon00:31
rockstarI go in the evenings on Wednesday, and then I (try to) go on Fridays00:31
bacours closes at 600:31
bacand i don't qualify for a key00:32
bacbut i only pay $10/day00:32
bacwhich is roughly $10/month00:32
rockstarYeah, I pay about $60/month.00:33
rockstarThey do a night coworking thing on Wednesday nights, and I'm trying to start my little game company, so I spend my Wednesdays doing that.00:34
bacah, neat00:39
thumperme01:00
mwhudsonem01:00
bac#startmeeting01:00
MootBotMeeting started at 19:00. The chair is bac.01:00
MootBotCommands Available: [TOPIC], [IDEA], [ACTION], [AGREED], [LINK], [VOTE]01:00
* rockstar 01:00
bacy'all are an anxious bunch01:00
* wallyworld 01:00
* mwhudson is a bit hungry01:00
baclifeless, StevenK: ping01:00
* StevenK waves01:01
bachurrah01:01
lifelesshi01:01
* thumper is hungry too01:01
bacwoot, we're all here01:01
wallyworldthumper is always hungry01:01
* bac just had a lovely dinner01:01
bac[topic] agenda01:01
MootBotNew Topic:  agenda01:01
bac* Roll call01:01
bac * Agenda01:01
bac * Outstanding actions01:01
bac * New topics01:01
bac  * Henning Rocks.  One-import-per-line now done and in effect.01:01
bac  * Mentat update.01:01
bac  * gary: benji is checking in our generated WADL and adding tests of the WADL generated for our webservice versions.  This is supposed to mean that changing the frozen versions of the webservice in a backwards-incompatible way will be more easily caught by reviewers: don't allow it! It should also mean that running make initially will be noticeably faster.01:01
bac  * Some of the UI reviewers have graduated, but ReviewerSchedule indicates that no one has graduated.01:01
bac  * https://dev.launchpad.net/ArchitectureGuide as per the epic - will reviewers please start discussing the values and metrics during reviews?01:02
bac * Peanut gallery01:02
bac[topic] outstanding stuff01:02
MootBotNew Topic:  outstanding stuff01:02
baclifeless, can you remind us of the lib/coop mess was settled?01:02
lifelessyes its settled. We all know what it is and that the name sucks.01:02
thumperwhat is it?01:02
thumperremind me plz01:02
lifelessit is buganswers, answersbranches etc01:03
thumperok01:03
lifelessI'm in favour of a rename to 'inter' if we bother.01:03
lifelessbut I don't think that that actually removes the need for folk to read the package docstring01:03
lifelesswhich is entirely clear.01:03
bacok, thanks01:03
lifelessas I don't think it will remove that need, I'm in favour of doing nothing and worrying about other stuff01:04
baci should mention there was no AMEU meeting today due to me having a dr's appt and forgetting all about it01:04
lifelessno worries01:04
baclast week we noted henning did a great job on the import script. \o/01:05
bac[topic] mentat update01:05
MootBotNew Topic:  mentat update01:05
bacthumper, StevenK: how goes it?01:05
thumperslowly01:05
StevenKWhat he said01:05
baci must apologize for breaking the mentoring cycle last week as i had a branch that i really wanted to land.  hope you still got good feedback from edwin, StevenK01:06
StevenKI've figured out that reviewing is effectively asking yourself or the submitter a bunch of questions. Now to learn what are good questions to ask.01:06
bacStevenK: geez, you're channeling kiko01:06
StevenKArgh!01:06
StevenKbac: It's fine, urgent is well, urgent.01:07
bac[topic] WADL files01:07
MootBotNew Topic:  WADL files01:07
bac* gary: benji is checking in our generated WADL and adding tests of the WADL generated for our webservice versions.  This is supposed to mean that changing the frozen versions of the webservice in a backwards-incompatible way will be more easily caught by reviewers: don't allow it! It should also mean that running make initially will be noticeably faster.01:07
bacdid that email go out?  i don't recall seeing it01:07
* gary_poster is not really here (hi!)01:07
bacanyway, i'm just the messenger01:07
bacgary_poster: ^^?01:08
mwhudsoni don't recall an email or a landing to that effect yet01:08
gary_posterbenji couldn't land it because it depended on a new version of lazr.restful that was being integrated for another effort01:08
gary_posterstill pending01:08
lifelesswe make no guarantees about devel though, do we ?01:08
gary_postercorrect, lifeless01:08
lifelessjust 1.001:08
thumperlifeless: no we dont'01:08
lifelessphew01:08
gary_posterand "beta"01:08
lifelessah01:08
bac[topic] * Some of the UI reviewers have graduated, but ReviewerSchedule indicates that no one has graduated.01:09
wgrantbeta is only Karmic, right?01:09
MootBotNew Topic:  * Some of the UI reviewers have graduated, but ReviewerSchedule indicates that no one has graduated.01:09
gary_posterwgrant: yeah, I think that's right01:09
baci sent a request to rockstar to update the wiki01:09
bacwho added this agenda item?01:09
* rockstar completed the request01:09
bacrockstar: thanks!01:09
lifelesswgrant: until yesterday beta was still on the 'jahacking the api' wiki page01:09
rockstarAlthough I should say that everyone should be a ui* or javascript*01:10
lifelessbac: bryceh noticed the disconnect01:10
StevenKbac: I noticed that myself -- also the wiki page still shows jelmer is being mentored by noodles.01:10
baclifeless: ok.  it's nice to put your [name] on the items01:10
* rockstar hates wikis01:10
lifelessbac: sure. I didn't add that one :P01:10
lifelessbac: I did the next, I forgot toblame myself.01:11
baclifeless: no, but...01:11
lifeless^W^Wtake credit01:11
bac[topic]  * https://dev.launchpad.net/ArchitectureGuide as per the epic - will reviewers please start discussing the values and metrics during reviews?01:11
MootBotNew Topic:   * https://dev.launchpad.net/ArchitectureGuide as per the epic - will reviewers please start discussing the values and metrics during reviews?01:11
baclifeless: that has your fingerprints!01:11
lifelessI raised this at the Epic in my presentation01:11
lifelessI've been slack writing it up.01:11
lifelessits now in a moderately consumable form.01:11
lifelessI'm asking the review team to take on a new challenge01:12
lifelesswhich is to help people get their code to meet the values on that page, and [its experimental] the metrics.01:12
lifelessI know the metrics are bad and wrong. But it would be nice to have some, so lets try and iterate.01:13
lifelessThis is a form of review that none of the current guides covered01:13
lifelessbut I feel it is very much in the spirit of review - helping each other end up with code that does what we want and is easy to care for01:13
lifeless-fin01:14
baclifeless: i notice you've been following up on a lot of reviews.  those follow ups are excellent reminders to keep the architecture in mind.01:14
lifelessbac: I read every review01:14
baclifeless: but, of course, you cannot do it yourself.  i'll bring this to the larger crowd.01:14
lifelessbac: but sometimes I skim :)01:14
lifelessI've got two goals with that page01:15
lifelessfirstly, I hope that by adding this info explicitly into our memesphere01:15
lifelessfolk will turn up at review with these values already embodied in their code01:16
lifelesssecondly, where they haven't, I hope they have a discussion with the reviewer and can decide whether they want to invest and improve things immediately, or before they move onto the next kanban card, or $schedule-phrase01:16
mwhudsonright, as per usual, the review is too late to catch this sort of problem in an ideal world01:17
lifelessmwhudson: exactly01:17
rockstarabentley and I have regular calls every day and they usually spin into pre-implementation calls.  That seems to help.01:17
bacmwhudson: yes, ideally these issues would be raised in a preimp call01:17
rockstarIt's kinda like swimming with a buddy, only without the swimming, and with coding.01:18
lifeless:)01:18
bacand no hurricanes01:18
lifelessso anyhow, I didn't find anything that matched the structure-of-code in our guidelines01:18
rockstarbac, oh, there are hurricanes.  Have you seen the buildd code?  :)01:18
lifelessthey were all pretty cosmetic or surface stuff01:18
bacdo you have hurricanes in NZ?01:18
thumperoh yes01:18
bacis that what you call them?01:18
thumpernot really tornados though01:18
thumperyes hurricanes01:18
lifelessI'm hoping this page can stay focused on structure and outcomes01:19
thumperin fact that is also the name of the Wellington super 14 rugby team01:19
* rockstar was hoping to learn the Maori word for hurricane.01:19
lifelessand we can spin specific techniques off to PythonSG / Performance pages etc etc01:19
* mwhudson adds to the distraction: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclone_Bola01:19
rockstarlifeless, we're listening, we promise.01:19
bacthanks lifeless for powering through our meteorological distractions01:19
lifelessthats ok, its all there for mootbot01:19
mwhudsonlifeless: +1 to all that01:20
bacso you *do* call them something else01:20
bacthanks robert01:20
bacthat's it for the scheduled items01:21
bacdoes anyone have anything else to discuss?01:21
thumpernot today01:21
rockstarbac, I would like to suggest an experiment.01:21
bacrockstar: go01:21
=== Ursinha-afk is now known as Ursinha
thumperoh?01:21
rockstarbac, I've been thinking about this a lot, and trying it in my own development.01:21
rockstarI would like to suggest we make our review diff line max much smaller.01:22
rockstarLike, maybe by half.01:22
lifeless+1 if I can get a permanent exception01:22
bacrockstar: is this part of the salgado-hovey cadence grail?01:22
lifeless:P01:22
rockstarlifeless, exceptions can be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.01:22
rockstarbac, well, yeah, if that's what you want to call it.  thumper and I had been experimenting with it before the epic though.01:23
rockstarReviews are SO EASY when they are small and concise.  It's easy to tell where you might have missed some tests, etc.01:23
baci spent a lot of time thinking about curtis' talk and it is clear it only works if you're riding a fixed gear bike01:23
bacon the flats01:23
lifelessrockstar: I think thats true with new code, but its really not true with existing code.01:23
wgrantBut it's sometimes possible to get large refactorings down below 800 lines.01:23
wgrant400 lines... I doubt it.01:24
StevenKI've been discovering most feature branches are easily over 600 lines01:24
lifelessrockstar: I routinely, at the moment hit 700 lines, on *trivial* things, because there is so much debt.01:24
wgrantWe'd have a *lot* more exceptional branches.01:24
wgrantlifeless: Exactly.01:24
baclifeless: yep01:24
rockstarlifeless, the debt should be reviewed separately than the actual change.01:24
baci had a silly branch today that came in at 60201:24
mwhudsoni worry that LOC is a poor surrogate for complexity01:24
rockstarmwhudson, this is true.01:24
rockstarEspecially with twisted code.01:24
bacand all i did was catch an exception and display a nice message01:24
lifelessrockstar: so, I think its great to *encourage* focused branches, but not great to *penalise* ones that are large but still focused.01:25
lifelessmwhudson: yes.01:25
bacmake it a goal, but one you an exceed by 100%01:25
StevenKPerhaps a wording change is in order?01:25
lifelessrockstar: when we *add* effort to do something *simple*, we're doing it wrong.01:25
rockstarLike I said, experiment.01:25
lifelessrockstar: I'm merely pointing out concerns.01:25
StevenK"We'd prefer diffs to be 400 lines or less, but should review diffs of up to 800 lines."01:25
bacrockstar: you said you've been doing it a while.  how has it worked out?01:26
rockstarlifeless, yeah, and I thank you for that.  I know it won't happen all the time, but judging by thumper's branches, we aren't staying under 800 anyway.01:26
rockstarbac, I think it's brilliant.01:26
StevenKOver 800 lines may require bribes, at the reviewers discretion?01:26
lifelessStevenK: already does.01:26
rockstarStevenK, that's how it works now.01:26
lifelessbut I think that setting a review limit *misses the point*01:26
lifelessthe benefit of focused branches is that they are focused and fast and easy.01:27
rockstarlifeless, yeah, it's only a limit as far as our current limit.01:27
baclifeless: but a review *target* doesn't01:27
lifelessbac: no, it does.01:27
lifelessthe current limit misses the point.01:27
lifelessit was a surrogate when we introduced it, and its a surrogate now.01:27
rockstarYou don't have to land your branches separately.  You can keep them in a pipe or whatever.  I think getting them reviewed in chunks is a good idea.01:27
lifelessIts obviously a poor surrogate because rockstar and others are arguing that its wrong01:27
rockstarlifeless, not wrong, but sub-optimal maybe.01:28
lifelessI would rather say 'Have no more than N changes in your thing to be reviewed'01:28
lifelesswhere we might say N is - 4.01:28
thumperI think we should have minus four changes too01:29
lifelessIf you can describe in english, without tricks, your entire branch in 4 simple clauses, its got to be pretty focused.01:29
lifelessif you need more to describe it, its less focused.01:29
lifeless(this is off the cuff, I'm simply saying that lets talk about the root issue: our *target for developers* is a surrogate. Maybe there is a better surrogate, if we feel people are failing to achieve focus)01:30
rockstarlifeless, I think 1 change is enough though.01:30
StevenKDoes that include drive-bys, though?01:30
rockstarI think one of the problems is that we are trying to fix too many things.01:30
rockstarStevenK, yes.  Ask thumper about the little drive-by fix in his refactoring branch last week.  :)01:31
thumperit has always been a soft limit anyway01:31
lifelessrockstar: 1 is ideal, but is definitely not enough for anything deep. Perhaps I'm seeing a biased slice of the code.01:31
rockstarYeah, and I'm saying maybe, as a team, we should ratchet down the soft limit and see if that helps the team.01:31
mwhudsoni have to be honest: i've basically ignored the 800 line limit for years01:31
lifelessme too01:32
thumpermwhudson: and done what?01:32
bacmwhudson: i'm a pretty big offender too.  sinzui will review anything.01:32
mwhudsonthumper: tried to stay focused01:32
mwhudsoni think my branches are mostly under 800 lines01:32
StevenKI use 800 lines as "Uh oh, I should try and split this monster up."01:32
rockstarbac, yeah, when my manager asks me to review 2X lines of code, what do I say? No?  :)01:32
mwhudsoni have no idea -- that's what i mean by ignore01:32
bacrockstar: yeah, but it's the other way around...01:33
rockstarI think mwhudson's approach is the best.  lifeless illustrated a good way to measure it, but 4 things is too many.01:33
rockstarMAYBE 2 things.01:33
* bac calls time01:33
lifelessI can propose another approach01:33
mwhudsonpipelines ftw, as usual01:33
lifelessbac: if I may01:33
rockstarmwhudson, yes.01:33
baclifeless: ok01:33
StevenKWhy not both, we recommend 2 things, but up to 4, per discretion01:33
lifelessremove the limit. Gone. Replace it with:01:33
baclifeless: wrap it up as mwhudson is hungry01:34
lifeless * if the reviewer feels its too big to review sensibly, from *whatever perspectve*, they ask the reviewee to split it with pipelines.01:34
thumper+101:34
lifelesswe don't have 5K and 10K branches coming in anymore01:34
lifelessthe cultural is radically different.01:34
thumperthankfully01:34
mwhudsonlifeless: +101:35
baclifeless: is there an easy way to do that?  even with pipelines?01:35
thumperadd-pipe --before01:35
thumpermerge -i01:35
* bac may need a tutorial01:35
bac+1 then01:35
lifelesslimits like this are always going to be a discussion, so lets make it explicit about the tradeoffs: ease of review / clarity etc and let the participants have the discussion01:36
mwhudsondidn't aaron do a tutorial at the epic about this?01:36
lifelessbac: there are various ways; pipelines are pretty nice.01:36
lifelessbac: or just a regular branch + merge -i01:36
bacmwhudson: yeah but it assumed lots of familiarity with pipelines already01:36
mwhudsonok01:36
lifelesspersonally, I try to just do enough to be confident in the change and stop there01:36
lifelessby the time I need a stack of things, I've usually gotten myself tied up in knots already01:37
mwhudsonas always, it depends01:37
mwhudsonmy blueprints hacking last week feel easily into three steps: move, sanitize, change01:37
lifelessmwhudson: you forgot delete.01:38
mwhudsonit helps if you can see the steps ahead of you i guess01:38
bacrockstar thanks for bringing up the topic.   i think the discussion was helpful.  we'll need more time to figure out a plan.  perhaps lifeless and i can talk before next week to come up with a solid proposal.01:38
* rockstar acks01:38
lifelessbac: drop me a mail ?01:39
bacany other things?01:39
baclifeless: sure01:39
thumperlets finish plz01:39
bac3...01:39
bac201:39
bac101:39
bac#endmeeting01:39
MootBotMeeting finished at 19:39.01:39
thumperthanks bac01:39
bacthanks all01:39
bacg'night01:39
mwhudsonthanks bac01:39
thumperlunch time01:39
* mwhudson lunches01:39
lifelessthanks y'all01:40
=== Ursinha is now known as Ursinha-afk
=== Ursinha-afk is now known as Ursinha
=== Ursinha is now known as Ursinha-zzz
=== danilo_ is now known as danilos
=== Ursinha-zzz is now known as Ursinha
=== Ursinha is now known as Ursinha-lunch
=== salgado is now known as salgado-lunch
=== Ursinha-lunch is now known as Ursinha
=== salgado-lunch is now known as salgado
=== salgado is now known as salgado-afk

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