MarmotBlog

I just noticed that the database class documentation is well underway, but the chapter on datasources and databases is really lacking. We need to spend some time on this before we can finalize 1.1. We’re billing this as reference release, after all.

First off, the Blog, Bugzilla, and official Documentation are now all on naslnx05. naslnx07 will redirect for a while, but I’ll probably clean that junk off in the next week or two.

Secondly, we’re going to try to have a much bigger focus on Bugzilla. Previously, it was just a way for Dirk to have a checklist. Now, we are going to try to use Bugzilla as the single collection point for all change tracking. This also changes the way we deal with CVS.

• Any changes you make in CVS should be associated with a Bugzilla entry.
• CVS changelogs should still be used, but do not have to be overly lengthy. They should at least contain a Bug ID.
• CVS commits should all be associated with a small number of bugs (preferably 1) and a small number of files. This is to prevent “Tim Syndrome”, where a developer makes tons of unrelated changes over a 2-week period before remembering to commit. This will also make it much easier to track changes.

Anything we feel we need to discuss before the roll-out of 1.2

Changes made since the merge

Since we seem to be talking about more and more new features we want, it would probably be a good idea to collect them. Post away!

…describes everything we do in CVS, it seems. Dirk had tons of fun today learning the right way to merge branches back to the trunk.

With any luck, everything will be in good shape today and we’ll be back on track for the plan I mentioned previously.

Starting today, Marmot will move to the “basically unstable” strategy of branching. All development will be done on the trunk, and releases will be branched off when appropriate. This should make it much easier to manage releases, bug fixes, and development simultaneously.

The major advantages here are:

• Deployment is done from a tested branch. Changes on this branch will be only bugfixes.
• Development is back to a single stream, on the trunk. Release bugfixes will be merged back to the trunk.
• Switching between branches is only done for upgrades on deployment servers. Such upgrades are only as common as releases and are well-planned.

The current schedule is somewhat close to:

• Today - commit any remaining changes in Marmot development sandboxes, merge dev_1-1_branch back to the trunk, update Marmot development sandboxes with -A to switch them back to the trunk
• March 1 - branch off 1.1 to a release branch, deploy to application development servers, begin testing and QA
• March 15? - 1.1 Release (probably up to 1.1.1 by this point). Update application deployment servers to the new 1.1 release branch.