TODO <-> Commitfest

David Fetter wrote:

Folks,

It looks to me like there should be more links, maybe even
bidirectional ones, between the TODO wiki and commitfest pages. Does
mediawiki have a bidirectional link capability?

Huh, what's a bidirectional link in this context?

I think both the Commitfest and Todo are just ordered collections of
pointers to the archives, IMHO anyway (which makes even sadder the fact
that the archives are so puny). I'm not sure what you are envisioning.
Can you be more explicit?

--
Alvaro Herrera http://www.CommandPrompt.com/
The PostgreSQL Company - Command Prompt, Inc.

On Tue, Aug 26, 2008 at 09:40:26PM -0400, Alvaro Herrera wrote:

David Fetter wrote:

Folks,

It looks to me like there should be more links, maybe even
bidirectional ones, between the TODO wiki and commitfest pages.
Does mediawiki have a bidirectional link capability?

Huh, what's a bidirectional link in this context?

I think both the Commitfest and Todo are just ordered collections of
pointers to the archives,

For example, Common Table Expressions is both on the TODO list and on
September's Commitfest. They should probably point to each other so
long as such a relationship exists.

IMHO anyway (which makes even sadder the fact that the archives are
so puny). I'm not sure what you are envisioning. Can you be more
explicit?

See above :)

Cheers,
David.
--
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Phone: +1 415 235 3778 AIM: dfetter666 Yahoo!: dfetter
Skype: davidfetter XMPP: david.fetter@gmail.com

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David Fetter wrote:

On Tue, Aug 26, 2008 at 09:40:26PM -0400, Alvaro Herrera wrote:

Huh, what's a bidirectional link in this context?

I think both the Commitfest and Todo are just ordered collections of
pointers to the archives,

For example, Common Table Expressions is both on the TODO list and on
September's Commitfest. They should probably point to each other so
long as such a relationship exists.

Hmm, you are right; however it makes me uneasy to given committers the
burden of keeping both things updated (on top of all the other things
they already do).

On the other hand, maybe it will be less of a problem if we have links
on both to each other, so that we know we can mark the Todo as done.
We've seen those forgotten.

(Actually what this says is that we need a single link: from the
Commitfest to Todo. Linking the other way around is probably not as
useful.)

--
Alvaro Herrera http://www.CommandPrompt.com/
PostgreSQL Replication, Consulting, Custom Development, 24x7 support

On Wed, Aug 27, 2008 at 11:05 PM, Alvaro Herrera
<alvherre@commandprompt.com> wrote:

David Fetter wrote:

For example, Common Table Expressions is both on the TODO list and on
September's Commitfest. They should probably point to each other so
long as such a relationship exists.

(Actually what this says is that we need a single link: from the
Commitfest to Todo. Linking the other way around is probably not as
useful.)

Well, you can't "link" to an individual item on the Todo list anyway.
You can link to sections in the Todo list (for example, [[Todo#MONEY
data type]] would work) but individual items don't have any kind of
anchor that you can link to.

You could add a note to the item on the CommitFest that says "This
patch addresses Todo item 'add foo support to bar'", with a link to
the relevant Todo section. This would serve as a reminder to update
the Todo when the patch is committed. You'd still have to search for
the right item on the Todo page, but I suppose it's better than
nothing.

So, to take a live example, the Windowing Functions item on the
September CommitFest might end up looking something like this:

Windowing Functions
This patch addresses Todo item "Implement SQL:2008 window functions"
David Fetter says: Git repository is here.

It does seem like a lot of effort for a minor benefit though. And, as
Alvaro mentions, it increases the administrative burden on committers.

On the other hand we could just put the onus for this on the patch
submitters themselves. That is, make a policy "If you submit a patch
which resolves a Todo item, please mark the Todo item as done if/when
that patch is committed." Maybe they forget to do it, but it's
probably still a step up from our current strategy.

Cheers,
BJ

"Brendan Jurd" <direvus@gmail.com> writes:

On the other hand we could just put the onus for this on the patch
submitters themselves. That is, make a policy "If you submit a patch
which resolves a Todo item, please mark the Todo item as done if/when
that patch is committed." Maybe they forget to do it, but it's
probably still a step up from our current strategy.

Alternatively, suggest that the email message submitting the patch
mentions that "this resolves TODO item so-and-so". Then the committer
would know to go fix the TODO item.

regards, tom lane

On Thu, Aug 28, 2008 at 3:01 PM, Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us> wrote:

Alternatively, suggest that the email message submitting the patch
mentions that "this resolves TODO item so-and-so". Then the committer
would know to go fix the TODO item.

Yes, I've noticed that some submitters are already doing this, and it
seems to work. Although I do wonder about patch threads where the
initial patch kicks off further discussion, and several revisions of
the patch ensue. Is the committer expected to recall that the very
first post contained a reference to a TODO item when committing the
final version?

Anyway, I think it would be worth adding this guidance to
http://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Submitting_a_Patch and perhaps also
http://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Developer_FAQ#I_have_developed_a_patch.2C_what_next.3F

I'll go do this now. Feel free to edit/revert/whatever my changes if
you don't like them =)

Cheers,
BJ