________________________________ From: maemo-developers-boun...@maemo.org [mailto:maemo-developers-boun...@maemo.org] On Behalf Of ext Till Harbaum Sent: 16 September, 2009 15:16 To: maemo-dev Subject: How to use extras-testing correctly?
Hi, i have been asked to upload osm2go to extras-testing. It's not quite clear to me how this is actually supposed to work. I see several possibilities: 1) Just upload something. Others will do some testing and i can upload a fixed version of they see problems. The new version will then go though the same testing again. This is how i think it was initially meant to work. 2) Upload only things that have gone through my own testing to increase the likeliness that it will go straight through testing without any problems. This is the way i will use it. I see several problems with 1): - If something broken doesn't pass the tests and i keep uploading new versions people will likely get tired of me and my perhaps perfect version will stay in testing forever because nobody wants to test my app over and over again I rather see it as a chance to try out the latest versions. And as a tester a way to do my bit for the community. I'm not an excellent developer, but I can test applications. And you are right, broken stuff shouldn't pass into the hands of the average high end consumer (because yes, the N900 will not only be in the hands of oss hackers, but a lot of other people). That's why there's the testing phase. People most likely get tired if the application is of no use and broken. A repeated upload of a broken "Hello world", might get disregarded soon. But something that people consider usefull and that has been downloaded over 10 000 times... A few broken versions in the middle will hardly matter. Actually it would be worse to push those broken versions directly to extras, that would hurt all those people, not just the testers. The social dynamics of the system will make sure that things get tested. If an app gets a vote (up or down), others are likely to out of curiosity see what the tester said, and maybe even try it out themselves. - If something broken actually passes the testing things get even worse as a bug fix has to go through testing again and the broken version will stay there until the bug fix passes testing Some bugs will go through naturally. Perfect software doesn't exits. Don't even think so. The thing is that testing weeds out bugs that would be considered blockers or major issues. I can live with a lot of minor issues, and I won't even notice them most of the time. When I do, I'll report them as bugs. To me this means two things: 1) don't update too often, so people/testers don't get bored Keeping changes to yourself increases the likelyhood that there are issues that you don't find. The author of the software is never the best tester. The best tester is completely independent, something which strangely enough we can achieve in the community. Release often and release early. It does not say release broken. Early so that the tester knows what is coming in. The worst testing experience will be the first time; new software, massive feature list and no base on which to work. Often so that the tester can check the changed part fast and that the delta doesn't grow too much from the previous version. 2) put some extensive internal testing before promoting something to extras-testing Sure, but which one do you like more, developing or testing? If you are one of the few people (I know two) who utterly love both, then test until you think the test is exhaustive. Then give out and let others test too. However my guess (and experience) is that people who write oss software love developing more than testing. Extras-testing provides testing as a service to the developer. This also means that i will delay the promotion of osm2go as i am currently running my own tests. Well, right now is a special time. There is practically no hardware available (some developer units in the hands of Nokia personnel and a few selected people). Right now it is hard to get ten votes at all. That just happened 30 minutes ago for the first time (rootsh 1.5 is considered good for extras, a fitting package to go first). And there is no stopping people from keeping their stuff in extras-devel for as long as they want. Once there is hardware available, I think that the limit is the quaranteen time that the app has to stay in extras-testing. Knowing the community, my guess is that there will be enough testers for the apps. (some people code well, others like to test) I somehow think this is not the way it should work ... Any ideas how to use it in a more efficient way? The idea is to make sure that the end user gets good software. Tero Till
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