Tux forwarded me this message, I'm now subscribed to dbi-dev@perl.org.
-- Forwarded message --
From: Martin J. Evans boh...@ntlworld.com
To: dbi-dev@perl.org
Cc: p...@patg.net, captt...@cpan.org, fr...@cpan.org, j...@cpan.org,
ran...@cpan.org, r...@cpan.org, robert.dod...@gmail.com
Date: Fri, 28 Jun 2013 00:10:11 +0100
Subject: Re: State of DBD::mysql maintenance
snip
On 27/06/2013 22:22, Tim Bunce wrote:
Then I looked at the RT queue for DBD::mysql
https://rt.cpan.org/Public/Dist/Display.html?Name=DBD-mysql
and felt sad at the apparent neglect. 127 bugs (7 critical)
of which over half are still 'New'.
and of those I see:
o a load of supplied patches and many have been applied by MICHIELB to github
o quite a number of duplicates
o a few that look like they may be misunderstandings or errors on the part of
the reporter
o 4 items marked as wishlist/enhancements - there are obviously more not
marked as such
o some which seem to be fixed but not marked as such e.g. rt60085
o 70+ rts over 2 year old
It looks to me like a little house keeping and a new release would seriously
dent the queue.
I'm the MICHIELB that supplied some of the patches to github.
Patrick was very quick at merging them in DBD::mysql but the related
RTs are still open; for instance
https://github.com/CaptTofu/DBD-mysql/pull/43
https://rt.cpan.org/Public/Bug/Display.html?id=76462
I second that the RT queue definitely needs some love and that many of
the tickets can probably be closed easily.
snip
I've no idea if the DBD::mysql maintainers need more help. When I was
actively using DBD::mysql (a lot of years ago) I supplied patches to Patrick
and they were applied. Not everyone is capable of supplying patches. I'm
guessing DBD::mysql is probably the most used DBD and as mysql is so easily
installed by most package managers I guessed a lot more inexperienced users
are using DBD::mysql and that might be leading to a load of wrong rts but the
last one rejected was 3 years ago.
Three years ago (I think it was just after a LPW), I suggested having a DBD
team where DBD maintainers (and anyone else who was capable) could pitch in
to help keep the rt queues down - there wasn't much interest. I think I
repeated it again about 1 year ago with a similar result (although that may
have only been on irc). Now most DBDs are in git it should be a lot easier. I
also see around 25 people on #dbi regularly these days whereas 2 years ago it
was probably around 5, if that. I get a feeling there is a lot of potential
there if it can be stirred up a bit. I wish I could have attended the last QA
hackathon as I would have been happy to work on rt queues for any of the DBDs
I thought I could have helped with. I wonder if we could organise a DBI/DBD
hackathon even if it was one done remotely.
Anyway, here is my offer to DBD maintainers and in particular DBD::mysql
maintainers. If you want some help with rt queues in particular whether that
be simply some house keeping on the queue itself (I'd need privilege to do
that bit - cpan id MJEVANS) or bug finding/fixing I'm prepared to help out
where I can - just ask. For reasons I'm not going to go into here I will have
more spare time over the next month and the DBD::ODBC queue is almost non
existent and DBD::Oracle queue is almost under control so get it while you
can.
That would be very awesome; I'm sure Patrick can grant you access to
the RT queue (right??)
For me, I work for OTRS, we make open source helpdesk software. Our
software uses DBI and users can run it on different database backends,
using the power of DBI. Most of our users deploy on MySQL, but we
actually had most issues with DBD::ODBC (and I've had some
conversations on IRC and mailing lists with mje as a result of this).
I'm sure mje can be a major asset to the DBD::mysql maintenance.
But recently I ran into some issues with DBD::mysql which lead me to
send some of the pull requests to Patrick. I also promised him to fix
up more of the documentation of DBD::mysql regarding the installation,
but failed to do so, yet :(
I'd also be willing to help out fixing up some of the issues although
I do not have XS-skills (such as mje) and I have limited time,
nevertheless DBI is a major component of our stack so it's also
important that it works well. Some kind of DBD bug squad sounds like a
very good idea in my opinion, I'd join in!
--
Mike
