Public SourceMage Discussion List

[Duane Malcolm <d.malcolm AT auckland.ac.nz>]

Andrew wrote:

> > I had thought to use tinderboxes purely to test software, the wetware and UI 
> > problem with sorcery i see as a different issue. Having said that i do see 
> > how it could be used to report bugs for sorcery, but it would be hard to 
> > simulate the stupidity of some people... Should we really try to do that or 
> > should we help the sorcery team idiot-proof their code some other way ?
> >
> >    
>
> I guess im not doing a good job explaining myself. Im not really talking
> about idiot-proofness. More along the lines of some newbie out there
> wants to install some number of spells and following the instructions
> types cast <list>, then proceeds to let all the defaults go by (or
> something). There arent many real problems with sorcery at this point,
> at least very few that a tinderbox the way I think we are envisioning
> it can catch. What I think we are after is making sure spells install
> properly under different conditions, which we as developers cant always
> catch since we dont have the time to test our spells manually on n
> different setups.
>
> Anyone else interested? How about that irc design meeting?
There wouldn't be much work in implementing both systems would there. 
One system casts a random list of spells to check different 
configurations and the other casts a fixed list of spells, which are the 
basic install spells (base system, xfree, maybe ked and gnome). And then 
reporting on sucesses and failures.

I would support a chroot system, where while I sleep I'll tell my PC to 
go into tinderbox mode (chroot) and cast 8 hours of random spells and 
report on them. Then it either submits the report or I could browse it, 
for simple problems such as failed download due to no network, and then 
manually commit it.

I am interested in the reporting system and how to collate the reports 
in an intelligently to find problems.

"The FireBrigade" isn't really magic oriented is it??

Duane.