Public SourceMage Discussion List

[Andrew <afrayedknot AT thefrayedknot.armory.com>]

I'll try and hash out some of the requirements based on how I would
quantify them.

On Fri, Jun 03, 2005 at 04:35:09PM -0500, David Kowis wrote:
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> Karsten Behrmann wrote:
> > Hi everyone!
> > We're doing some thinking on the ISO team about where we should go and
> > be with the ISOs by 1.0.
> > As I'm doing the installer, I've done some thinking on how the installer
> > should install the spells. We're looking at several requirements:
> > 1. Ease to maintain (fix and update)
> > 2. Keep ISO size down
> > 3. It should work
> 
> I'm going to be nitpicky here and pick your nits about this one.
> Those are terrible requirements. Not terrible as in they're not things we 
> want,
> but terrible as in quantifiable.
> 
> Easy to maintain.
> How can this be measured?
> Perhaps better would be:
> - - Installer will be modularly built, such that each module is one menu 
> item in
> the installer.

I think theres two goals here. The first is the code itself is
maintainable. In other words, someone reports a bug, it should be easy
to look at the bug and figure out what section of code is causing the
bug and to fix the code itself.  The other goal is to have that fix
presented to the user in a timely fashion. It isn't totally obvious which
one is being referenced here.

Perhaps define the first as a long term goal (this can be measured,
but not as easily over the short term), and the second as a short term
requirement. It's very cut and dry when you can simply turn the crank
and get another iso published, it isn't so cut and dry, and quantifiable
when code is totally maintainable/fixable.

As an aside, larger groups/companies have an entire team dedicated to actually
building (or automating the building of) the final product in a timely
manner.  In the grimoire you fix a bug in test and in 6 hours anyone can
get it, with stable you log into the mirror and run a single command,
enter your passphrase and thats it, you're done.

The iso definitly has the disadvantage of being a more complex thing
to build than simply "sync + tar" (at least right now) like sorcery and
grimoires are. Im preaching to the choir here, but lets not overlook
this as an easily quantifiable and (imho) important goal.

> 
> Keep ISO size down.
> Below what threshold are we talking about here? To me under 700MB is fine. 
> But
> that my not be sufficiently small for others. IIRC, the community wants it 
> to
> remain under 200Mb for those little card CDs?
> - - Total ISO size will remain at or below 200mb as a finished product.

How high of a priority is this? Does it gate releasing the iso? Is it
a higher priority than maintainable code or an iso factory? Not
necessarily saying it shouldn't but I think it should be decided.

> 
> It should work.
> These type of requirements are perhaps the most difficult to define. The 
> only
> way to quantify such a thing is to perhaps determine a number of bugs found 
> per
> test. Similar to the way the Stable Grimoire's are "certified."
> - - A stable ISO release should have no more than X bugs filed against it.

I think the first step for this is to prioritize and order all the bugs into
releases they'll be fixed in. The iso "works" when all the bugs for that
release are fixed and all the enhancements targeted for that release a 
working.


-- 
__________________________________________________________________________
|Andrew D. Stitt                           | astitt at sourcemage.org    |
|irc: afrayedknot                          | afrayedknot at t.armory.com |
|aim: thefrayedknot or iteratorplusplus    | acedit at armory.com        |
|Sorcery Team Lead                         | ftp://t.armory.com/         |
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