[Koha-devel] Proposed QA Enhancements

[Ian Walls]

For my part, I tend to review patches textual to see if they make sense as
a changeset.  If I cannot tell from reading what this patch does, I'll
either apply and test, or ask for clarification.  Generally, both of those
actions take more effort than reading on Bugzilla, and thus take longer.

I agree that it would be preferable to have the actual QA signoff on the
patch itself when it gets through QA, so that our git signoff stats are
more accurate.  That does add the additional overhead of pulling down and
applying each patch, then amending the commit and firing back up to BZ...
not complicated, but additional steps.  Hence why I haven't been doing it
reliably.

Any QA rules we can put into scripts to automatically check, I'm all for,
as that can relieve some of the more tedious work of checking spacing and
variable name declarations, and let QA look more in-depth about the patch's
implementation.  I know we've got a few such tests... anyone who is willing
to write more goes in my Nice Person book.

My new job is starting to ramp up further, and I'm finding myself doing
less QA than I expected.  I'll try to rectify that, but if the community
feels I'm not doing the job as it needs to be done, I do hope folks will
speak up and help us find a remedy to the situation.

Cheers,


-Ian

On Tue, May 22, 2012 at 11:02 AM, Marcel de Rooy
<M.de.Rooy at rijksmuseum.nl>wrote:

> Just a quick response on first glance: The numbers in this discussion are
> imo far from accurate. As for me, I mostly QA without signing off, just to
> spare time. In most cases I did apply and test (at least some
> functionality, in other cases much more). I would not recommend doing QA in
> Bugzilla only, perhaps with the exception of very small things.
> Adding the rule that QA must do an additional signoff too will put more
> work (better testing etc.) on the QA team, and will result in more delay.
> If a QA member does not trust a patch, why not ask for a second signoff
> (older idea..)?
>
> ________________________________________
> Van: koha-devel-bounces at lists.koha-community.org [
> koha-devel-bounces at lists.koha-community.org] namens Chris Cormack [
> chrisc at catalyst.net.nz]
> Verzonden: dinsdag 22 mei 2012 10:51
> To: Paul Poulain
> Cc: koha-devel at lists.koha-community.org
> Onderwerp: Re: [Koha-devel] Proposed QA Enhancements
>
> * Paul Poulain (paul.poulain at biblibre.com) wrote:
> > Le 21/05/2012 19:38, Chris Nighswonger a écrit :
> > >
> http://wiki.koha-community.org/wiki/Bug-enhancement-patch_Workflow#Steps
> > >
> > > 1. I propose that we modify step 5 to read:
> > >
> > > "The patch is checked and signed-off by the QA team member. Then the
> bug
> > > status is set to Passed QA"
> > Something I made during the 3.8 release was to add many things to the
> > coding guidelines. My preference goes to QA rules that are clearly
> > defined and explained. That will help QAing a lot, and "anyone" with a
> > good Koha experience, and some time to dedicate should/could do it.
> >
> > I agree that we *must* have a functional AND a technical review of every
> > patch, the 2 steps are different.
> >
> > > This will ensure that we have clarity that the patch was, indeed,
> > > touched by a member of the QA team, as well as increasing the accuracy
> > > of QA stats in git.
> > Most QA is done in bugzilla only: when a patch is QAed, it's not
> > signed-off & git bz attach most of the time.
> > (that's also why your numbers below are meaningless : Ian has not made
> > only 25 QA or joubu 5 ! OTOH, when I, as RM, push a patch, I always add
> > my signature, that can be as RM or QA)
>
> That's what Chris N was asking for, that a sign off is added when the
> patch is tested, it must have been applied and tested, so why not sign
> off and attach it back on the bug at the same time as changing the bug
> status.
>
> >
> > > 2. I propose that the RM be the QA of last resort. At present the stats
> > > show that the RM is doing the majority of the QA'ing.
> > As I just wrote, I don't do the majority of QA, (even if I agree I do a
> lot)
> >
> > As I've said previously, as RM, I dedicate more than half of my time to
> > this task.
> > I think that we could have someone dedicated full time to QA and someone
> > dedicated full time to sign-off. And until we won't... we will face this
> > kind of trouble. Our workflow is good, but require a large effort we
> > collectively fail to "pay" until now.
> >
> > [ off-topic: BibLibre dedicate a lot of resources to Koha (see
> > statistics on chris_c blog. A lot being "self-sponsored") and can't
> > dedicate more. I think everybody should ask himself seriously "What did
> > I do for Koha last week, what will I do next week ?" ]
> >
> I'm not sure we want to get into a who does more for Koha contest, nor
> do I think that was the point of this email.
>
> I do think there are too many patches missing getting 2 independent
> sign offs, and that is what we need to fix.
>
> Chris
>
> --
> Chris Cormack
> Catalyst IT Ltd.
> +64 4 803 2238
> PO Box 11-053, Manners St, Wellington 6142, New Zealand
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