Do you manage a distributed project?

Is communication between your developers efficient?

What's needed?

Project management requirements

• Source control including reviews
• Issue tracking linked to code changes
• Dependency and progress tracking
• Group communication
• Generate ChangeLog and Release Notes

Code reviews

• When? Before checkin or after checkin?
• How? Via email or using an issue tracker?
• How do reviewer comments get recorded?
• How to track changes in a patch before commit?

Issue tracking

• Traditionally one would use email to report issues
• Records are not easily locatable
• Need responsibilities, targets, severity and priorities for issues
• Need fields to report components and versions where issues occur

Tracking bug fixes

• Submit patches as attachments to an issue
• Newer patches obsolete an older patch
• CVS logs should reference a bug in bugzilla
• CVS log messages update bug comments and time spent

Communication

• Face to face meetings - seriously... does anything happen?
• Teleconferences - often chaotic
• email, IRC, message boards
• Can we use bugzilla?

We'll get back to that in a bit

for now, let's manage code

Install cvsd

apt-get install cvsd

The CVSROOT directory

• rcsinfo - template for log messages
• verifymsg - script to verify log message
• loginfo - script to run after commit
• checkoutlist - additional admin files

Let's try something

All commits must be against a bug

1. Prompt the user for a bug id at commit time
2. Don't commit if a bug id isn't passed

All commits must be against a bug

1. Prompt the user for a bug id at commit time
2. Don't commit if a bug id isn't passed

Create a file tc.template

BugId:

Create a file tc.template

BugId:

Seriously, that's all there is to it!

Create a file bugid.verify

#!/bin/sh
if head -1 < $1 | egrep "^BugId:[ ]*[0-9]+$" \
         > /dev/null; then
   exit 0
else
   echo "No BugId found."
   exit 1
fi

Add references to verifymsg and rcsinfo

Tell verifymsg how to check commits:

^src     /usr/cvssupport/bugid.verify %l

Tell rcsinfo what to prompt devs for:

^src     /usr/cvssupport/tc.template

Add references to verifymsg and rcsinfo

Tell verifymsg how to check commits:

^src     /usr/cvssupport/bugid.verify %l

Tell rcsinfo what to prompt devs for:

^src     /usr/cvssupport/tc.template

Don't forget to make bugid.verify executable

chmod +x bugid.verify

You could allow something like BugId: none

Add this before the else:

elif head -1 < $1 | egrep "^BugId:[ ]*none$" \
         > /dev/null; then
   # It is okay to allow commits with
   # "BugId: none", but do not put that
   # text into the real log message.
   egrep -v "^BugId:[ ]*none$" $1 > $1.rewrite
   mv $1.rewrite $1
   exit 0

Email all devs when someone commits foocide

Add to loginfo:

DEFAULT  $CVSROOT/CVSROOT/syncmail -u %{sVv} \
     devs@foo.com

Use the syncmail script provided in the CVS Book

WT%F are %s, %V, %v and %{sVv}?

• %s is the filename
• %V is the old revision number
• %v is the new revision number

Make way for Bugzilla

CVS talking to bugzilla — needs a script

• Callable from bugzilla.procmailrc for some alias, eg: cvsbugz@foo.com
• Processes message body for bug numbers, and commands (eg: Fix, Close, etc.)
• Use CVS loginfo file to mail log messages to this alias

Example commit messages

Added log messages to get more data
[bug 31337 time:1 left:3]

...

Added defenestration logic
Removed redundant log messages
[fix bug 31337 time:3 left:0]

bugzilla.procmailrc

• .procmailrc file calls cvsbugz.pl for matching mails

    # Check message body for [bug XXXXXX syntax
    :0 Bc
    * \[(fix +)?bug +[0-9]+\]
    |$HOME/cvsbugz.pl

• cvsbugz.pl parses the email for the [bug XXXXX] syntax
• update bugzilla using the Bugzilla::Bug perl module

Now, we'll talk

Communication 2.0 — Blogging on Bugzilla

• Announcements and high level communication to dev list
• CVS log comments to dev list
• Bug comments to dev list (use default QA field)
• Tasks and TODO comments on Bugzilla
• IRC conversations archived as a bug attachment

Where do we stand now?

• CVS updates bugzilla, freeing up the developer
• Bugzilla links back to cvs patches
• cvsweb has links to bugzilla entries
• Everything is mailed to your dev list
• Devs review code mailed to the dev list and comment on bugzilla

Release time

• Use cvs2cl (search for it)
• Generate ChangeLogs from CVS logs
• ChangeLogs get links to bugzilla
• Encourages developers to write meaningful log messages

Release time

• Use cvs2cl (search for it)
• Generate ChangeLogs from CVS logs
• ChangeLogs get links to bugzilla
• Encourages developers to write meaningful log messages
  (Yeah, right!)

Pointers or References?

• Bugzilla
• CVS Administrative files
• CVS Book: The CVSROOT Administrative Directory
• Sourceforge: Hook Scripts for SVN

Greetz

Philip S Tellis

philip@bluesmoon.info

http://bluesmoon.info/