Re: [HACKERS] commitfest.postgresql.org

On Fri, Jul 3, 2009 at 3:27 PM, Tom Lane<tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us> wrote:
> Robert Haas <robertmhaas(at)gmail(dot)com> writes:
>> Backing up for a moment to ten thousand feet here, I posted a link to
>> this web app on May 26th.  I received several comments on it, all of
>> them positive, including some constructive feedback from you which I
>> took to heart.  It is now July 1st, and I am trying very hard to get
>> ready for the next CommitFest, which I have agreed to manage.  So I
>> need to determine whether there is some finite number of changes of
>> manageable size that I can make to get this to a state where we can
>> use it, or whether I should give up hope now and go back to the wiki.
>
> I think it's probably fixable, if you've got some time to put into it
> between now and the 15th.  What's being griped about is user interface
> details, and it's not surprising that you as the author didn't see
> these things the same way a new user would.  From what I've been able to
> see, the underlying functionality is mostly there, but it needs some
> usability/presentation tweaking.

Thanks, that is really good news. I agree that the presentation and
usability need some work and I'm trying to address those concerns as
expediently as I can. Part of my angst is that I am going to have
only sporadic Internet access for the next week, so what I can't get
done today (while my wife wonders why I am doing a second job on a
holiday for no money) probably isn't going to happen for a bit, and I
would like to get cut over so that Brendan doesn't have to keep
manually replicating changes between the systems. I will see if I can
make the changes below happen today.

>> I accept the need for and am willing to make the following changes:
>
>> - Changing the patch comment field from type text to type textarea and
>> integrating it into the patch view page to provide context.
>> - Adding a note to the effect that the message ID is optional.
>> - Adding stable links with mnemonic names for the open, in progress,
>> and most recently closed commitfests.
>
>> With respect to the issue of the page URLs, I'm very unconvinced of
>> the value of making a change.
>
> Given your item 3 above, I think we can live with the URLs otherwise.

/me feels like he has dodged a bullet.

> One other thing I was noticing is that the items for a particular patch
> seem to be listed in reverse date order.  Personally I find this strange
> and would prefer newest-at-the-bottom --- in particular, having the
> patch itself at the bottom doesn't seem especially usable.  We might
> need to take a vote on that though, since I suppose some people like
> newest-at-the-top.

I think it IS newest at the bottom, and I agree that that is how it
should be. 24 hours ago it was alpha by topic and then alpha by patch
name, but now it is topic by sortorder, then topic by name, then patch
by ascending ID number (which works out to newest at the bottom). I
thought the other way would be OK, but after Brendan and I imported
the data we both said "that sucks", so it got changed last night
around midnight Eastern +/- an hour.

One of the things that I would like to add in the future is the
ability to assign a patch a shortname. This would be useful for
building command-line tools to interface with the system, e.g.
download the sepgsql patch. The idea would be that these names would
be stable, though of course it's hard to see how to guarantee that
100%. I am still trying to work out in my mind how best to set that
up, though, so it's probably not going to happen right away unless
someone else is prepared to do some of the legwork.

...Robert