What's going on with all these branches?

[Joeboy]

Hi

Don't like to hassle, but I'm increasingly wondering what the plan is
for the many new features due to be included in django. I think this
entails these branches:

full-history
multiple-db-support
per-object-permissions
schema-evolution
search-api
sqlalchemy
generic-auth (?)

I'd really like to know which of these I can expect to see in trunk in
the foreseeable future, and if any are likely to be dropped / deferred.

Joe x

[Jacob Kaplan-Moss]

On 10/31/06 11:18 AM, Joeboy wrote:
> Don't like to hassle, but I'm increasingly wondering what the plan is
> for the many new features due to be included in django. I think this
> entails these branches:

This comes up every few weeks.

We're really still waiting on end-user testing on the SoC branches
(full-history, per-object-perms, schema-evolution, search-api).

So far, nobody's really given us any thoughts on how well they work, what
needs to be done, etc. As long as those branches remain more or less
unreviewed, they'll have to wait on a core developer, and most of us have many
other priorities. If you want to help out, try out one of the branches and
let us know how it goes.

The multiple-db-support branch is pretty close to being done. I'd like to
update it after the Django/Oracle sprint and then call for some testers. I
think the author said he's got a few more things to work on, but stay tuned.

The generic-auth branch is under active development by Joseph Kocherhans. I
have it on good authority that he's in the process of moving to a new job so
patience during his move would be nice. However, even past that, there's
really only Joseph working on that branch. Help would be, I'm sure, appreciated.

The sqlalchmey branch is mostly experimental at this point.

In essence, what you need to keep in mind is that branches are, by design, for
community development. If they don't get work *from the community*, they
probably will never get done; core developers are working on, well, the core.

We always need testers, people to write feelings and feedback about the
branches, and more coders. If you want access to a branch, all you have to do
is ask on the list and if it's OK with the branch owner(s), it's OK with me.

Jacob

[Jeremy Dunck]

On 10/31/06, Jacob Kaplan-Moss <ja...@jacobian.org> wrote:
> This comes up every few weeks.
>

I've wikified this response here:
http://code.djangoproject.com/wiki/ActiveBranches

I linked to any branch detail pages I could find, relevant groups
discussions, and added a suggestion to test one of them in
LittleEasyImprovements.

It'd be nice if branch contribs (or gnomes) could keep the
ActiveBranches page up to date.

I tweaked contributing.txt, in case the committers want to link from
there to ActiveBranches.
Patch attached.

[Rob Hudson]

I think it would be a good idea to have a bug-squash/testing day on IRC
for certain branches. Maybe the developers of those branches let
someone (?) know they'd like some testing. A day is picked and that's
the testing day. Try to raise awareness on the mailing lists and that
IRC will be the place to communicate.

Right now as an outsider it's not clear where to find out the status or
to know that the developers are looking for end-user testing and what
specific areas to watch out for. Putting a certain branch on a
schedule with this info plus having IRC to communicate would be good.

The goals and outcome would be bugfixes and a yes/no decision on
whether it's ready to merge with trunk.

-Rob

[Jay Parlar]

I've reported at least a few times on django-dev and django-users that
I've had a lot of success with row-level-permissions. I found some
bugs early on, but Chris Long squashed them all for me. I'm currently
running a production site with that branch.

My requirements of it are pretty minimal, but it's working so far for
what I'm doing.

Jay P.

[Norjee]

Regarding the, apparent, less than optimal participation, I think it
might help to dedicate a section on the Django homepage to development
in general or these branches in particular. It's a bit difficult to
find out what needs to be done, it is only posted on this google
discussion group, and after some time the topic has moved from the
first page and is forgotten. Especially noticing that all that is
needed is more testing, which would be that much of an effort.

If each branch had an easy todo list, something like the how to
contribute page that once existed (I cannot find it anymore, it
consisted of something like hard / normal / easy tasks that still
needed to be done). Of course this would mean the initiators of each
branch would have to play more of a manager function.. don't know
whether that's feasible.