Status reports (October 14th)

[Wesley Ellis]

Hey guys!

I'll kick off this week's status reports. Please try and use the same formating as me, it'll make my job much easier.

Currently:

 - Working on getting my first patch landed for reviewbot

Roadblocks:

 - Getting the host name of a celery worker!

Next:

 - Start planning/coding the build bot plugin. Looks like there was some chatter in the mailing list about this

Questions:

 - None at the moment

Wesley Ellis
http://about.tahnok.me

[Jesus Zambrano]

Currently:

 - Working on getting the logic of review_header.html correct.

Roadblocks:

 - None at the moment, just finding difficult to invest time on the project.

Next:

 - Getting the template right and start the jQuery side of my task.

[Allyshia Sewdat]

Allyshia Sewdat

Currently:

 - Working on getting my first submission of ReviewBot in for review (aiming at this weekend at the latest)

Roadblocks:

- None really, now trying to get JSLint to run with desired options from the command line.

Next:

- Get feedback on the JSLint static analysis tool, and making appropriate changes. Then, look at adding the UI for manually triggering the code analysis.

Questions:

 - None at the moment

[Aamir Mansoor]

Hi everyone,

Currently:

- Looking into libraries (either frontend or backend) to work with .doc/.docx files. The goal is to be able to diff 2 .doc files

- Finishing reading "Dive Into Python"

Roadblocks:

- Hadn't had much of a chance over the past few days to work on ReviewBoard. Been busy with personal stuff (Thanksgiving weekend, making up time at work)

Next:

- Spend the weekend and upcoming week on pluggable UI and hopefully make some progress on .doc parsing

- Work with Christian and Michelle if I have any questions or need to discuss anything

Questions:

- None

Aamir Mansoor

http://aam1r.com

[Christian Hammond]

You won't be doing any diffing of doc files. There's no real infrastructure for that, and it's beyond the scope of the semester. Instead, focus on displaying the file in some form and doing review on parts of it.

Christian

[John Sintal]

Currently:

 - Looking at the new base command class, and examining how diffs are generated.

Roadblocks:

 - None

Next:

 - Coding up the rb diff command.

Questions:

 - None at the moment

[Karl L.]

Hey everyone,

Currently:

- Adding auto key association for new github repositories. I've been able to add keys via the Github API without much trouble, so it's now a matter of working it in to the existing "Add Repository" sequence of events.

Roadblocks:

- None so far.

Next:

- Write tests for the key adding code and start work on making key association part of the add/edit repository form (for Github first). Probably post a WIP review before I get too far.

Questions:

- Will key association be a Reviewboard API feature as well? If so, is there any overlap that I should be concerned about? That is, I've only been looking at changing the HostingService classes and RepositoryForms, not the Repository model. Should the key association be done by the model (save or post_save) or as part of the form processing?

[Tina Yang]

Currently:

 - Switched from working on "uploading file attachment via post-review with revision" to "differentiating file attachments that's attached to a revision from those tied to a review request"

Roadblocks:

 - Finding a continuous block of time to work on reviewboard (perhaps it will get better after midterm season passes)

Next:

 - Change the FileAttachment schema to record revision

Questions:

- Could someone please reply to my questions from last week? At least the second one.

- Any tips on time management and work-life-reviewboard balance?

- Any work done the "uploading file attachment via post-review with revision" function already? 

Tina

[Michelle Chuang]

Currently:

 - Wrapping up the bug I was working on during the code sprint.

 - Was looking into pdf.js and how to use that (before the recent turn of events)

Roadblocks:

 - Figuring out what Aamir and I will be working on

Next:

 - Getting started on Pluggable UIs (for realsies this time)

Questions:

- Seconding Tina's question about time management and work-life-reviewboard balance.

Michelle

[Sampson Chen]

Currently:

 - Crossed a few options for rendering PDF / .doc off the list. Investigated pyPDF / PDFMiner for rendering PDF.

 - It seems we are refocusing from PDF / .doc. to rendering text-ish formats (MarkDown, ReST): Not too familiar with these formats; researching then looking for existing Python libraries.

 - Working on a convenience tool on the side to expedite navigation through the codebase.

Roadblocks:

 - None

Next:

 - Talk with Aamir and Michelle about which libraries to use, or if we should write our own logic for the text-ish renderers
 - Check with mentors about whether the libraries I find are acceptable

Questions:

 - None at the moment

[Sampson Chen]

(Apparently GMail auto hides part of your message if it repeats with some subset of the existing conversation)

Questions:

 - No questions right now.

[Mike Conley]

> - Could someone please reply to my questions from last week? At least the second one.

Yikes - sorry, those slipped past the radar due to Thanksgiving.

> I’m a visual learner as well and Steven’s diagrams really helped me a lot in understanding the awesome but complex structure of rbtools. I am attempting to use some tools to aid me in grasping the architecture of the reviewboard package as well (eg. https://github.com/dzhibas/django-yuml) Is there a visualization of the architecture of reviewboard somewhere already? I feel like this could be really useful to students since a lot of the structures I see in reviewboard remind me of the good design pattern/practices I’ve learn in software architecture class. (side note: I think reviewboard should be in the 3rd volume of this http://www.aosabook.org/en/index.html)

At this point, as far as I know, there is no visualization of the Review
Board architecture.

> For bugs, does confirmed mean that one of the developers was able to reproduce the bug or does it just me accepted as a defect/enhancement?

I believe confirmed usually means that someone within the development
community has reproduced the bug, or has agreed that an enhancement is
something that is needed.

> - Any tips on time management and work-life-reviewboard balance?

This is always hard.

The best I can recommend off the top of my head is the following:

1) Reserve yourself a block of consecutive hours per week that is 100%
dedicated to working on the project. Just hacking on it when you have 15
or 20 minutes isn't really effective - context switching is expensive,
cognitively speaking, so the longer you can stay in the "Review Board
zone", the more effective you'll likely be. In general, rigorous
scheduling is a great way to partition and organize a busy life.

2) If you schedule a block of time to do something, *do it*, and make
sure your attention is focused on it. If you've scheduled time to do X,
but in the back of your mind, you're worrying about Y, then you're not
all there. That's probably a signal that you should schedule more time
for Y.

3) It's easy to get overwhelmed by the size and scope of a project. I
find it helps to break the project down into smaller steps, until each
step doesn't sound too tough. That sounds obvious, but I find it really
helps. A roadmap with goals and dates helps. Make estimates. Give
yourself a few days of slack for each goal so that if you go over,
you've planned for it - and if you go under, you've banked some time!

4) Make sure to take breaks, too. Burn-out is dangerous, especially in
our field. It's easy to become a workaholic, but this can be pretty
detrimental to your health - both physical and mental. Go outside. Take
a walk. Go for a run. If you're getting stressed, trying to "code
through it" could end up doing more damage than good. Just take a break
and come back to it fresh.

5) Sleep. Seriously.

6) If you have any other UCOSP students at your school, maybe book some
time to get together and hack in the same place together - like a "mini
sprint". The location and environment where you work is very important.
If you're around people who are hacking and working, it's easier to stay
focused than if you're doing it in a place that is filled with
distracting activity.

7) Similar to 6, don't let your work space invade your free space. Don't
work where you sleep. Don't work where you normally relax.

> - Any work done the "uploading file attachment via post-review with revision" function already?

Not that I'm aware of. Christian, David or Steven might have more
information on that.

> http://about.tahnok.me <http://about.tahnok.me/>
>

--
http://www.mikeconley.ca

[Sampson Chen]

Thanks Tina & Mike for the Q&A on time management: wondered the same thing often and this is super helpful.