[TYPO3-dev] Contribution to community extensions

[Xavier Perseguers]

Hi Jigal and others,

Actually I see two main questions in the discussion (with mostly the
first one being discussed at the moment):

1) Advantages and disadvantages of Git/Gerrit/GitHub/SVN in regards to
the others

2) Workflow from announcing the bug "somehow" to the release of a new
version on TER

-------

Starting with 1), shortly. I tweeted about 2 days ago that I'd like to
see every SVN project on Forge being migrated to Git (did not say Git,
Git+Gerrit, or GitHub, or ..., just "Git"). (My) rationale is that
sending patches to the author or attaching them to a ticket sounds
old-fashioned to me. BUT as Jan told us, that's the workflow he's
currently accustomed to and he likes it as it is. What I like most from
not attaching a patch file is that it's easy with Git to comment on any
line of the patch with inline comments (may it be w/ Gerrit, GitHub,
Gitlab, Bitbucket, ...). But I forget the main point, a patch means a
solution to a problem and this (usually) means less work as author to
understand the bug and fix it, even if the patch needs some more care.

Now regarding 2), I read fewer answers. I'd like to reorientate the
discussion a bit more on this and non-developers (or more "hobbyists",
not negatively speaking) should ideally participate as well.


USE CASE 1
==========

You - as a user - spot a problem.

1) How difficult is it to report it? It may be asking for help in the
mailing list/forum/social network/friend/... or in a bug tracker

2) Do you think of creating a ticket? Are you comfortable with that? Do
you feel like creating a ticket means additional work such as going back
regularly (maybe in a tool you are not usually monitoring) to see if
there is something new?

3) Regarding a bug tracker, do you get notification about changes,
author asking for further detail, fix being prepared and waiting for
double-check, ... or not? I must admit that some times (usually?), those
notification land in my spam folder but as I'm "actively" monitoring my
own stuff, it isn't a big deal.

4) How do you feel with *testing* a fix? You reported a bug (or found
someone else having the same and already having reported it), and
suddenly either a one line change is proposed in one of the comments or
a patch is attached (typically SVN) or a review on Gerrit
(review.typo3.org) is waiting approval, or a pull request is ready, ...
As a user, is it something you understand how to test, are ready and
able to do? (productive system or local environment, FTP only or
SSH/console/tools to apply patches, understand how a patch is to be
"applied" or don't get what that means, ...). Or are you more "I
reported it, I don't know how to test a pending fix but I'm willing to
install *a* new version as soon as it is available" (I mean even if
that's not an officially released version but one that is intermediate
and fixes my problem)


USE CASE 2
==========

You - as an extension author - get a report about a problem.

1) Did you get it using the way you wanted (email if you don't have any
bug tracker, ticket if you have a bug tracker). If that's not the case
(e.g., email asking for help although you have a bug tracker), what is
your standard position? Ask the person to report it again correctly,
tell him/her that you prefer the bug tracker and creating the ticket
yourself, informing where the follow-up will be done, going on with
email / other method to discuss problem?

2) What is your general feeling about getting additional info from the
author (or anyone else participating in the discussion), do you usually
get it in a reasonable amount of time (few hours/days)?

3) In case you have a fix, do you usually need feedback from the
reporter. Maybe you have various kind of extensions and see different
behaviours (little to no feedback on fix for end-user targeted
extensions, more feedback for developer targeted extensions)?

4) How do you feel about releasing new version to TER, is it something
you do blindly, you want to avoid to do too often, you dislike much
(why?), ...


Hope to read your feedback on these points. This should help get a
bigger picture of our current situation.

Kind regards

-- 
Xavier Perseguers
TYPO3 CMS Team Member

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