Re: Brainstorming features for issues.guix.gnu.org

[Christopher Baines]

Ricardo Wurmus <address@hidden> writes:

> I want issues.guix.gnu.org to become more useful for all of us.  It’s
> easy to get lost in a deluge of bug reports and patch submissions, so
> our tools should allow us to stay afloat.
>
> Do you use issues.guix.gnu.org?  If you aren’t: what workflow do you
> have to review patch submissions?

Normally when I look at reviewing patches, I end up finding something
else to try and automate or make easier.

My current workflow is, look for patches to review through email, or
Patchwork [1], look the patches over, follow the link to the Guix Data
Service instance, and maybe try building some of the derivations [2]. If
I want to manipulate the patches locally, I checkout the branch or
cherry-pick the relevant commits [3].

1: https://patchwork.cbaines.net/project/guix-patches/list/
2: I use the substitutes from the Guix Data Service instance for the
derivation, so I can build it locally without having to apply the
patches.
3: https://git.cbaines.net/guix/patches

> If you do use it: what features do you think are missing?

Being able to go to domain/patch-number would be useful ([4] for
example). Debbugs does a redirect, so I usually end up typing that out
instead.

4: http://issues.guix.info/39258

> Personally, I’d wish for a more streamlined workflow to download and
> apply patch sets.  I don’t want to click on each “download” link in the
> web interface.  Instead I would like to run something like
>
>     ./etc/review 12345
>
> which would fetch the patches in issue 12345 and apply them to my
> git worktree.

I use the combination of Patchwork plus some scripts run through Laminar
to populate a Git repository with commits for the patches for this. I've
got the git repository as a remote, which makes applying the patches
reasonably easy.

> I would also like to see neglected issues in the web interface, i.e. a
> list of open issues that haven’t seen any response in a while and that
> haven’t been tagged as awaiting more information from the submitter.
> This should make it easier for us to prevent patches from slipping into
> obscurity, which is a terrible thing to happen especially for new
> contributors.

Those are definitely features I'd like to see. They would be very useful
to help people prioritise.

While most of the discussion here has been about patches, I can think of
a few useful things in terms of issues that don't directly relate to
patches (or at least not yet).

For bug reports, it could be useful to be able to associate them with
packages that the bug is for. This could allow you to filter for bugs
related to a package. It could also be useful to be able to mark which
commit introduced an issue, and when it was resolved.

Thanks for your work on issues.guix.info!

Chris

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