[Opensource] Discussion: Walkthrough Committee

[Thompson, Kris]

I love the concept!  I'm not familiar with the method for selecting classes however I find this to be very critical since the number of classes we review will be so small and considering that Expresso is over the 500 class level.  I would like to also suggest a nomination of classes for the review by the list in addition to your method.

As for how we could meet I think that a real-time meeting is very helpful I don't think we should limit it to just that.  Maybe create a forum for the group to allow for pre/post discussions for them and anyone else who might be interested but may not be able to attend because of schedules/time zones.  I know that some of the chatting services can provide a script of the meeting that might be useful for those who  could not attend (I know Jabber does but maybe not their community edition)

I would love to volunteer.



> -----Original Message-----
> From: Michael Rimov [mailto:rimovm at centercomp.com]
> Sent: Thursday, March 06, 2003 1:27 PM
> To: opensource at jcorporate.com
> Subject: [Opensource] Discussion: Walkthrough Committee
> 
> 
> Hey All,
> 
> Just a thought here....
> 
> As Lirian and others have voiced, the Expresso code base could use 
> additional cleanup.  To be honest, I only see the possibility of this 
> happening by doing a series of code walk-throughs.  I, 
> personally, believe 
> this is beneficial from a security standpoint as well since 
> the OpenBSD has 
> proven time and time again that such practices significantly 
> increase the 
> security of the software.
> 
> So, if we did something like this, what would it look like?  
> How would 
> meetings happen?  How often, how much, etc?
> 
> I suggest that something along the lines of a minimum of a 3 
> people meeting 
> that took place once a month and would entail a walk-though 
> of probably 
> only one class at a time.  Depending on the size of the class 
> the group 
> could decide to tackle more than one class as well.
> 
> Pre-meeting tasks:
> -Have somebody with Jalopy reformat the code for the class 
> we're going to 
> look at.  This would provide a standard format that we could 
> all agree on.
> 
> -Somebody goes through the class and walks through the 
> javadocs on the 
> class and adds what they do understand.  Leave '????' for javadocs on 
> undocumented classes/functions that don't make sense at a 
> casual glance.
> 
> Meeting Tasks:  Generalized walkthrough the code.  If nobody 
> understands 
> the code being looked at, the goal of the walkthrough is to 
> just understand 
> it at first and javadoc it.  Look for code cleanup.  Look for 
> updating unit 
> tests, etc.
> 
> Quorum:  As I said, I think 3 people groups are probably a 
> good idea.  For 
> a distributed project and all our wild schedules, I don't 
> really see being 
> able to corral more folks at once than that.  That doesn't 
> mean only 3 
> people have to sign up for walkthroughs!  Depending on skill 
> level with the 
> code, folks could 'tag along', others could form their own 
> group... or 
> having additional people would help provide a 'pool' of 
> people that could 
> meet at a particular time, thus helping to ensure the 
> meetings happen :)
> 	Each group would have to have a committer on board.  
> [Major Contributor 
> and higher], and that person makes changes as suggested.  
> Anything that 
> isn't a 'quick fix' should be added to the Expresso task list for 
> fixing/refactoring for for the next release.
> 
> How do we prioritize the classes to walk through?  There was 
> an interesting 
> Dr. Dobbs article about somebody tracking down the classes 
> that most likely 
> need walkthrough's simply by running standard code metrics 
> against various 
> classes and computing a 'complexity' number.  Higher 
> complixity classes 
> should be walked through first.  This should help yield the 
> highest number 
> of bug fixes.
> 
> How do we meet?  That depends... we could MSN or AIM... 
> there's a few UNIX 
> folks out there that could donate the use of an IRC server.  
> Or if somebody 
> wanted to donate a 'conference call' system for use, that 
> would be great 
> too.  This would be something to hash out.
> 
> Anyway, I think things like this could greatly assist the 
> Expresso code 
> base.  By only taking once class a month, we being a slow but 
> steady effort 
> to clean things up, and by prioritizing our walkthroughs we 
> could get the 
> worst offenders first.  Best of all, participants would get thorough 
> knowledge of one class at a time, and since.
> 
> Reporting:  Probably it would be best if the findings of the 
> walkthrough 
> were posted to the list.  We could agree on a general 
> template so that 
> folks would only have to fill in the blanks.
> 
> Implementation Timeline:  I would like to start this probably 
> after the 
> release of 5.1 [or at least begin it well into the 'ea' schedule].
> 
> So, the question is, what do you guys think of this, if we 
> did this, who 
> would volunteer, and finally what could be done to make this 
> more efficient?
> 
> Feedback appreciated!
> 							-Mike
> 
> 
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