[wp-hackers] User Feedback and Testing

[Robert Deaton]

On 1/2/06, Ryan Boren <ryan at boren.nu> wrote:
> I'm fine with a release schedule.  I think schedules and milestone
> announcements draw in contributors.
>
> Something like:
>
> http://live.gnome.org/TwoPointThirteen
> http://developer.kde.org/development-versions/kde-3.5-release-plan.html
>
> Those schedules include string and UI freezes so that i18n and doc teams
> have time to finish.  Note that those teams are involved during the
> entire development cycle.  With WP, everyone waits for the release to
> drop and then they jump on it.  We need involvement throughout, and we
> need a schedule so that everyone knows how long they can
> procrastinate. :-)

I think along with this, we need a method of directed testing groups.
I know this idea seems a bit radical, but I'm sure someone can chop it
down to something acceptable. Let's say we create a new testers forum.
It includes such areas as Usability, RTE, XMLRPC, [insert new features
here], [insert other old features here]. For each forum, we have
sortof a dedicated group leader, whose job is to pay attention to
their respective areas of the forum, and report back to hackers,
testers, and trac on what needs fixing. Around release time, we ask
all of the group leaders to report back on if we're ready for release.
This way, we'll have a good idea whether or not everything has been
thoroughly tested, and we can immediately have a list of things
available from a larger number of people that needs fixing.

The amount of bugs and traffic on the testers list is too much for two
developers to handle alone, and possibly too much for Matt and Ryan to
make sane releases based on what they think is broken because there is
so much to consider at one time. By sortof moving the discussion into
the forums and just pointing some of the more relavant topics and a
higher level list of things that are working and not working back for
the devs to see, I think we'd be much better off toward picking when
it is a good time and when it is a bad time for release.


--
--Robert Deaton
http://somethingunpredictable.com