Collaborative Development Mechanisms (TECH)

Description: How to define coding standards (documentation, tests, style); Pull request process

Leads: Ashraf, Darius

Rapporteur/Notetaker:  Rich

Audio recording:  Collaborative Mechanisms d2s3.mp3

Notes from Session:

Coding Standards, Pulls, etc.

• Once the branch is ready for a 2.0 tag, how do we continue with work?
• Idea #1:  Use Gitflow
• Discussion on branch management. 
  • After tag master branch as 2.0, new projects start from here and merge back frequently.
  • Who reviews the pull request?  This comes with overhead
  • Consider shared "develop" branch, esp. for short term.

• What happens if technical WG decides a pull request should not be merged back?
  • If code/feature is not core/global, then the implementing team needs to create an extension point or some other mitigation
  • Could have a "code review window", scheduled times when others are available as reviews
    • In OpenMRS, three people are dedicated as full time reviewers, etc. for a period
    • VR could have more active pull request review roll, as VR has some level of community funding
      • Could merge, say weekly. Accept or reject (with comments back to owners),
      • Also review ad hoc pull requests
      • Decide release tags.  Master is not strived to be stable 100% of the time
      • Concern of overhead, esp. if rejections are involved.  This is part of the open source tax.
      • A technical working group ("security council") resolves disputes.  Needs an escalation process
      • Good practice is to avoid long running feature branches

• What are the standards for merging into master?
  • Feature alignment - is the feature applicable to global/core?
  • Code quality check(coverage, tests pass, code style standards, etc.).  This can be automated.
  • It is not checking low-level stuff, e.g. code formatting.  
• Need CI, Sonar server, etc. to help with automation

• Concern about who is watching out for the integrity of OpenLMIS, e.g. technical guidance, high-level feature review.
• OpenLMIS needs a Technical Leadership Working Group to help guide OpenLMIS tech and feature roadmap
  • Darius:  This is good for short term.  Also need a single person to act as "chief architect" for the product (and also a "chief product manager")