Some help on gitweb project.

Some help on gitweb project.

[jaseem abid]

Dear all,

CC : Andrew Sayers, Jakub Narębski

I have been working on gitweb for a couple of days as part of a
rejected GSoC proposal. I would love to get some help on this and if
somebody can, that would be thankful.

1. How is code tested after some change? I am not talking about unit
testing but about making sure that application is doing what it is
actually intended to do. Do you have to re - install git/gitweb with
every version of code you commit and make sure that it works well and
as expected? Or, is there some other way? Sorry but I am a newbie when
it comes to FOSS contribution and as well working on a project of this
magnitude.

As far as I understand, gitweb by default is looking for files from
`/usr/share/gitweb/` (I work on Debian Sid if that helps). If I edit
the perl or some JavaScript code, how should I test it? *Install* my
version from source as mentioned in "gitweb/INSTALL" ?

2. How I should be committing ?

Personally I commit on *very* small changes, so that I can easily get
back to any point and do bisects well and good, but I see the patches
in the mailing list to be polished and fine tuned. Commit somehow
comfortably and then polish it in another branch with rebase and
squashes and then submit it for comments on mailing list?

Refer please: http://sethrobertson.github.com/GitBestPractices/#sausage

3. How will I submit a commit like "Adding jQuery library"? Mail a
whole minimized JavaScript library to the mailing list? How can
somebody crosscheck the contents of a minimized JavaScript library ?

Earlier Jakub mentioned about adding CDN support for the library,
which I think is a very good feature. How should I do this? Add an
extra config/build variable to select b/w local and CDN version ?

4. At what stage is code to be submitted? After the full project is
done or in a modular manner? Can I ask for some review and help from
if I push the code to github and share the link, or do I have to mail
that also? I don't want to repeat this :
https://github.com/torvalds/linux/pull/17

5. What should be my base commit/branch for starting the work ?

V/r,

Jaseem Abid
http://jaseemabid.github.com

Re: Some help on gitweb project.

[jaseem abid]

On Sun, May 13, 2012 at 11:11 PM, jaseem abid <jaseemabid@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Dear all,
>
> CC : Andrew Sayers, Jakub Narębski
>
> I have been working on gitweb for a couple of days as part of a
> rejected GSoC proposal. I would love to get some help on this and if
> somebody can, that would be thankful.
>
> 1. How is code tested after some change? I am not talking about unit
> testing but about making sure that application is doing what it is
> actually intended to do. Do you have to re - install git/gitweb with
> every version of code you commit and make sure that it works well and
> as expected? Or, is there some other way? Sorry but I am a newbie when
> it comes to FOSS contribution and as well working on a project of this
> magnitude.
>
> As far as I understand, gitweb by default is looking for files from
> `/usr/share/gitweb/` (I work on Debian Sid if that helps). If I edit
> the perl or some JavaScript code, how should I test it? *Install* my
> version from source as mentioned in "gitweb/INSTALL" ?


Adding a bit more to the last mail. In the specific case of gitweb, I
can sym link files from `/usr/share/giweb` or any installation folder
to the working directory for testing. Then all I have to do is to
rebuild the files and forget about moving the files to right place. Is
it ok to develop this way? I am looking for some good practices here
on this.

--
Jaseem Abid
http://jaseemabid.github.com

Re: Some help on gitweb project.

[Andrew Sayers]

Jaseem and I discussed this in IRC.  You can see the log here:
http://colabti.org/irclogger/irclogger_log/git-devel?date=2012-05-13

Or see the (roughly) equivalent text below.

On 13/05/12 18:41, jaseem abid wrote:
> Dear all,
> 
> CC : Andrew Sayers, Jakub Narębski
> 
> I have been working on gitweb for a couple of days as part of a
> rejected GSoC proposal. I would love to get some help on this and if
> somebody can, that would be thankful.
> 
> 1. How is code tested after some change? I am not talking about unit
> testing but about making sure that application is doing what it is
> actually intended to do. Do you have to re - install git/gitweb with
> every version of code you commit and make sure that it works well and
> as expected? Or, is there some other way? Sorry but I am a newbie when
> it comes to FOSS contribution and as well working on a project of this
> magnitude.

Your later suggestion of symlinking /usr/share/giweb seems like it
should work.  Alternatively, you could point Apache straight at your
repo.  I don't think this is a situation where subtle issues creep up on
you - if it looks like it works, it probably does.

> 2. How I should be committing ?

Private commits are your own business.  When it comes time to push work
out for public consumption, I like to think of it as telling a story -
start at the beginning and concisely explain what happened.

> 3. How will I submit a commit like "Adding jQuery library"? Mail a
> whole minimized JavaScript library to the mailing list? How can
> somebody crosscheck the contents of a minimized JavaScript library ?

Probably best not to include jQuery in git itself - aside from anything
else, it will be a big hassle to maintain.  Better to have a variable
like "jquery_url" with a default like
"https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.7.2/jquery.min.js" (i.e.
Google's CDN).  That avoids the need to include jQuery in git, and lets
people e.g. link different gitweb instances to a single library on their
local network.

> 4. At what stage is code to be submitted? After the full project is
> done or in a modular manner? Can I ask for some review and help from
> if I push the code to github and share the link, or do I have to mail
> that also? I don't want to repeat this :
> https://github.com/torvalds/linux/pull/17

I expect it will become obvious when to submit code as your work
continues.  For example, if you get into TDD and write a bunch of unit
tests before anything else, you might want to send them in their own
patch series.  I guess it's more likely you'll end up with one big patch
series though.

Speaking for myself, I'm happy to look at code either here or on github.

> 5. What should be my base commit/branch for starting the work ?

Documentation/SubmittingPatches says:

 - A new feature should be based on 'master' in general.

	- Andrew

Re: Some help on gitweb project.

[Jakub Narebski]

On Sun, 13 May 2012, jaseem abid wrote:

> Dear all,
> 
> I have been working on gitweb for a couple of days as part of a
> rejected GSoC proposal. I would love to get some help on this and if
> somebody can, that would be thankful.
> 
> 1. How is code tested after some change? I am not talking about unit
> testing but about making sure that application is doing what it is
> actually intended to do. Do you have to re - install git/gitweb with
> every version of code you commit and make sure that it works well and
> as expected? Or, is there some other way? Sorry but I am a newbie when
> it comes to FOSS contribution and as well working on a project of this
> magnitude.
> 
> As far as I understand, gitweb by default is looking for files from
> `/usr/share/gitweb/` (I work on Debian Sid if that helps). If I edit
> the perl or some JavaScript code, how should I test it? *Install* my
> version from source as mentioned in "gitweb/INSTALL" ?

One possibility is to install gitweb with "make -C gitweb install"
or "make install-gitweb".

The other is to set up config file in such way that gitweb.perl
would work with it; see the config file for t950x tests, the one
inside t/gitweb-lib.sh.

Though in latter case you can miss some errors...
 
> 2. How I should be committing ?
> 
> Personally I commit on *very* small changes, so that I can easily get
> back to any point and do bisects well and good, but I see the patches
> in the mailing list to be polished and fine tuned. Commit somehow
> comfortably and then polish it in another branch with rebase and
> squashes and then submit it for comments on mailing list?
> 
> Refer please: 
http://sethrobertson.github.com/GitBestPractices/#sausage

First, I alway use [interactive] rebase or equivalen (like patch 
management interfaces: StGit, Guilt, TopGit) to clean up patches
prior to submission.

Second, please do not think that the first attemt must be perfect.
The usual workflow is that one send RFC patches, people comment,
corrected version is sent, etc., etc... until the patch series is
polished to first get out RFC status then (if possible) get accepted.

> 3. How will I submit a commit like "Adding jQuery library"? Mail a
> whole minimized JavaScript library to the mailing list? How can
> somebody crosscheck the contents of a minimized JavaScript library ?
> 
> Earlier Jakub mentioned about adding CDN support for the library,
> which I think is a very good feature. How should I do this? Add an
> extra config/build variable to select b/w local and CDN version ?

I think that it would be simpler to start with CDN support in the form
of (for example) $jquery_url gitweb config variable and JQUERY_LINK
build-time configuration variable.

In the case the Internet access is lacking or intermittent, $jquery_url
might be to static file not to CDN.

And of course if ultimately we decide that we need to support providing 
out own work-tested version of gitweb, it can be done iff $jquery_url
is undefined or empty string -- fallback to in-repo copy, perhaps 
outdated but tested that it works.

> 4. At what stage is code to be submitted? After the full project is
> done or in a modular manner? Can I ask for some review and help from
> if I push the code to github and share the link, or do I have to mail
> that also? I don't want to repeat this :
> https://github.com/torvalds/linux/pull/17

Git development is based on git mailing list, not GitHub web interface.
In early stages you can send pull requests by private email (to mentors)
or to git mailing list; in final stages you better send patch series,
unless series is long and with large patches -- then pull request via 
email would be suitable.
 
> 5. What should be my base commit/branch for starting the work ?

Add include for jQuery (Makefile, gitweb.cgi, gitweb.txt) and check it.

-- 
Jakub Narebski
Poland