launchpad-dev team mailing list archive

[Jamu Kakar <jkakar@xxxxxxxx>]

Hi,

On Mon, Nov 2, 2009 at 9:36 AM, Bjorn Tillenius <bjorn@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> I wouldn't say these are problems that will be solved by abandoning the
> use of a project group. Sure, it might make the problem go away for us,
> but will it make the problem go away for other people using project
> groups?
>
> I'd say we are already dogfooding. We're dogfooding how to use project
> groups. Sure, it might not be the best way of using project groups, but
> what is the best way? I though that projects within a group is usually
> quite closely related, no? Thus you want the dupe finder to work across
> project groups, no? And you want to be able to create milestone across
> project groups, no? I think these are issue that we should really fix,
> not work around them. Or is the grand plan to get rid of project groups
> altogether?

We use our project group to solve at least two problems:

1. Landscape is made up of a client and a server, a pattern that is
   very common in software development.  We use a project group with
   individual projects and trunk branches for our client and server
   applications.

2. We also have a project for our development tools, which I think
   is probably a common case with bigger projects.  As a project
   gets big you tend to want/need specialized tools to deal with the
   things that come up as a result of growth and change.

One of the benefits we get from the project group is having
milestone bug views that allow us to see our targeted bugs clearly,
in one place.  Also a benefit is being able to search for bugs in a
project-group by tag.  This allows us to maintain context-specific
bug lists with ease, such as for bugs that need testing, need
review, need documentation, etc.  It's nice to have separate
namespaces for branches related to each component.

>>   * confusing for users and new developers
>>   * it's somewhat inauthentic
>
> I don't know what you have in mind here. In what way is it confusing,
> and is that also something that we maybe should fix, rather than work
> around?

These are the problems I have when I file bugs against
launchpad-project:

- The list of projects is long and not sorted alphabetically.  This
  makes it hard to scan.

- Some of the project names are really good.  For me, as a user,
  filing a bug against 'Launchpad Bugs' or 'Launchpad Blueprints'
  makes sense for bugs about the bug tracker or about the blueprints
  system, respectively.  Other project names confuse me.  What are
  'DTDParser' or 'Launchpad itself' for?

- Combining things related to the service that I care about as a
  user and things related to the development of Launchpad itself in
  a single project group is confusing.  Adding to the confusion is
  the fact that both the open source project and the service are
  called 'Launchpad'.  Google has done well here with the naming of
  Chrome and Chromium.  Having distinct names for the project and
  the brand makes it easier for everyone to talk about and find the
  bits they care about.

Thanks,
J.