launchpad-dev team mailing list archive

[Barry Warsaw <barry@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Jan 04, 2010, at 05:12 PM, Martin Pool wrote:

>Is it necessary to run those branches to review them?  In Bazaar we
>normally don't do that.
>
>What kind of problems do you detect by running it?  Are you manually
>testing for bugs?
>
>If it's that you need to run it to see how it looks, perhaps overall
>efficiency could be improved by having the original developer (who
>does have it running) attach screenshots or screencasts to the bug or
>mp?  That could get broader feedback from the user community.

Screenshots definitely help.  I will usually ask for them, especially if I'm
doing a UI review.  Reviews in general should be lightweight and easy to do,
and often it's difficult to know how to drive the UI to see what the change
affects.  I'd prefer that merge proposals that touch the UI include a
screenshot.

A general rule is, the developer should take a few extra minutes to make life
easier for the reviewer, and make the review go more quickly.  This might mean
screenshots, or extra care in writing the merge proposal.

Still though, I do sometimes like to fire up the branch.  My intuition
sometimes tells me that the change might be fragile or the devil inside me
just wants to see if he can break the change.  On a typical OCR day, maybe I
try to run a couple of branches.

-Barry

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