Open Stack

On 06/11/2014 05:22 PM, Jason Rist wrote:
> On Wed 11 Jun 2014 06:54:53 AM MDT, Ana Krivokapic wrote:
>> Hi Horizoners,
>>
>> A lot of other projects have already adopted and started using a specs
>> repo. Do we want to have one for Horizon?
>>
> I'm still not quite clear how this works, but I'm open to it if it 
> makes things a little nicer.
>

Basically, specs repos are meant to hold specs - design documents of
sorts. They are used to describe and discuss the implementation design
of a particular feature. In other words, we would use the existing
Gerrit infrastructure to review blueprints. For more detailed
information, please see past mailing list threads [1], [2], and e.g.
nova-specs repo description [3].

Here are a few pros and cons with regard to having a specs repo. These
are just the ones that were the most obvious to me; feel free to add
your own.

Pros:
* This process makes sure implementation design for a feature happens
_before_ the actual implementation. This is very important as it
potentially saves developers from wasting a lot of time implementing a
feature in a suboptimal way.
* By making reviewers explicitly focus on the more essential aspects of
a feature design, we make sure that the feature gets a better/more
efficient implementation.
* We will have a feature design recorded for posterity. I don't think I
need to explain how useful this can be.

Cons:
* Shifting effort to talking about doing the work from actually doing
the work. I guess we need to make sure reviews are useful and
constructive and keep the process from becoming endless bike shedding.
* Obviously, it will take more time and effort to get features/patches
merged.

Personally, I am *for* adding a specs repo for Horizon, as long as we
put extra effort to minimize the cons listed above.

Thoughts, comments welcome!


[1]
http://lists.openstack.org/pipermail/openstack-dev/2014-March/030851.html
[2]
http://lists.openstack.org/pipermail/openstack-dev/2014-March/030102.html
[3] https://github.com/openstack/nova-specs