Open Stack

Excerpts from Jamie Lennox's message of 2017-06-07 11:04:53 +1000:
> On 25 May 2017 at 09:04, James E. Blair <corvus at inaugust.com> wrote:
> 
> > Hi,
> >
> > As part of Zuul v3, we're adding support for GitHub (and later possibly
> > other systems).  We want these systems to have access to the full power
> > of cross-project-dependencies in the same way as Gerrit.  However, the
> > current syntax for the Depends-On footer is currently the
> > Gerrit-specific change-id.
> >
> > We chose this in an attempt to be future-compatible with some proposed
> > changes to Gerrit itself to support cross-project dependencies.  Since
> > then, Gerrit has gone in a different direction on this subject, so I no
> > longer think we should weigh that very heavily.
> >
> > While Gerrit change ids can be used to identify one or more changes
> > within a Gerrit installation, there is no comparable identifier on
> > GitHub, as pull request numbers are unique only within a project.
> >
> > The natural way to identify a GitHub pull request is with its URL.
> >
> > This can be used to identify Gerrit changes as well, and will likely be
> > well supported by other systems.  Therefore, I propose we support URLs
> > as the content of the Depends-On footers for all systems.  E.g.:
> >
> >   Depends-On: https://review.openstack.org/12345
> >   Depends-On: https://github.com/ansible/ansible/pull/12345
> >
> > Similarly to the Gerrit change IDs, these identifiers are easily
> > navigable within Gerrit (and Gertty), so that reviewers can traverse the
> > dependency chain easily.
> >
> > One substantial aspect of this change is that it is more specific about
> > projects and branches.  A single Gerrit change ID can refer to more than
> > one branch, and even more than one project.  Zuul interprets this as
> > "this change depends on *all* of the changes that match".  Often times
> > that is convenient, but sometimes it is not.  Frequently users ask "how
> > can I make this depend only on a change to master, not the backport of
> > the change to stable?" and the answer is, "you can't".
> >
> > URLs have the advantage of allowing users to be specific as to which
> > instances of a given change are actually required.  If, indeed, a change
> > depends on more than one, of course a user can still add multiple
> > Depends-On headers, one for each.
> >
> > It is also easy for Zuul connections to determine whether a given URL is
> > referring to a change on that system without actually needing to query
> > it.  A Zuul connected to several code review systems can easy determine
> > which to ask for the change by examining the hostname.
> >
> > URLs do have two disadvantages compared to Gerrit change IDs: they can
> > not be generated ahead of time, and they are not as easily found in
> > offline git history.
> >
> > With Gerrit change IDs, we can write several local changes, and before
> > pushing them to Gerrit, add Depends-On headers since the change id is
> > generated locally.  URLs are not known until the changes are pushed to
> > Gerrit (or GitHub pull requests opened).  So in some cases, editing of
> > an already existing commit message may be required.  However, the most
> > common case of a simple dependency chain can still be easily created by
> > pushing one change up at a time.
> >
> > Change IDs, by virtue of being in the commit message of the dependent as
> > well as depending change, become part of the permanent history of the
> > project, no longer tied to the code review system, once they merge.
> > This is an important thing to consider for long-running projects.  URLs
> > are less suitable for this, since they acquire their context from
> > contemporaneous servers.  However, Gerrit does record the review URL in
> > git notes, so while it's not as convenient, with some additional tooling
> > it should be possible to follow dependency paths with only the git
> > history.
> >
> > Of course, this is not a change we can make instantaneously -- the
> > change IDs have a lot of inertia and developer muscle memory.  And we
> > don't want changes that have been in progress for a while to suddenly be
> > broken with the switch to v3.  So we will need to support both syntaxes
> > for some time.
> >
> > We could, indeed, support both syntaxes indefinitely, but I believe it
> > would be better to plan on deprecating the Gerrit change ID syntax with
> > an eye to eventually removing it.  I think that ultimately, the URL
> > syntax for Depends-On is more intuitive to a new user, especially one
> > that may end up being exposed to a Zuul which connects to multiple
> > systems.  Having a Gerrit change depend on a GitHub pull request (and
> > vice versa) will be one of the most powerful features of Zuul v3, and
> > the syntax for that should be approachable.
> >
> > In short, I think the value of consistency across multiple backends and
> > ease of use for new users outweighs the small loss of functionality for
> > Gerrit power users in this case.
> >
> > I propose we adopt support for URLs in all source drivers in v3, and
> > declare Gerrit change IDs deprecated.  We will continue to support both
> > for a generous deprecation period (at least 6 months after the initial
> > Zuul 3.0 release), and then remove support for them.
> >
> > How does that sound?
> >
> > -Jim
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > OpenStack-Infra mailing list
> > OpenStack-Infra at lists.openstack.org
> > http://lists.openstack.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/openstack-infra
> 
> 
> I'm late to this party. In general I like the idea that we use fully
> qualified urls as the Depends-on default, however i question whether that
> means we need to remove the change-id based format. Note, i understand it's
> way easier to add things back than remove them later so i'm on board with
> remove it and see what happens in future.
> 
> For changes that are not cross source I would think that a non fully
> qualified URL makes sense to be resolved within the same source for
> example:
> 
> Depends-on: I1234.....
> 
> in a gerrit change obviously means look up that change id within the same
> location as you found this change.
> 
> Similarly on github
> 
> Depends-On: ansible/ansible#64
> 
> Is fairly common github syntax for referencing PR 64 in ansible/ansible and
> can be resolved relative to the current patch's source.
> 
> Again, happy to see this in a 3.x down the line but particularly the github
> syntax will be much more familar to those users.

You just typed up what I haven't had time to distill into such eloquent
words.

+1