[xmonad] New DarcsWatch features

[Spencer Janssen]

On Thu, Nov 26, 2009 at 07:25:26PM +0100, Joachim Breitner wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> if you follow planet.haskell.org you’ll have read that I attended the
> Darcs hacking sprint in Vienna. Together with the Darcs guys I
> integrated DarcsWatch better into their patch submission and review
> process. Let me outline it quickly
>  * Darcs patches are sent to patches at darcs.net.
>  * A new ticket (of type patch, not issue) is automatically created in
>    their roundup instance.
>  * The patch, with a reference to the ticket number, is sent by roundup
>    to the darcs-users mailing list.
>  * DarcsWatch is subscribed to that list and notices this mail as usual.
>  * DarcsWatch detects the roundup patch tracker URL in the mail and 
>    remembers it.
>  * It also sets a special "darcswatchurl" property of the roundup 
>    ticket (via e-Mail), to add a link to DarcsWatch on the roundup
>    ticket view.
>  * When the patch is eventually applied, DarcsWatch sends a mail to the 
>    roundup ticket, setting its state to "applied". A message about this 
>    is sent to the darcs-user list.
> 
> This is not directly applicable to xmonad, of course. But due to the
> re-organization of the DarcsWatch code some new possibilities arise:
> 
>  1. DarcsWatch could send bundle-applied-mails to the mailing list.
> Since patch submissions are on the list, this would we useful for people
> just following development. Also the submitter is likely happy to hear
> that his patch has been applied, without checking the repository or
> DarcsWatch. OTOH it would slightly increase the noise level on the list.

At the very least I would find this useful.  We already reply "Patch applied"
to every patch, it would be nice to automate that.

>  2. Users can subscribe to bundle-applied-mails about their own patches.
> It would be relatively easy to implement that I can give DarcsWatch a
> list of e-Mail-Adresses that want “Your bundle α was applied to
> repository β” notifications. This would be independent of xmonad, of
> course. Is anyone interested? I’d start with manually configuring the
> list with addresses people tell me about, and maybe later add an
> automatic subscription feature, if there is demand.

If we send "patch applied" emails to the mailing list, it would be sensible to
CC the original sender.

> 3. DarcsWatch could be integrated closer in the xmonad bug tracker.
> Of course, code.google.com will not be as easily hackable as a
> self-hosted roundup instance, but maybe some interaction is possible. Is
> there an API for that? Some features that are desirable are:
>  * DarcsWatch should somehow be aware of patches submitted via
> code.google.com that were not sent to the mailing list.
>  * DarcsWatch could be able to amend the ticket with the patch
> application status.
>  * DarcsWatch could close tickets if a patch bundle is applied – but
> what if the patch does not work, if there are multiple patches etc.? The
> Darcs team has clearer semantics there, as patches and issues are
> tracked separately on roundup (but can refer to each other).
> 
> Especially item 3 is meant to be a discussion starter :-)

We've taken to setting 'Status: Patch' to issues that are only waiting on a 
patch to be applied.  I would be comfortable with darcswatch marking these as
'Status: Fixed'.  Any policy more complicated than that runs the risk of being
more hassle than convenience.


Cheers,
Spencer Janssen