RE: [PHP-QA] Re: PHP|QA Member Names in phpinfo()

Hola > Not to discount anyone's contribution to PHP and the QA effort - but > if you did not catch any of the messages that discussed this issue, > where were you? :) Did we not make enough noise when we posted this?? Oh well people are squeeling now so maybe we can sort somthing. I do feel that being a member of the QA Team is more than just provding builds etc for win32 or whatever (That is not to dis http://www.php4win.de which is a great idea and works very well, I thank you for that) But it requires some time outside of the release process too wether that is trawling manual for notes (as many people do especially Zak recently) or tracking down difficult bugs or checking and verifying bug reports etc (More of this once I have most of the bug system inplace, it will be matching QA Members with bugs etc and asking you to verify them, it will also encourage strongly example scripts from submitters so dont worry it shouldnt up workload very much and this is still optional, nobody is forcing you to be here but if you want to be part of the team it requires some work, if you are away for a while then fine NP but tell everyone (or at least those who read php-qa =))). > Actually, this thread brings up a few issues that have been bugging me > lately. The biggest issue has been team participation: Is it is too > much to expect that the QA team members will read and respond to the > paltry amount of messages on the QA list?[1] I know that almost > everyone on the team is busy, but how long does it take to send a > message saying that you are busy? Hmm I dont read messages that dont have interesting subjects.. perhaps I should consider all messages with [PHP-QA] interesting =) > I think that everyone's hope for the QA team was to have a dedicated > group of people working individually or in small teams on tackling the > problems involved in creating and maintaining an effective QA process > for PHP. Some people do this - they take on one or more aspects of QA > and devote time to it regularly. I feel that others like the idea of > being part of the QA team, but rarely respond when the call goes out > for help, feedback or testing. If you read the top paragraph of the PHP QA page: The PHP/QA Team is a small group of developers whose primary goal is to support the PHP core developers by providing them with timely quality assurance. Perhaps we should focus on this more, Release process is one thing and yes it requires a lot of work.. most of which will be automated soon {Zak :)}, but there are also other issues, Personally I like win32 (Dont say anything) especially ISAPI so try to watch bugs on IIS related issues, 90% of the bugs are not that important but once in a while one comes up which I think definatly needs fixing, I think its part of the QA Teams job to then pick a developer who knows the code and hassle them until they look at fixing it... for ISAPI this is normally Zeev but I think its worth while picking a few bits and bobs and focusing on them rather than just thinking Well theres no release going on I dont need to do anything. I would say that its worth while getting to know the code behind the section that you pick and then try and be as effective as possible, Im certainly not a good enough coder to fix many bugs but I can often track them down then present a developer with a very accurate diagnostic of the problem and what causes it. Then it is often only an hour or so for the developer to make the fix at which point they might do it.. They are just as Lazy as us lot Zak :) > I know that everyone involved in this is a volunteer and that work, > family, sanity and leisure have to come first - however, staying up to > date with the QA team can be a pretty trivial investment of time. > Even having everyone devoting a couple of hours a week would put us > ahead of where we are now. [2] I agree but having said that if you want to be a member rather than a supporting member not that it really matters then you should at least be doing some of this work, having your name in the PHP Credits shows that you have done some work, I dont think it should be automatic, Yes its a small thing having your name in the credits but its an insentive.. Having said that I have more free time than most being a student and all ;) > [2] Even providing active feedback would be welcome. Personally, I > find it unnerving to cast my thoughts out into the ether, and not even > hear an echo in reply. There you go Zak.. probably got more than you asked for but these are just my drunken rambling thoughts.. ignore them if you want, its probably best too.. James -- James Moore PHP QA Team jmoore@php.net