TestFest 2010

TestFest 2010 ##### New Wiki Page ##### I'd like to create a new wiki page for this year's TestFest ( http://wiki.php.net/qa/testfest-2010). I'd like to keep the old one up for reference, and maybe posterity. Any objections? ##### When ##### I got quite a fair amount of feedback from people last year wishing the event ran longer. So I propose we run it from April to July 2010 (4 Months) this year. ##### Prizing ##### While no one should expect prizes for contributing to Open Source work, it still feels good to give and receive on occasion. In the past we've offered to donate prizes to lucky test writers and I hope to do the same this year. Below are prize ideas, some similar to the past events, some new this year. Any other ideas? Anyone capable of offering any of the below? 1. PHP ElePHPants. These are very popular and sought after. If we don't currently have any to give away, can we get a corporation to sponsor a run of say 50 little ones for random test writers and 1 BIG ElePHPant to go to a lucky User Group. 2. PHP email addresses. Also very popular and pretty inexpensive. Give maybe 5. 3. 5-10 Zend Studio Licenses might make a popular prize. 4. 5 Laptops. Anybody know somebody? I know, maybe a bit much, but if you don't ask, you won't get! 5. 5 Licenses of Windows 7 Ultimate to random contributors of Windows specific test writers? 5. 5 Licenses of Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server? Any corporation who sponsors prizes will be highlighted in a sponsor section of the Wiki as well as in the news announcements on PHP.net. Also, any companies who offer meeting space and/or food for the event should be highlighted in some way as well. I know I was very grateful to Microsoft for helping out the Atlanta PUG last year and we've already been offered meeting space again this year. They also extended an offer to helping in other cities around the world where they have offices. I'll be in contact with Microsoft shortly and will provide more details on the Wiki. ##### Test Repository - SVN ##### I've asked Rafael Dohms to look into this. ##### Development Environment Tools ##### I spent a lot of time putting together VMs last year as quick starts to testing. To say they were well used would not be a very true statement. We used them at the Atlanta PUG TestFest and we ended wasting a lot of time getting them up and running and teaching people how to use them. After thinking about the situation a bit more, the VMs didn't really provide the time save I thought they would. Most people who showed up already had a PHP development environment setup on their computer. Maybe not the latest version of PHP and maybe not with every imaginable extension, but for the most part, they were pretty well setup. So I began to think of the real sore spots in writing and running PHP tests and here's what I came up with. 1. I plan to do a whole series of screencasts on writing and running PHP tests. Cover running tests on Mac, Windows and Linux using fairly stock configurations. Cover the different methods of running tests (single, multiple, all). 2. Here's the biggy. I'd like to have a site where you can upload a test and have the test run against multiple versions of PHP and multiple OSes. How do we pull it off? Not a freakin clue. Maybe have a front-end site that allows the test upload which then pushes the test off to other servers and aggregates the test results? Maybe store the test and results in a database. I don't know, but I'll continue to think on this and if anyone has any ideas and can offer coding time (and more importantly server resources), please let me know. If we can get these 2 things in place on or around April, I think we can severely reduce the barrier to entry on PHPTs as well as increase the number and quality of the tests. ##### runtests.php ##### I've spoken with Zoe regarding the status of runtests.php and offered to pick up where her and the rest of revamp team left off. I had hoped to have it complete and ready for TestFest this year, but I've been inexcusably slow in picking it up and running with it. Once I get some of the things above knocked off, I intended to focus heavily on it and get it out the door. If your reading this Zoe, apologizes, and I'll be in contact again soon. ##### Conclusion ##### Please let me know what you think of any of the ideas I put forth for this years TestFest. Suggestions? Comments? Offers to help? All are very welcome. Eric Lee Stewart