Announcing/Publishing commits

tmccormi wrote on Saturday, October 02, 2010:

To all core developers:

It is my opinion that ALL commits to the tree should be discussed and announced when the are committed including, at least a minimal FAQ about the rationale and purpose and use-case.  Some of them will be obvious, but they still need to be documented. 

To that end this is last nights:

Author: sunsetsystems <sunsetsystems>
Date:   Fri Oct 1 22:24:10 2010 +0000

    added optional visit-level referral source

interface/forms/newpatient/common.php
interface/forms/newpatient/save.php
library/globals.inc.php
sql/3_2_0-to-4_0_0_upgrade.sql
sql/database.sql
version.php

This is in the obvious category, but without actively doing an upgrade, turning it on and testing it we don’t know how it was implemented and where it was placed in the demographics.  This is not really fair to the community as we are all too busy to examine every new commit and feature.

Please do us all a favor and announce intended commits and document them when committed.

-Tony

bradymiller wrote on Saturday, October 02, 2010:

Tony,
I think it’s better to leave this decision up to the committer; part of the resonsibility of having cvs access is knowing what needs review and what doesn’t (of course, erring on the side of review is best if not clear). Literally, just spending two minutes of my time (I timed it) looking at the commit in github and trying it out on the online cvs demo, it’s clear that this commit is very succinct, well done, and the functionality is clear (ie. no lengthy manual/faq is needed). It takes very minimal time to to review code after commit if you follow github and use the online developer cvs demo (it’s actually easier to review/test code after it’s been committed by many with these mechanisms); it’s important to do this to follow along and participate in the development and is akin to physicians keeping current in their field of medicine.
-brady

tmccormi wrote on Saturday, October 02, 2010:

Yes, it was all of that. but in general all commits should be announced to the public.  Not everyone is a developer and they have just as much right to know what is changing in the code base without having to research it.    IT’s not hard to post a quick message on the forum.  You do it, I do it.   All I’m saying is that everyone should do it.

-Tony

sunsetsystems wrote on Saturday, October 02, 2010:

Let the record show that yesterday I checked in an optional feature to record a referral source at the encounter level.  It can be enabled in the Administration -> Globals page.  As for documentation, it is explained via the normal tooltip on that page.

Rod
www.sunsetsystems.com