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Yellow Squad Wiki Home

https://launchpad.net/~yellow/+mugshots

Slogan for public consumption: Go go Yellow Jackets!

Slogan when we feel tired: Go go Yellow Banana Slugs!

Current project is LEP/BetterBugSubscriptionsAndNotifications .

Also see UI work at yellow/Subscriptions .

Notes

• Editing a structural subscription should allow/enable access to subscriptions of teams you administer.

• In regards to https://wiki.canonical.com/Launchpad/Strategy/Research/BugSubsFeb2011/Round2/:

  1. We will implement (a small variation of) version 1 for now. It got a positive response, and it does not require any server-side changes, and it is similar on the UI side to what we would do for version 2, so it seems like a pretty clear next step.
  2. Version 3 (the assignee filter) we can ignore. It got mediocre response and we won't get to it. jml, would you like us to file a bug about this feature so you can track it?
  3. We might get to version 2. It got a lot of positive feedback, and we know a number of people have said they want something like that. We can cross that bridge later. See notes below on version 2.
  4. We need to get rid of the ellipses. A triangle is the right way to go. Benji has volunteered to come up with another mockup for this, for our own internal agreement.
  5. I don't think we need another UI testing iteration on version 1. If we work on version 2 later, we might or might not want to go for another UI testing; we can cross that bridge then.
  • In regards to possible later work on version 2:
    1. We should consider subscribing multiple people
    2. We should try to address fear of choosing the wrong team (we don't think confirmation messages are the right approach, but we probably want something to address the concern)
    3. I have some thoughts on combining version 1 and version 2 as Matthew suggested. Again, we can cross that bridge when we get to it.

• Estimating number of emails for a subscription (filter)

Next Deliverables

Due 2011-03-25

Value to users:

• Graham: 204980 (Mute functionality) deployed

Incremental:

• Gary: 728818

• First feature review with Jono will be on Monday, 2011-03-21.
• Get ~yellow/launchpad/accordionoverlay server side changes in review to gmb by Tuesday.
• Get ~yellow/launchpad/accordionoverlay client side changes in review to gmb by Wednesday.

Actions:

• Gary or Brad: announce widget for direct subscription choices for malone-alpha team to launchpad-dev
• Gary: announce "cronscripts/send-bug-notifications.py -vv"
• Danilo: file a bug about "make jsbuild" problem

• Brad?: Announce 164196 fix after db-devel is deployed

• Gary: discuss this opinion/feeling on list: "we should be building SQL expertise, not expertise in ORM or another layer"

Pending Actions:

• Announce to Malone-Alpha

Delivered 2011-03-18

Incremental:

• Almost done with 204980 (mute functonality)

• Generally, client-side tests and many, many punch list items for 634773 and 674422 (and incidentally "unsubscribe in anger" because it is almost a superset).

Actions:

• Gary: discussed merits of ProxyFactory as function decorator on list. Crickets in response.

Delivered 2011-03-11

We delivered very little this week.

Value to users:

• Danilo: 720826 (mail includes X-Launchpad-Subscription-Description for filters) deployed (to staging) and QA'd

• Gary: 723999 (timeout fix) deployed, along with clean-up branch

Delivered 2011-03-04

Value to users:

• Gary: 723999

  • ALMOST (on devel)

Incremental:

• Danilo: 720826 finished on staging, ready for db deployment

  • ALMOST (was blocked by Gary's 723999)
• Brad, Graham: Widget will fully work with manual testing on a branch, and tests will be started.
  • PRETTY MUCH
• Mail unsubscribe story will be done (Gary, Danilo, and Benji)
  • NO

"Surprise" incremental accomplishments:

• Graham: mute button stuff will be in review today.
• Danilo: dropped some dead code
• Danilo: bug subscription filter deletion completed. race condition avoided.

Actions

• Benji announced that "request/features" always works in templates, and "features" only sometimes works, and proposed that request/features be the One True Way.

Pending actions

• Announce 164196 fix when db-devel is next deployed

Delivered 2011-02-25

Value to users

• Graham with assist by Gary: 204980 (mute button) will be deployed to production for malone-alpha team.

  • NO: problem was bigger than we expected

Incremental deliverable

• Danilo: 720826 finished on staging, ready for db deployment

  • NO: problems
• Matthew: User testing 2 for "unsubscribe in anger" results will be back Tuesday
  • YES: Wednesday
• Brad and Benji: The subscription add page widget will be hooked up and working on launchpad.dev.
  • YES-ish: on a branch.

• Benji: (also will have some progress towards 674422)

  • NO: chose a different path; decided on tacking accordion widget
• Gary with Danilo: (for "unsubscribe in anger" story)
  • bug email unsubscribe link includes filters used to send that email and person who caused the action.
    • NO: Determined that this was hard and we could get the same or better benefit by tackling something simpler.
  • bug target +subscriptions page draws empty boxes for each structural subscription (for Benji's work to fill in later).
    • YES-ish: I delivered a way to iterate over all a user's structural subscriptions in the view.

Pending deliverable

• Huw: CSS changes for accordion widget (delivered)
  • YES
• Huw: mockup changes for arrows on subscription add/edit page
  • NO, Benji will ping again

Actions

• Brad: edited a blurb on how to add JS/CSS to tree

Pending actions

• Announce 164196 fix when db-devel is next deployed

Notes:

• Graham out this week

Unpleasant surprises:

• 722626 but solved by Danilo

• Unpleasant and unsolved: 722450 723999 and the mute button bugs.

Delivered 2011-02-18

Value to users

• Danilo: New users default to not getting email about their own actions (718809)

• Graham: widget for direct subscription choices is available on production for malone-alpha team. Action: Gary will announce to launchpad-dev.

Incremental Deliverable

• Gary: 164196 on staging (not yet qa'd because staging is down ATM)

• Graham: User testing back, positive. Gary asked for more mockups; delivered, with user testing today and Monday. Delivered zero-th version on qastaging of bug +subscriptions page based on user testing (empty page)
• Brad
  • Discussed how we will add JS/CSS to tree on LP list; will document on wiki today
  • Got new JS widget in tree;
  • Asked Huw to get started on skinning accordion widget
  • delivered ugly accordian within gary-alt on some branch we check out and click on
    • lp:~bac/launchpad/accordionoverlay

    • screenshot

• Benji: teams available for widget, progress on plugging things in but not complete.
• Danilo: bugtask index js is reduced from over 2000 lines to under 1000 lines, and files are divided by functionality (in particular, subscription code is in a separate file). This refactoring will help our subsequent efforts, gmb and danilos believe.

Delivered 2011-02-11

Value to Users

• Graham: Demo the widget for direct subscriptions, on production qastaging. Announcement to malone-alpha team (with warning that it might or might not change significantly soon) will be coming today.

• Gary: 548. Also 713382 . Also 713392. Brad will announce 548 today.

Incremental Deliverable

• Brad: user testing results from Matt. Brad/Benji/Gary delivered another version for more testing. Brad showed yellow devs a YUI accordion overlay widget with a screenshot earlier this week.

• Benji: webservice changes for structural subscription filter UI are figured out. Delivered JavaScriptAPIAccessDraft to document.

• Graham: Mockups for user testing #2 of "change subscriptions in anger" story

Notes: Danilo out this week

Delivered 2011-02-04

Value to Users

• Danilo: The "Lifecycle" implementation of event filtering for direct subscriptions now works. (Structural submissions mask the behavior. 713382)

• Gary: Event filtering (only available for the malone alpha team at this time) is now per-filter, giving more flexibility, and leading towards the UI that Brad and Benji are working on. (Event filters on structural subscriptions are not reported properly on +structural-subscriptions. 713392)

• Gary: You can delete structural subscriptions that have filters.
• Graham: direct bug notification filtering available through the API

Incremental Deliverable

• Brad: Got mockups to Matt, user testing happened, test results Monday

Problem Solving and Hints

2011-03-18

This was largely a tactical, rather than a strategic meeting. We focused on how to land our integration branch.

We feel very good about our speed in knocking out punchlist items, and in our collaboration this week. We look forward to experimenting more with delivering value every week or two, but for now we are trying to finish the work we've done using our existing approach.

Gary mentioned http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/3/api/YUI~substitute.html as a possibly better way to do Javascript templates than what we have in the branch now.

Note that as of 2011-03-21, when these meeting notes were written, we reduced the kanban board to two feature lanes, as discussed last week. We are also running our meetings from the kanban board as a way to try to better leverage the board and increase collaboration.

2011-03-11

• Met few goals.
• Need to communicate schedule issues with Francis.
• Schedule issues:

  • Timeout issue 723999 continued to be a significant cost (Gary for work, Benji for half-day review of four related ~800 line branches)

  • We were too optimistic that the release manager position for Benji would still allow him to make usual progress. We want to argue that teams with deadlines should not have to have release managers, or if they do, teams should add a week in to the schedule for the RM.
  • Debian bug importer issue ate up Graham's time: no one else knew how to handle it.
  • Danilo out this week and majority of next; Graham out today.
• Things to improve:
  • Deliver more, smaller chunks. Actually deliver value (eliminate "incremental" category).
    • How do we do that when we are exploratory (i.e., no JS experience)? Not clear, but we feel this is tractable.
    • How do we do that when we are trying to deliver a cohesive, user-tested experience? Not clear, and Gary in particular is concerned by this.
    • One week delivery cycle is too ambitious? [Gary thought while writing these notes: Maybe plan for one, deliver in two, check-in half-way to adjust?]
  • Encourage collaboration and coordination.

    • Reduce kanban lanes to two. Allow slack time: it encourages people to be available for collaboration, and increases pressure of teammates to provide these opportunities.

    • Morning meeting already has everyone report on what they did yesterday and what they plan to do today. We should add one more category: what are the kanban cards people can collaborate with me on today?
  • Improve our per-week estimates. In particular, At the end of the cycle, don't be aggressive/optimistic about delivery, be brutal about likelihoods.

2011-03-04

Good stuff! Met most goals, and also accomplished some extra goals. Lots of things to learn from, per below.

• Brad, Graham: JS hint from Thomas Hervé: Fixed for us now. We will move this to lazr-js to make it easier for others; Brad has made 728457 and kanban card

• Gary: Added notes to https://dev.launchpad.net/Database/Performance about how to look at queries in tests

• Gary: Storm does not support with statements and they can be very nice. I'd like to make Storm select statement support them soon. Gary made 729134 and kanban card

• Gary: we should be building SQL expertise, not ORM/another layer expertise. ACTION: talk about this opinion
• Danilo: Coming up with anything that is going to be presented to users is hard, if we want to cover everything in our data model. That also suggests it has value to explain, since the data model is so complex.
• Graham: YUI is still not as mature as it likes to think it is. Hiding an overlay should fire a hide event, for instance.
• Graham: Vacations are good
• Graham: got a bad surprise about rogue ec2 process that failed to shut down. Brad suggested a cron with ec2 list to doublecheck at, say 2 or 3 in the morning that nothing is running.
• Brad: explaining a problem [in JS] by spending the time to produce a standalone minimal example is good for your own understanding of a project, and good for others to understand the problems you are facing, despite the expense of creating the example.

2011-02-25

• Many problems and unpleasant surprises, met few goals
• JS is a blocker
• Needed to communicate schedule issues with Francis

2011-02-18

• Met most goals, some goals modified, some additional achievements.

• Problem: Danilo discovered that running make jsbuild will not necessarily include all new files, which can be a surprise that wastes a lot of time. The work around he found is that running make does include everything. Brad gave some additional information that Danilo will investigate, and then Danilo will file a bug.

• Problem: Graham noticed that, unless you are using a launchpad view, feature flags are not available in templates. Benji replied that some templates inject feature flags in namespace, but in all templates you can use request/features/ . He suggests that request/features should be the One True Documented Way because it is simple, automatic, and not overly onerous; and that in the future we should not inject feature flags in the namespace at all. Graham confirmed that request/features solved the problem.

2011-02-11

• We met all goals, yay!
• No new problems reported.
• Gary did not announce "cronscripts/send-bug-notifications.py -vv" though he used it a bunch.

• Benji has his new webservice page. He circulated it among some experts, but needs to publicize it.

• Brad will be talking to devs about how to incorporate new JS in the tree. He will then be writing up the results.

2011-02-04

• We met some goals, yay!
• landing problems, JS problems, windmill problems. problem-solving approaches already in play.
• Danilo: If you want to see notifications on qastaging without having to check emails, ask losas to run this: "cronscripts/send-bug-notifications.py -vv". Action: Gary will write this up somewhere and send a note out.

2011-01-28

• Why did we not meet the goals this week?
  • Growing pains: old pre-squad work ate Benji's time; Graham agreed that growing pains affected his week as well.
  • CHR annoying: Benji and Danilo this week, Gary and Brad next week, Graham following week. Gary has already raised this to flacoste.
  • Danilo out two days this week.
  • Gary focused on getting things set up.
  • Conclusion: Don't worry about it. See how we are next week or two before we consider changes.

2011-01-21

• Landing issues slowing us down. Solution: no short term solution identified. Ask Jono/Robert that SMM or similar be scheduled earlier.
• JS painful; example we found was bad. Solution: Ask for early review from Deryck. Rejected solution: ask Deryck for a "blessed" example.

• YUI upgrades are painful. Going from dot releases (e.g., 3.2 to 3.3) is a cost like switching major Python releases (e.g., 2.6 to 2.7). Solution: ask RobertCollins to be on top of YUI upgrades like Python upgrades, and to schedule upgrades with significant warning and full knowledge of the cost.

• How do we get ongoing stakeholder guidance in an efficient way?
  • Francis suggests that we use UI testing of the full interface as a way to also get initial stakeholder approval. He feels user testing will frame the conversation productively to encourage direction of our plans rather than bikeshedding. Benji warns that users may not understand that other features they are not tested on will not be present.
  • Benji wonders (without necessarily advocating) if Elliot might say "build it and people will like it." Gary feels we've tried that before (i.e., without sufficient stakeholder approval) and failed.
  • Benji suggests that we ought to have a single stakeholder representative. Gary feels that we've seen before that this is insufficient and historically problematic.
  • We collectively wonder what Jono's approval of the UI and the definition of "done" means in this regard. Is it Jono's responsibility to be the developers' only interface to the stakeholders now?

  • We talk about whether UI mockups or prototypes or incremental deliveries would be more valuable for getting input. UI mockups are cheaper than development, but incremental deliveries are more efficient if they are on the right track. Gary feels an ideal answer is finding a cheap way of getting just enough of a stakeholder blessing of a UI, and then using incremental deliveries to steer the rest of the way. Time-boxed mockups, developed iteratively ideally, combined with iterative delivery.

  • Next task for pursuing solution: Gary needs to contact Matthew (and Jono and/or Francis?) and see how user testing might work and what we need to provide. We do not yet have all parts of the user interface mocked up. We'd like to see if we can find an approved way to do iterative user testing--several tests instead of one big one. Can we make it cheaper/easier?

Thoughts for later discussion or action

• I want to try keeping a velocity chart, as described in Manage It. The kanban's charts are not quite what I want. For each individual project (i.e., our current project), track Features Left, Features Done, and Total Features over time. I'll use a Google graph. I'm adding that to the Administrivia lane of our kanban board. [GaryPoster]

• Next feature, maybe we can try a Tuesday or Wednesday delivery date. Manage It specifically warns against the Friday delivery dates we have now because she says that it can encourage stress and work over the weekend. If that proves to be a problem, here's a solution. [GaryPoster]

• Think about sprints. [GaryPoster]