[Buildbot-devel] GSoc Project: Full Integration for User Support

[Dustin J. Mitchell]

On Thu, Apr 11, 2013 at 5:36 AM, Elias Assarsson <fte08eas at student.lu.se> wrote:
> My name is Elias Assarsson and I am interested in doing a GSoC project
> for Buildbot. The idea I found most interesting is Full Integration for
> User Support http://trac.buildbot.net/ticket/2436 . What would be a good
> way to prepare in pursuing this project?
>
> Some things about me. I have experience with Python (and other scripting
> languages such as Ruby) and I am a GNU/Linux user for almost ten year
> and a student in computer science in Sweden.

Great to hear from you!  I think that the best way to prepare for this
particular project is to set up a running Buildbot system, perhaps
watching a test GitHub repository of your own.  Then try to work with
the user support that's in place.  For example, see if you can
convince it to email the committer of each build with build results.
What if a user's Git email address isn't the best email address?  (For
example, I commit to Buildbot using dustin at mozilla.com, but prefer to
get Buildbot-related email at dustin at v.igoro.us)?  Does Buildbot make
that easy?  How could it do better?  Try hooking your Buildbot system
up to IRC (please use a different channel from #buildbot to
experiment!).  How can you connect the identity of a person who
commits to Git with their IRC nick?  As you may know, Git supports
both "author" and "committer" for each commit.  How could you
configure Buildbot to only email the committer, or only the author?

Hopefully this will give you an idea of some of the issues that users
face when trying to get this support working well for them.  The next
step will be to start looking at the code to see how you'd go about
fixing these issues.

Keep in mind that we will be selecting students not only on the
strength of their application, but on how well-known they are in the
Buildbot community.  That can include mailing-list posts, interactions
in IRC, and pull requests and reviews on GitHub.  There's still plenty
of time for you to get involved, but please do!

Dustin