[Buildbot-devel] tips for creating new P4-based source buildStep ?

[Stephan Koledin]

Bill, Dustin-

Thanks for the great info/feedback. Agree that it makes a lot more sense 
to contribute to a p4 master step and of course, I'd feed back any work 
I do that's not just a local "customization".

At the moment, I've got some pressure to get something out the door on 
this project fairlty quickly, so I've got a bit of a catch-22 on whether 
to do things "right" or just get something working. Of course, having 
something up and running will give me some flexibility to then help get 
a solid p4 master step up and working, so I guess my direction depends 
on how far along and stable Bill's p4 master step is.

I won't be at PyCon, but might be able to take something small and run 
with it in parallel during that time.

Bill, is your P4 master source step available somewhere? I didn't spot 
it in github, but I could just be not looking in the right place. Also, 
is this step something that can just be patched into an existing/working 
0.8.7 buildbot setup, or do I need to be running on nine or some other 
dev tree?

Also, just a point/question of interest, keep in mind I'm a relative 
buildbot newbie... If I wanted to override a particular buildStep 
method, it seems to me that if it's a master step, a simple change or 
derivative class could just be done via the master.cfg without having to 
directly patch/change the source. Is that correct, or am I being naive?

Thanks again.
-Stephan

On 3/4/2013 10:16 PM, Bill Deegan wrote:
> Stephan,
>
> On Mon, Mar 4, 2013 at 7:19 PM, Dustin J. Mitchell <dustin at v.igoro.us
> <mailto:dustin at v.igoro.us>> wrote:
>
>     On Mon, Mar 4, 2013 at 7:45 PM, Stephan Koledin <skoledin at gmail.com
>     <mailto:skoledin at gmail.com>> wrote:
>      > Thanks in advance for any advice on this. I really just want to make
>      > sure I'm headed in the right direction before committing to this
>     approach.
>
>     It sounds like you're on the right track - at least, your
>     implementation will be nicely independent of any changes to the
>     existing P4 support.
>
>     That said, the P4 support hasn't seen much love recently:
>       * last modification was in May 2012, and that was removing
>     functionality; before that, August 2011
>       * http://trac.buildbot.net/wiki/p4 lists the open bugs.
>       * MAINTAINERS.txt indicates Bill (copied) as the maintainer, but he's
>     busy and we've been in short supply of P4 hackers
>
>     If you're willing, it would make the world a better place to have a
>     master-side P4 step that has the flexibility you need, plus full unit
>     tests (so those of us who are not P4 gurus can maintain it).
>
>     What do you think?
>
>
> I have a functional master side P4 source step.
> Lacking some tests at this point.
> If you'd like to contribute to that branch rather than reinvent the wheel.
>
> I was hoping to wrap this up at post pycon sprints coming up shortly.
> -Bill