[Buildbot-devel] GSoC: Forward porting to python3

[Jørn Lomax]

I think how to handle backwards compatability is something that should 
be discussed in greater detail, with input from the community at large. 
I'm a fan of just branching the current build and having a dedicated 
python3 branch. That way the 2.x version will always be up to date and 
we won't have to worry about things breaking backwards compatibility. 
This of course makes for more work with pulling in patches to two 
branches and such, so it's a trade-off. But I'm new to the community, so 
I don't know how you have handles things like this in the past and maybe 
you have a system for this already? And I see (from 30 mins with the 
source, so I might be wrong), no reason that buildmaster can't run 
python3 while buildslave runs python2

I also forgot to mention that the task might seem a little small, but 
from experience, it's better to have a project that is a little too 
small, than too big. Things happen, code is code, computers are 
computers, something unpredicted might show up. If the project is done 
earlier than thought, I'm up for working with other tasks or just fixing 
bugs/documenting

Not sure what parts of twisted are ported. They have 167 tickets marked 
Python-3.x, and 69 are still marked active. Looking through them they 
mostly seem like enhancements. I can send an email to their ML or drop 
by on IRC and ask if you want?

On 09.03.2015 23:15, Dustin J. Mitchell wrote:
> Great!  This is a relatively straightforward project, but it sounds
> like you have already looked hard enough to see the tricky bits and
> plan ahead for them.  One bit you didn't mention is maintaining
> backward compatibility -- we need to continue to run on Python2.7
> (buildmaster) and preferably 2.5 through 2.7 (buildslave).
>
> Your point about Twisted highlights an unknown -- does Buildbot only
> use the 59% that's ported?  Or does it use some of the 41% that's not?
>   If the latter, how much does it use, and could we (you) port that bit
> of Twisted?
>
> Dustin
>
> On Mon, Mar 9, 2015 at 5:20 PM, Jørn Lomax <northlomax at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Hi
>>
>> My name is Jørn Lomax, I'm a last year CS masters student from Tromsø,
>> Norway.
>> I would like to forward port buildbot to python3 (ticket #2860[1]) as
>> part of GSoC. I have plenty of python experience, both with python2.x
>> and python3.x and I'm also a big python3 advocate.
>>
>> I think this is important to get the process started for buildbot as
>> python 2.7 it is no longer under active development and no more features
>> are going to be added. The main reason it can't be ported fully yet is
>> that twisted does not support python3, but they are 59% of the way and
>> they are hoping to finish it soon(tm)[2]. Python 3 is also becoming the
>> defacto python standard in the wild, with Fedora aiming to have it as
>> the standard python distribution in the next release.
>>
>> There are several ways to solve the problem. python 2to3 can only go so
>> far, and I think there will have to be some manual work involved if it
>> is used, since it is not very good for big projects (in my experience).
>> The six project can be more helpful, but there still needs to be some
>> code QA to make sure that tests pass and that the code is still in a
>> state that makes it easy to read and work on.
>>
>> As I'm currently busy writing my master thesis, I have not had time to
>> solve any of the simple bugs on the tracker yet, but I'm playing around
>> with the code and getting familiar with it
>>
>> regards,
>> Jørn Lomax
>> irc: Lurimax
>> email: northlomax at gmail.com
>>
>>
>> [1]http://trac.buildbot.net/ticket/2860
>> [2]https://twistedmatrix.com/trac/roadmap
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> Dive into the World of Parallel Programming The Go Parallel Website, sponsored
>> by Intel and developed in partnership with Slashdot Media, is your hub for all
>> things parallel software development, from weekly thought leadership blogs to
>> news, videos, case studies, tutorials and more. Take a look and join the
>> conversation now. http://goparallel.sourceforge.net/
>> _______________________________________________
>> Buildbot-devel mailing list
>> Buildbot-devel at lists.sourceforge.net
>> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/buildbot-devel