[Zope-dev] Product standardization

Martijn Faassen m.faassen@vet.uu.nl
Thu, 06 Jan 2000 14:08:05 +0100


Chris McDonough wrote:
> 
> Though I can't speak at all for DC regarding this matter (this is
> probably Chris Petrilli's or Brian Lloyd's territory),

Can you get them to speak up on this issue? :)

> I like the idea
> of having a slightly more formal definition of what constitutes a "good"
> product, even if that definition only consisted of a couple of pages of
> "shoulds" and "shouldn't"s.  

Right, that's the good way to start, at least. Some guidelines and hints
would
be very useful.

> I also like the idea of a loose sort of
> peer review (other than someone just downloading the product, finding
> out it doesn't work, and posting to the mail lists).

Yes, that's another way to get the ball running quickly. How do we set
this up,
though? Some procedures would be in order. I've whipped up a suggestion:

* appoint a number of 'Product reviewers'. Basically the Digital
Creations product gurus should appoint the first product reviewers (at
least 2), which hopefully include themselves.

* A particular version of a product is considered to be 'Zope compliant'
if at least 2 product reviewers did a thorough review and approve, and
no product reviewer at all vetos anything.

* Set up a mailing list, Zope-review, to handle product review
discussions only. The product reviewers are subscribed, along with
product developers who want reviews, and anyone else that's interested.
The list discussions may by necessity diverge into debates about
standards and guidelines. It may also go into technical discussions on
product development, but ideally the latter discussions should be moved
to Zope-dev so more people can profit from the information; development
questions should go to Zope-dev too. 

* If a product developer finishes a product that the current product
reviewers think is good (and substantial enough), such a product
developer can be appointed by them as product reviewer him or herself.
Such a developer should be nominated by a product reviewer, and no other
product reviewer should veto the appointment.

* Being a product reviewer is of course voluntary; you don't have to do
anything or to accept any appointment. The idea is to bring structure
and some dependability to the review process, not to enforce anything.
Nobody _has_ to go through review. And there's of course the open-source
ego-boost effect of being able to say you're a 'Zope product reviewer';
if you are that, you *must* be a Zope guru, eh? :) This status effect
will hopefully help motivate people to participate in the review
process.

* Participating developers that are not official product reviewers may
of course review each other's code too; this is only good for everybody
involved. Such informal product reviews will informally count when
official product reviewer status is considered.

* Care should be taken that all this procedure does not actually slow
down the development process. The entire review process is voluntary;
you may still distribute unreviewed products. The goal of the process is
to improve the design and code of both Zope and products, and to get to
an idea of what it means to be 'Zope compliant', not to make things more
difficult (in fact, this should make everything easier!).

> I would be willing to work on both.

Great! As I'm developing two Zope products (XMLWidgets and ZFormulator),
I can help people field-test whatever you or others come up with.

Regards,

Martijn