[Systers-dev] )ur first systers testing/release cycle

[Robin Jeffries]

We have a somewhat urgent bug fix that we want to apply to systers (fix
courtesy of Anna Granudd, one of our GSOC students), and we thought this
would be a good way to try out our release processes.  Kathy Gee (cced
above), who has been doing release testing back when it was only a small
group of us, has agreed to be the release czar(ina) for this round.  We'd
like to have everyone on this list do part of the testing.  I think we can
get through this in a day if we all jump in.
To see what needs to be tested, visit
http://systers.org/systers-dev/doku.php/checklist_for_20_july_2009_integration
which is an instance of our testing checklist (we unfortunately still only
have manual tests) for each release.  Select a test or set of tests that you
think you could do what is asked and recognize whether it passed or not.  It
would be great if you could select something like the entire "membership
management page" section or the like, but if you only have time for 2-3
tests, that's fine.  Send mail to Kathy saying that you are offering to take
on those tests. (Give her a chance to respond, as someone else may have
already signed up for those and let's spread our efforts around).  Then do
the tests, and, indicate pass or fail in this wiki page.  If fail, please
file a bug on launchpad.net/systers with as much detail as possible.  Things
you will need to know  and do.

1.  You will need a login for launchpad.net and for the
www.systers.org/wikiin order to make changes there.  If you don't have
these already, Kathy can
give you instructions on what you need to do.

2.  All of this testing goes on at abiwt.org, where we have the code
integrated into the production version.  If your test requires you to use an
existing list, use
   change_email_test at abiwt.org
If your test requires you to log in as admin or moderator, the password is
admin
You will probably want to subscribe to that list first  (
www.abiwt.org/mailman/listinfo/change_email_test ), so you can see the
effects of any posts you make.  Send mail to me or to kathyg to make sure
that we OK your subscription quickly (or you can do it yourself with the
admin password, if you know how to manage mailman lists). Type anything you
want for the essay "I'm a tester" is a good idea.
If you have to create a new list, set the admin and moderator passwords to
admin so others can use that list to test

3.  It will take longer than we really have to get people accounts on
abiwt.org, which is where you would have to go to see any traceback caused
by a bug.  Sorry about that -- we will get that resolved before the next
cycle.  In addition to filing your bug, send the description and the PRECISE
TIME it happened to this list, and Kathy or I will check the logs for useful
traceback information.

4 .  Watch this list for info.  If we hit a showstopper bug, we'll post here
so that you can stop testing until it is fixed.

Some caveats:
    -if you use gmail, you will not receive messages you send to the list in
your gmail account, as gmail merges the outgoing and the incoming one into a
single message (yes, this is frustrating).  If you have another email
address, sign up using that.  If not, you can set a preference to have
mailman send you a "your message has been delivered to the list" message.
 If you only have a gmail address, don't sign up for tests that require you
to be able to read the received message (e.g., details of the headers or
footer)

   - abiwt can be slow in delivering mail.  Give it 10-15 minutes to get
delivered.

I hope that everyone on this list will help us test a few bugs.  As you can
see, the testing matrix is not large (Anna is testing things directly
related to the bug she fixed), so if everyone on this list puts in an hour,
we'll be done.  (and a problem that is a major annoyance to the systers who
encounter it will be fixed).  We especially want the GSOC students to
participate -- we will be doing this again later this summer for your code,
so consider this a dry run.

Send most of your questions to kathy, but feel free to ask me also.  We want
to get this all done by Friday so that Kathy can go off on vacation without
worrying about whether this problem is resolved or not.

Thanks,

Robin