Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Mama Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Release Engineers

The talk today on cross-project-issues-dev about JAR signing, update sites and getting booted from a release sure brought back memories. This release, GEF was able to migrate to Nick's common modeling build. This is a big deal.

You see, during Europa I was in the exact same position. I was the release engineer for GEF and had to deal with all these release engineering issues. I was lucky to have JAR signing and pack2000 optional in Europa as GEF did not get these things done. The GEF downloads site did not have the phoenix look. I had a battle with the update site. I could go on. We say it is no big deal to complete all these little details, but until you try, it is a big deal.

The most important aspect with the common modeling build is that there are now more projects using it than I have fingers. Everytime there is one of these releng issues, rest assured all the projects using the common build can work together to get it fixed. And when the common build supported all the Ganymede must do's, we all get a free ride.

Thanks again goes out to Nick for his release engineering support.

4 comments:

Ian Bull said...

And Nick still has time to answer my dumb questions on GTalk, IRC, wherever.... Nick, I should be in T.O. this summer, I think I owe you a few beers. :-)

Ed Merks said...

I've heard that Nick is almost like a panacea drug. He prevents premature aging and hair loss, hypertension, along with several forms of mental illness, including but not limited to, anxiety, depression, insomnia, and even suicidal thoughts. He's best taken with a dose of humor to prevent upset stomach.

oisin said...

It's true. Nick cures all know build illnesses :) I've had great help from himself and others in the community - for example Thomas (Buckminster), David (WTP), Martin (DSDP) and this other guy Ed Merks, whoever he is. He likes chocolate is all I can say.

nickb said...

Side effects of using Nickatonin include:

* sarcasm & l33+sp34k via IM/email
* panic attacks at 4am when you break your build (and I might actually be asleep)
* being forced to read song lyric parodies on the Planet
* the occasional bug report in lolcode
* repeatedly being told to check the wiki for the answer

While you're all thanking me (and I'm grateful, don't get me wrong!) you've all forgotten the great releng foundation that Kim Moir maintains and that the PDE folks put in place on which I've been able to successfully build. And the great response and support from the Equinox folks, especially around p2 issues. Andrew, Pascal, Susan, DJ, to name but a few.

Releng is a team effort, ya'll. Let's not forget that when you're all thinking how great it would be to have -- and staff -- an Eclipse.org-hosted build farm. Despite rumours to he contrary, we're still a long way away from cloning release engineers...