• openSUSE 11.0 Released!

    The latests and greatest version of openSUSE has been released. I have been waiting for SUSE 11.0 for some time and will be upgrading immediately. I have already backed up my system and have begun downloading the 64 bit DVD via torrent.

    This release has been praised as the Mercedes-Benz of Linux. The release has lots of updated programs, new features, and performance upgrades.

    A good article can be found at one of my favorite blogs.

  • Firefox 3 Download Day

    The Firefox crew has decided to try and set a Guinness World Record for the most software downloads in 24 hours with the release of Firefox 3.

    Although the release date has note been set there is a page setup for you to pledge your support.

    For posterity: http://www.spreadfirefox.com embedded content

  • Core patches need to be tested!

    It has come to our, SimpleTest module developers, attention that the tests are breaking at a rapid rate. Most of the tests that currently have issues passed when they were originally committed to the core. The list of tests that passed was used during the cleanup stages, but hasn’t been changed since SimpleTest was added to core and stands as a record.

    I previously posted “Core patches need to update tests as well” in preparation for SimpleTest becoming part of core. Sadly it doesn’t appear it was heeded.

    After a long process of trial and error rolling back commits, webchick found the patch that broke the translation test, and possibly others. This would have saved everyone involved a lot of time had those who reviewed and wrote the patch simply run the tests on the patch, or better yet if testing.drupal.org were finished and implemented on drupal.org so that it would happen automatically.

    Regardless it is rather annoying to spend several weeks cleaning up the tests to see them broken by un-tested commits. Before marking a patch as “ready to be committed” ensure that someone has run the suite of tests on it. If that hasn’t been done I would hope that the patch isn’t committed.

  • Interesting Videos

    Recently I have come across several creative Drupal related movies that I decided to share. If you have any others feel free to comment.

  • Success at Paris Coding Sprint

    The Paris sprint went off without a hitch. We accomplished several goals that will move Drupal into its next stage of development. Among the things accomplished was the addition of the SimpleTest module to Drupal core. Inclusion of a common testing suite with Drupal core will provide a basis for complete testing coverage which was stated as one of the goals for Drupal 7. A necessary component of this initiative is a method for measuring the success of testing. This will be done with “code coverage” tools which measure the percentage of code that is being tested. To put all of this work to good use an automated testing farm is being created which will run the tests on all patches to core. Work on these three areas was unified and pushed forward at the sprint.

    An enormous amount of preparation has been completed over the past month and a half in order to prepare SimpleTest for inclusion in the core. The work has included API cleanup and documentation, functional test writing, statistic collection, and unit test planning. The first three objectives were finalized at the sprint before SimpleTest was added to core. Major strides were made on the last objective at the sprint and was planned to become part of core within the next week or two. The whole idea of unit testing is still somewhat up in the air.

    Without the sprint the final pieces necessary to bring SimpleTest into the core would have taken much longer to finalize. Thanks again to all those who sponsored my trip to the sprint.