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Pike 7.8 Release Sprint

In order to wrap up the work and squash the remaining blocker bugs to get Pike 7.8 ready for a release, the Pike developers are planning to get together in Linköping on the last weekend of june 2008.

Pike developers and users from other places in Europe as well as the United States and China will participate though the internet. Interested users are invited to participate.

The Sprint will run from the 27. to 29.06.2008 and will be coordinated through the Pike Developer Forum.

Work on 7.8 has been going at a fast pace since the blocker list was announced. The developers hope to squash the remaining issues on this weekend.

Users are invited to help in particular with testing. Following are a few suggestions:

  • Fallback to poll from epoll (from the conference road map).
    Implemented, but further testing is needed, as well as updated documentation.
  • New Windows build environment. This is for the normal Unix/Windows/VC8 hybrid. As always, this will probably be the last one to be solved. But we know that Pike can be built in cygwin now, so if someone wants to get that up and running and write a description of how it's done it would acctually be enough for a release in a pinch.
  • Building external modules should work. If someone wants to look at this before the weekend it's not massively complicated, just a lot of mechanical checking through the scripts and then testing to see why variables aren't propagated as they should.
  • An API for safely creating temporary files. Possibly wrapping mkstemp/mkdtemp.
    This is a non-blocker, but would be nice. Fairly trivial to make prototypes of if someone wants to pitch in.
  • Testing of new features. Among others, tab completion in HILFE is very new and has not seen much testing yet. Take a look at the CHANGES to find out about other new features.
  • Write testcases. Any test cases really, but if you need idea then take a look at the ChangeLog and pick one change. Then check the test suite to see if there is something there that might cover the area mentioned in the log entry. If not invent a test.
  • Improve the documentation. Find undocumented features in the reference, find out how they work (try it, search for examples or ask for help) and write a description. the CHANGES list also has items that need completion

The easiest way to keep up with the development is probably to get a pikefarm client. That way you will always have the latest version built for you automatically and you can dive right in.

Reports should be sent to the pike-devel forum. Help to get started will also be available on IRC.