Dave Abrahams wrote:
-- that is, I haven't see a mode in the tool to annotate against 'rendered html'.
That *would* be a nice feature, wouldn't it!? I don't think I've ever seen such a tool. Wait, that's not true. See http://djangobook.com/en/2.0/chapter01/ for an example.
Ok, the example doesn't seem to be live, but looks interesting...
A couple of things to consider:
1. We'd still need a place for overall assessments that don't pertain to specific details. There's an 'overall comments' section at the top of each review for these kinds of comments.
Yeaaaaaah... do you think putting that kind of commentary in the same place as a code review would work for our review process, though? Maybe it would, but I have a hard time envisioning it.
I think it can work -- and yes, it helps to see it, but the review summary is part of the overall view of a review in code collab.
2. I know this is a bold predicition, but I think we will be transitioning to GitHub. It has an enormous momentum in the open source world, is responsive, and will continue to make a lot more sense as Boost is modularized. GitHub already supports code review. I think I'd rather go with a tool that requires absolutely no sysadmin on our part, is a known quantity to many already, etc. I haven't used the github review capabilities here -- so we'd have to evaluate what works best. As for the admin -- it's truly minimal -- basically the same as giving someone sandbox access today -- registering an email address so that comment discussions are tracked, etc. And the author has to upload code to the tool -- but a simple paragraph should be about enough to explain it.
I mean someone has to install the tool, administer the system on which it runs, ensure that there's always enough CPU power/bandwidth, manage upgrades, etc. Also I don't love the need to upload code. Having the tool built into a code repo/sharing system removes steps and *should* make things run more smoothly (no separate login, for example).
I *think* the way this works is SmartBear provides the computers/site and moderators/review managers admin things. Rather than speculate further though I'm going to contact them and find out the details of how their open source program works.
One thing I do like very much about centering the process on a code review tool is that people can poke through making comments, etc., and then after they've taken a good look, consider voting and adding an overall write-up. That is, you can get into it incrementally. That's a lot harder with the current system.
Precisely. The other very nice feature is that the tool keeps track of which comments each participant has read -- so as new comments are added if you relook at the review summary it highlights and provides links directly for the modified discussions -- since it's individualized you can catch up no matter how long or short a time you've been away from the review. Jeff