[ros-users] Software Status Reporting and Custom Builds

Mon Sep 2 16:05:21 UTC 2013

>
>
>
> On 31.08.2013 04:39, Edwards, Shaun M. wrote:****
>
> All,****
>
>  ****
>
> We have received feedback from the users of ROS-Industrial on two issues
> that I think are important to the larger community.  We have taken
> preliminary steps to address these issues, but in no way would we consider
> these the correct or permanent solutions.  It is for this reason, I am
> address the ROS user’s group to solicit feedback and discussion about these
> two issues:****
>
>  ****
>
> **1.       **Stack/Meta-Package/Package Status – Many people have
> commented that it is hard to know the true status of a package (whether the
> code is complete or in development).  The existence of a wiki is not an
> indicator, as several packages in ROS (including some of our own) are
> released early (i.e. agile development).  For this reason we have started
> identifying the status of a package on our wiki pages (see:
> http://ros.org/wiki/Industrial/Software_Status ).  Here is an example of
> a stack/meta-package that has been marked with its current status:
> http://ros.org/wiki/industrial_core .  This is only a start to what I
> think needs to be done, but it solves and urgent need for us and all the
> developers that are using our software.  I would like to see this status or
> something similar used by the larger community (what to you guys think).**
> **
>
> **2.       **Code quality/testing/metrics – Several users have asked for
> this type of information about our packages.  This is one of the (not the
> only) reasons we set up a Jenkins server specifically for ROS-Industrial
> (see
> http://rosindustrial.org/news/2013/8/13/jenkins-system-for-ros-industrial-repositories).  The ROS community already utilizes Jenkins servers for continuous
> integration and debain builds, but code metrics are missing (even some as
> simple as how many compiler warnings are generated).  We would like to see
> this kind of data rolled into official ROS Jenkins servers.  Is this a need
> for those in the large community?****
>
>
My 2 cents,

>From a user perspective, I'm mostly interested in these qualities:
- Good and stable API
- Well tested
- Well documented
- Actively maintained. Not necessarily actively developed.

Except testing metrics like coverage, most of the above qualities are
already accessible through the ROS wiki.

I usually also check how many downstream projects/packages depend on the
project of interest, as this correlates well to some of the above points.

>From a developer perspective, code quality metrics like the work of
Johannes Kuehn make more sense.

One might argue that good code metrics should also bias user choices, as a
project with poor code metrics might be difficult to move forwards.
However, projects with good APIs, documentation, testing and a sizable user
base will have enough traction to overcome parts of it with a poor
implementation (and are probably less likely to have bad code metrics to
start with).

Concerning Shaun's proposal, I'd move "The software has some level of
unit-testing or has been used on production level code in the past" from
production to development, and make the production statement much more
strict, reading something like "The software has a comprehensive test suite
and documentation, and is being used in production-level code."

Best,

Adolfo.

>  ****
>
> Thanks for you time,****
>
>  ****
>
>  ****
>
>  ****
>
> Shaun Edwards****
>
> Senior Research Engineer****
>
> Manufacturing System Department****
>
>

On Sun, Sep 1, 2013 at 7:29 PM, Edwards, Shaun M. <sedwards at swri.org> wrote:

>  Thibault,****
>
> ** **
>
> Thanks for the feedback.  ****
>
> ** **
>
> I agree a status label does not communicate everything, but it does
> communicate the first bit of information which is what the
> developer/maintainer thinks the code quality is.  If the
> developer/maintainer has labeled their own code <production quality, then
> any user would quickly decide not to use it for their production system.
> Of course if they have labeled it “production quality”, then the user still
> has a lot of work to do (as you point out).****
>
> ** **
>
> As for metrics I can tell you after a year and a half of trying to sell
> ROS the industrial community, these will help.  If for no other reasons,
> metrics will help potential users weed out the obvious bad packages.  A key
> metric that I haven’t seen anywhere (even in Tully’s example) is unit test
> coverage.  This will soon be added to the ROS-Industrial Jenkins toolkit
> and in my opinion is very helpful in understanding the quality of a
> particular piece of software.  I do agree that we should follow the lead of
> other open source projects, like the ones you reference.****
>
> ** **
>
> Finally, I would like to point out that we need a solution to at least
> some of these issues sooner rather than later.  My goal in sending out this
> email was to gage community interest.  My hope is that we can come up with
> an incremental plan that solves problems sooner rather than later.  I would
> not support an approach that attempts to create an entire solution up
> front.  Such a large project would not be easily supported by volunteers
> and even if it had funding would take too long to complete.****
>
> ** **
>
> Shaun Edwards****
>
> Senior Research Engineer****
>
> Manufacturing System Department****
>
> ** **
>
> ** **
>
> http://robotics.swri.org****
>
> http://rosindustrial.swri.org/****
>
> http://ros.swri.org****
>
> Join the ROS-Industrial Developers List<https://groups.google.com/group/swri-ros-pkg-dev/boxsubscribe>
> ****
>
> Southwest Research Institute****
>
> 210-522-3277****
>
> ** **
>
> *From:* ros-users-bounces at code.ros.org [mailto:
> ros-users-bounces at code.ros.org] *On Behalf Of *Thibault Kruse
> *Sent:* Sunday, September 01, 2013 6:20 AM
> *To:* ros-users at code.ros.org
> *Subject:* Re: [ros-users] Software Status Reporting and Custom Builds****
>
> ** **
>
> Hi,
>
> I believe it would be helpful to state more clearly in what way any such
> data would be used, and for what purpose, and by what kind of users.
>
> Knowing the true status of a package is a hard problem in general, it is
> IMO not solvable by simply sticking a label to a package. Any label is only
> as good and accountable as the governing authority producing those labels,
> IMO. And deciding whether to trust the guy having set the label can be just
> as hard.
>
> As a different example, knowing a project is a project of the Apache
> Foundation tells you a lot because to become a project at Apache, you need
> to go through an incubation phase, proving that there is a maintainer, a
> community, and plentiful other of metadata to indicate project health.
>
> Since we do not have that, checking the indicators of package quality
> remains a lot of hard work. One needs to check the documentation (complete,
> well-written, up-to-date), the project history, the issue tracker state,
> the amount of regression tests, which company is using a package, and maybe
> more.
>
> There cannot be a mere "status" label to replace all that activity to
> figure out the status of a project, IMO.
>
>
>
> Regarding Code quality/testing/metrics:
> Again it would be more useful if any person having a specific interest in
> any such data would speak up for themselves. I believe this kind of data
> can only ever be valuable for the active maintainers/developers of a
> package. I cannot imagine any person saying: "I was thinking about using
> package XYZ, but since I could not see the number of compiler
> warnings/style warnings/complexity measures in the wiki, i decided against
> investigating further".
>
> I can believe a person saying: "I'd love to introduce package XYZ to my
> company, but I struggle with persuading my boss that the quality of such an
> Open-Source package can be relied upon." But then, simple code metrics
> would probably not help with that.
>
> Selling ROS (even for free) to a company is a marketing problem, it is
> about maintaining a community, a pretty website and advertising, finding
> reference customers speaking up for the product, and so on.
>
>
>
> Instead of imagining a future world with useful metrics, it might help to
> point at real-world projects in the wild already using metrics, and copy
> that for ROS if enough people prefer investing time in that than in, say,
> ROS2.0.
> E.g. compare the list of projects and the stats they offer at
> http://freecode.com/
> https://pypi.python.org/pypi
> https://analysis.apache.org/dashboard/index
>
>
> regards,
>   Thibault
>
>
>
>
> On 31.08.2013 04:39, Edwards, Shaun M. wrote:****
>
> All,****
>
>  ****
>
> We have received feedback from the users of ROS-Industrial on two issues
> that I think are important to the larger community.  We have taken
> preliminary steps to address these issues, but in no way would we consider
> these the correct or permanent solutions.  It is for this reason, I am
> address the ROS user’s group to solicit feedback and discussion about these
> two issues:****
>
>  ****
>
> **1.       **Stack/Meta-Package/Package Status – Many people have
> commented that it is hard to know the true status of a package (whether the
> code is complete or in development).  The existence of a wiki is not an
> indicator, as several packages in ROS (including some of our own) are
> released early (i.e. agile development).  For this reason we have started
> identifying the status of a package on our wiki pages (see:
> http://ros.org/wiki/Industrial/Software_Status ).  Here is an example of
> a stack/meta-package that has been marked with its current status:
> http://ros.org/wiki/industrial_core .  This is only a start to what I
> think needs to be done, but it solves and urgent need for us and all the
> developers that are using our software.  I would like to see this status or
> something similar used by the larger community (what to you guys think).**
> **
>
> **2.       **Code quality/testing/metrics – Several users have asked for
> this type of information about our packages.  This is one of the (not the
> only) reasons we set up a Jenkins server specifically for ROS-Industrial
> (see
> http://rosindustrial.org/news/2013/8/13/jenkins-system-for-ros-industrial-repositories).  The ROS community already utilizes Jenkins servers for continuous
> integration and debain builds, but code metrics are missing (even some as
> simple as how many compiler warnings are generated).  We would like to see
> this kind of data rolled into official ROS Jenkins servers.  Is this a need
> for those in the large community?****
>
>  ****
>
> Thanks for you time,****
>
>  ****
>
>  ****
>
>  ****
>
> Shaun Edwards****
>
> Senior Research Engineer****
>
> Manufacturing System Department****
>
>  ****
>
>  ****
>
> http://robotics.swri.org****
>
> http://rosindustrial.swri.org/****
>
> http://ros.swri.org****
>
> Join the ROS-Industrial Developers List<https://groups.google.com/group/swri-ros-pkg-dev/boxsubscribe>
> ****
>
> Southwest Research Institute****
>
> 210-522-3277****
>
>  ****
>
>
>
>
> ****
>
> _______________________________________________****
>
> ros-users mailing list****
>
> ros-users at code.ros.org****
>
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>
>  ** **
>
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>
>

-- 
Adolfo Rodríguez Tsouroukdissian
Senior robotics engineer
adolfo.rodriguez at pal-robotics.com
http://www.pal-robotics.com

PAL ROBOTICS S.L
c/ Pujades 77-79, 4º4ª
08005 Barcelona, Spain.
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