[ros-users] Software Status Reporting and Custom Builds

Edwards, Shaun M. sedwards at swri.org
Sat Aug 31 02:39:59 UTC 2013


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<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

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