GrowReviewComment

Posted 1 week, 6 days ago at 18:29. 2 comments

This has been a pet peeve of mine for a while. Assuming you’re not editing the attachment as a comment, Bugzilla gives you a very small window in which to leave a comment when reviewing a patch: the textarea is 5 rows high and only 25 columns wide by default. I’ve found it hard to add coherent commentary in a box that small, and my efforts almost always come out poorly formatted because I just can’t tell how the text is wrapping.

I whipped up a dead-simple greasemonkey script today that increases the size of the comment box when you click on it, and then shrinks it back down again when you click elsewhere.

Current Tunes: The Gareth Emery Podcast - Episode 98 | Filed under Mozilla

Kiss the Future goodbye

Posted 3 weeks, 6 days ago at 19:49. 1 comment

Flaming tire tracksLet it never be said that we don’t listen.

In response to the comments on my previous entry about Tackling the Release Engineering:Future queue and a number of conversations I’ve had out-of-band over the past few months, the release engineering team has decided to do away with the Future component. We will be merging all of the bugs therein back into the regular Release Engineering component.

Aside from the simplicity inherent in having fewer components to worry about, there were three main reasons we chose to do this: Continue Reading…

Current Tunes: New Order - Blue Monday | Filed under Build/Release, Mozilla

Tackling the Release Engineering:Future queue

Posted 1 month ago at 17:22. 4 comments

Bart falls down a well.The Release Engineering:Future bugzilla component alternately inspires feelings of sadness, loathing, and contempt…and that’s just within the RelEng team!

I’m certain most developers first response to having their bug moved to the Future queue is, “Oh, look, my bug has fallen down a well.” Historically speaking, that may not be far from the truth.
Continue Reading…

Current Tunes: Above and Beyond - Trance Around The World 306 - Andy Moor - 2010-02-05 | Filed under Build/Release, Mozilla

All about the RelEng sheriff, revisited

Posted 1 month ago at 15:37. 0 comments

Sheriff badgeThis is a follow-up to Ben’s blog post about the RelEng Sheriff back in October. His post described clearly what the RelEng Sheriff (and more generally, the RelEng team) can do to help developers.

Since we implemented the RelEng sheriff (or “buildduty” as it is more informally called) last spring, developers have been getting better about using the buildduty person as the first point of contact for RelEng issues. I’d like to implore people to continue doing so. There are a few exceptions, of course:
Continue Reading…

Current Tunes: The Gareth Emery Podcast - Episode 96 | Filed under Build/Release, Mozilla

Models, Inc.

Posted 1 month, 2 weeks ago at 18:53. 0 comments

NE CornerInspired by the physical model dropped off today by our architect (and the relentless requests for photographic evidence thereafter), I posted a bunch of pictures today, both of the model and some from Christmas time as well.

On the house front, things are obviously progressing well if we’re at the model stage. Kris has a post up over at her blog about some of the green certification systems we’ve been examining and synthesizing (and by “we,” I of course mean “her”) over the past few months. In redux, we’re much more interested in a house that performs well over the long-term in terms of energy savings and being comfortable rather than one-time, “hooray-for-us” points. As such, we’re heavily invested in making design choices and choosing systems that will last.

Current Tunes: Above and Beyond - Trance Around The World 302 - Lange - 2010-01-08 | Filed under Family, House, Parenthood, Photography

Nomenclature

Posted 4 months, 2 weeks ago at 11:03. 9 comments

Bruce Lee vs. Chuck NorrisRecognizing some existing internal group dynamics and the need for the entire Mozilla release engineering (RelEng) team to grow in a more sustainable manner, we recently started an internal reorganization of the RelEng group. John will likely blog about the new structure of the group at some point, but I’ll relate the bits that are pertinent to me.
Continue Reading…

Current Tunes: Digitalism - Echoes | Filed under Build/Release, Mozilla

No problems

Posted 4 months, 3 weeks ago at 11:05. 1 comment

Off the railsThe Mozilla release engineering (RelEng) team has grown substantially over the past two years. Some members of the team have certain domain-specific focuses (e.g. talos, mobile), but one of our primary team goals has been to get our release automation to the point where anyone on our team can handle a release. Given the emerging branch picture for Mozilla code where we might see simultaneous releases on 3+ code branches (a.k.a release-apalooza), this is becoming increasingly important.

I’ve done my share of releases over the past few quarters, and until the current release (3.5.4, still in progress as of writing), I would have said that I understood the process pretty well.
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Current Tunes: Jaytech Music Podcast 022 | Filed under Build/Release, Mozilla

At issue

Posted 5 months, 2 weeks ago at 01:05. 0 comments

Why is it that I can order a heavy-ish object from a company in California with whom I have no previous business relationship and have it show up at my door in less than a week, but *renewing* a magazine subscription (despite now accepting my account details online, details which *YOU ALREADY HAVE*) still takes 6-8 weeks to process and results in missed issues? Condé Nast FAIL.

Current Tunes: UNKLE - The Knock (Drums of death part2) | Filed under Books

I <3 the web.

Posted 5 months, 2 weeks ago at 00:35. 1 comment

I <3 the web.I had one of those classic web-enabled parenting moments tonight that have become so common for me these days that I sometimes fail to appreciate how much of a change it represents from how I grew up.
Continue Reading…

Current Tunes: Kid Koala - Fender Bender | Filed under Family, Open Web

As surprised as anyone

Posted 6 months, 1 week ago at 12:35. 0 comments

BaronessI long ago came to grips with the fact that the new G.I. Joe movie was going to have precious little to do with the G.I. Joe of my youth. I still have an attic (note: not my attic) full of G.I. Joe toys, so the compulsion to see it eventually overrode common sense and generally awful meta-ratings.

I usually like MovieBob’s reviews over at the Escapist, but before actually seeing G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, I just assumed he had lost the thread when he posted a positive review of the movie given the overwhelming negativity of others. Having now seen the film, I think he’s absolutely spot on.

This is the type of fun summer movie that I haven’t seen in ages: a decent plot that is coherent and doesn’t expect me to check my brain at the door, larger-than-life characters in over-the-top action sequences, and enough cool tech for 2 regular action movies. If someone had just thought to take the lips off of Snake Eyes’ costume, I dare say it would have been damn-near perfect*.

* “Perfect” in the summer movie sense. This movie won’t be winning any Oscars, let’s not kid ourselves here.

Current Tunes: of Montreal - Id Engager (Mad Decent Remix) | Filed under Movies