(Monthly) development review

I'd like to create a (monthly) development review we can share via diasporahq and maybe the planet. It should include all contributions to the diaspora* codebase but should also try to be not too technical so even "normal" users should get a vague idea of what is going on. I've already started a review for December which we can continue until the end of the month.
http://pad.spored.de/p/development_review
We can share it in the first week of January and then start with a new review of the next month.
Help would be much appreciated. I am not a native speaker and I guess I already described some things too technical. Feel free to add more contributions as soon as they have been merged into our codebase.

goob Thu 8 Jan 2015 7:39PM
OK, I have done my edits. If everyone's happy that it's up to date and correct, I'll post it tomorrow.
@jhass @dennisschubert @steffenvanbergerem @jasonrobinson @flaburgan

Flaburgan Thu 8 Jan 2015 8:29PM
I'm gonna check. Sorry to be that inactive on loomio guys, time is limited and there is many noise here... I perfere to focus on github and IRC.

Flaburgan Thu 8 Jan 2015 8:36PM
Is "sped up" correct? I feel like a e is missing :p
I think we should also insist that those changes are made in the develop branch and will be available only in the next release. I saw a lot of people asking "where is the chat!" after seeing the merge in develop.

goob Fri 9 Jan 2015 2:29PM
Is “sped up” correct? I feel like a e is missing
Yes, 'sped' is the simple past tense of 'to speed' - it's a 'weak' verb. Thanks for your attentions.
I think we should also insist that those changes are made in the develop branch and will be available only in the next release.
I've added 'These changes will take effect with the release of diaspora* v0.5.0.0.' But are there any merged changes in that list which won't be part of 0.5.0.0? If so, I'll have to amend it to something like 'These changes will in most cases take effect with the release of diaspora* v0.5.0.0.'

Flaburgan Fri 9 Jan 2015 2:46PM
@goob we don't plan to revert anything at the moment, the chat is the only unknown point, so I think you can safely affirm that these changes will be in 0.5

Jason Robinson Fri 9 Jan 2015 8:37PM

Steffen van Bergerem Sat 10 Jan 2015 2:51PM
I agree with @flaburgan. IMO you can post this.

goob Sat 10 Jan 2015 3:37PM
I'll do it now. Thanks everyone! (apart from the puppy)

Steffen van Bergerem Sun 11 Jan 2015 5:26PM
I just added an empty 'month in review January' to the pad. Feel free to add contributions.

Steffen van Bergerem Sat 7 Feb 2015 9:46AM
I added all contributions for January.
@goob ping ;-)

goob Sat 7 Feb 2015 12:14PM
Oh thanks a lot. I'll try to look at it and edit this weekend.

goob Sat 7 Feb 2015 12:32PM
@steffenvanbergerem I've done a few minor edits (mostly grammar). Please check you're happy and then I'll publish.

Steffen van Bergerem Sat 7 Feb 2015 12:44PM
@goob Everything is fine. :)

goob Sat 7 Feb 2015 1:16PM
@steffenvanbergerem I've just noticed that there is no PR link for the first item under Marco Colli. I can't find any PRs from him merged in January - can you find it?

Steffen van Bergerem Sat 7 Feb 2015 1:32PM
@goob Fixed. (https://github.com/diaspora/diaspora/pull/5493)

goob Sat 7 Feb 2015 2:45PM
Lovely, thanks. Have published.

Jens Viisauksensa Sat 7 Feb 2015 10:47PM
was so happy and proud of diaspora as i went this post prompting by on my stream

Flaburgan Fri 13 Feb 2015 9:27AM
I started to fill the pad for February.

goob Tue 17 Feb 2015 2:05PM
Have updated to 16 Feb. Note: I haven't added any of the background/architecture type tasks that people like @jhass and have been adding, as I don't really understand it - but they should definitely be acknowledged for this work in the review.

goob Tue 3 Mar 2015 5:55PM
I have updated the pad to the end of February, mainly from the commit list. Would be grateful if @steffenvanbergerem and @flaburgan would check it, to see if I've missed any commits worth including, and particularly in the case of direct commits made by Jonne, Dennis, Steffen and others, as I'm not too certain about these. Thanks. Then we can post from the blog once it's been checked and cleared.

Steffen van Bergerem Tue 3 Mar 2015 6:52PM
@goob Thank you. I'll work on the review on Thursday.

goob Tue 3 Mar 2015 7:50PM
Thanks!

Steffen van Bergerem Thu 5 Mar 2015 6:05PM
Alright, I (hopefully) added all missing commits and PRs. I also improved some descriptions. While going through the existing review a few things were bothering me so I'll propose a format for the review:
- Changes are grouped by developer. Developers are ordered lexicographic by their Github username.
- For each developer changes are ordered by date. (oldest commits at the top) For commits which belong to a pull request the date of the merge is the decisive factor. Only commits that have been merged in the specific month will be in the review.
- The description should be as user-friendly as possible. (No one knows what “Change disable_mail to true” means without looking at the specific pull request) If you don't know a better description add a note so we remember improving it.

goob Thu 5 Mar 2015 7:00PM
Thanks a lot, Steffen. I aimed to fulfil all three proposals when working on it, although I admit I'm not very strong on (3), because I often don't understand the commits myself!
Will publish this tomorrow.

goob Thu 5 Mar 2015 7:12PM
ps: I've removed the commit you added for my PR to fix a typo in the changelog, as that was only in develop, so hasn't affected any releases.
pps: I think you need a separate development review for all your commits!

Flaburgan Fri 6 Mar 2015 1:35PM
Awesome work @goob and @steffenvanbergerem
I corrected two typos, I think this is ready to be published!

goob Fri 6 Mar 2015 5:23PM
Thanks for the reminder. Have just published it.

Flaburgan Fri 3 Apr 2015 9:31AM
Hey, time to check what was done during march :)

goob Fri 3 Apr 2015 12:49PM
Good point. I'm going to be a bit busy over the next few days, but will try to help with editing if others are able to put a draft list together.

Steffen van Bergerem Fri 3 Apr 2015 3:51PM
I added the missing contributions for march. Feel free to review and check if I missed any.

goob Mon 6 Apr 2015 9:10PM
Thanks a lot, Steffen. I've been through and made a few small changes.
I'm not sure my PR belongs here, as it's not a change to the app itself but to the tests. Actually, that's the case with a few other PRs/commits as well. Should they be in the review even so?

Steffen van Bergerem Mon 6 Apr 2015 9:33PM
I’m not sure my PR belongs here, as it’s not a change to the app itself but to the tests. Actually, that’s the case with a few other PRs/commits as well. Should they be in the review even so?
Yes, I definitely think so. The description of this thread says
It should include all contributions to the diaspora* codebase
The reason why I started this was
- to show users what "the diaspora-devs" are doing
- to motivate (especially new) devs by putting their name in a dhq post and showing them that their work is appreciated.

Jonne Haß Mon 6 Apr 2015 11:54PM
A good testsuite ensures that functionality isn't broken and doesn't break, it's as important is the code implementing the functionality itself.

Flaburgan Tue 7 Apr 2015 7:51AM
So, let's push the "publish" button?

Steffen van Bergerem Tue 7 Apr 2015 11:01AM
@flaburgan I agree.

goob Tue 7 Apr 2015 11:12AM
Thanks for the replies. That's fine with me; I just wanted to check. I'll publish it now.
Or maybe not, as there's a 500 on https://admin.diasporafoundation.org/. Calling @dennisschubert ...

Pablo Cúbico Tue 7 Apr 2015 3:52PM
This is awesome, I'm actually using it to check who is doing what and who to ask if I ran into a question.
\o/

Flaburgan Wed 8 Apr 2015 3:42PM
How did we do for the previous ones? The whole content on the blog, and a link to the blog in the social networks / diaspora HQ?

goob Wed 8 Apr 2015 3:57PM
Yup, like that. See https://joindiaspora.com/posts/47b84dc0a6540132a9551634c2c9a880
I'd do the DHQ post like this:
## diaspora* development
### [month in review (March 2015)]( - link to blog post here)
There have been many changes made to diaspora*'s codebase during March, with 66 pull requests/commits from 14 different contributors. These latest changes will be included with the release of **diaspora* v0.5.0.0**, which is coming very soon!
Say a big thank you to everyone who has helped improve diaspora* this month!
You can read full details of March's development in [this blog post]( - link to blog post here).
This list has been created by volunteers from the diaspora* community. We'd love help in creating a development review each month; if you would like to help us, get in touch via the [related thread on Loomio](https://www.loomio.org/d/rcQeDaEf/monthly-development-review).
We'll have to insert the blog post link once the admin part of the foundation site is back up. Please check my counting of PRs!

Dennis Schubert Thu 9 Apr 2015 12:23AM
@goob fixed. sorry for the delay, lots of work stuff…

Flaburgan Thu 9 Apr 2015 7:48AM
Okay, blog post created, you can check if everything is fine here: https://blog.diasporafoundation.org/15 and then I'll push the publish button.

goob Thu 9 Apr 2015 3:28PM
Thanks, @dennisschubert and @flaburgan!
Just one small change I suggest: I think we can remove 'of diaspora HQ' from the sentence about the RC. I think it's unnecessary as the blog is also from 'diaspora HQ' (i.e. the same people). If you really feel it's necessary to specify who the post is by, I'd say 'our post about the release candidate' as the link, or 'this post by us'. There are also a couple of other grammar errors in that sentence, I'll correct them here:
We created a release candidate for **diaspora* v0.5.0.0** at the end of March; read [this message](https://joindiaspora.com/posts/ff21ff60bb5c0132aa721e4fdb37c9f1) to find out more about this.
(I've also used the guid for the post to help inter-post compatibility.)
I haven't checked everything again, but the formatting looks good, so I'd say 'publish!' once this sentence has been fixed.

Flaburgan Thu 9 Apr 2015 3:34PM
Awesome Goob, thank you! I'll publish it soon, 9a.m. in SF and 18h00 in Europe is a perfect time for a blogpost :)

Flaburgan Thu 9 Apr 2015 3:53PM
Published on the blog and with diaspora HQ :)

goob Fri 10 Apr 2015 11:00AM
Thanks!
Steffen van Bergerem · Thu 8 Jan 2015 7:26PM
:-D I should have written "at least language-wise". Thank you for your help!