RE: build breakages and translators

[Murray Cumming Comneon com]

> From: Malcolm Tredinnick [mailto:malcolm@commsecure.com.au] 
> Murray.Cumming@Comneon.com wrote:
> > The release-team has noticed that some of the GNOME CVS build 
> > breakages have been caused by translators who have added or removed 
> > languages.
> > 
> > In general, people should always check that a module builds before 
> > checking their changes into cvs. This is even more important for 
> > translators who might not have so much experience with cvs or build 
> > files.
> 
> This is a change in policy. It means that translators will 
> have to be able to build far more modules than any other 
> developer -- which is a large burden (given that some of them 
> have very weird build systems). Was this really the intention 
> of the release team's discussion at the last meeting?

It's my own suggestion. I was not aware that there was any policy that said
that translators don't need to check their build file changes. Personally I
can not imagine changing configure.in without then checking it by running
configure. Is this because translators tend not to have the dependencies
built? Hmm, I can't see a way around this.

> > People often forget to "cvs add" new .po files.
> 
> Really?? From experience, it seems that the common cases are 
> somehow messing up configure.in or commit a badly-formed PO file.

Personally I have seen .po files added to configure.in but not added to cvs.
I am a sample size of 1.

I'm just trying to be constructive here. We'd be glad to hear any better
suggestions. If my suggestion really is unfeasible then don't try to do the
impossible.

Murray Cumming
murrayc@usa.net
www.murrayc.com