[development] Desperate plea for help on the GHOP program

[Angela Byron]

Peter Wolanin wrote:
> I just posted three new (but very similar) proposed tasks involving
> writing Simpletest tests:
> 
> http://drupal.org/node/200784
> http://drupal.org/node/200782
> http://drupal.org/node/200780
> 
> These crib heavily from webcheck's list here:
> http://groups.drupal.org/node/5974

Awesome! These are fantastic tasks, and with the level of detail we're 
after. Thanks a lot for taking the time to do this.

The only concern I have is do we have enough people available to mentor 
SimpleTest-related tasks? I think Rok is pretty swamped. If people want 
to volunteer for one or more of these, could you respond to the issues?

> Anyone with a few minutes to copy/paste/edit could create several more
> form this list.
> 
> Check the existing simpletest tests to avoid significant duplication:
> 
> http://cvs.drupal.org/viewvc.py/drupal/contributions/modules/simpletest/tests/

Let's keep it to 3 for now, I think, or at least no more than 5. I've 
just added a new FAQ entry at the bottom of http://drupal.org/node/200510:

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*Oh, I've got it! Let's just make 500 copies of the $foo task. Problem 
solved!*

While we _could_ do this, please consider the consequences:

     * We only have 200 task slots in total (and now, thanks to 
everyone's help, only around 100 left un-filled. w00t!). If we use up 20 
of them on one area, we're directly taking away from the number of tasks 
we can spend in another. We really need to decide whether that thing is 
_really_ worth using up 20% of our remaining slots.
     * Remember that each task takes someone to mentor it (or preferably 
several someones) in order to ensure prompt turnaround on reviews so 
that students can take more tasks! Creating 20 "Create SimpleTest 
coverage for X module" tasks is no good if we don't have at least that 
many people (and preferably more like 50) who are up to speed on 
SimpleTest and are able to guide students through these tasks.
     * If our task list essentially looks like a big copy/paste job, 
we're going to give the strong impression that we are lazy and aren't 
putting proper effort into the program. Students are likely, in turn, to 
not put a lot of effort into us.

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Btw, this isn't directed at specifically you, it was just a good example 
of something that's come up at least 5 times today so I wanted to 
address it. :)

-Angie