Sysadmin report on the modernization of our infrastructure

[Thomas Lübking]

On Samstag, 24. Januar 2015 15:24:28 CET, Thomas Friedrichsmeier wrote:

> But beyond review functionality, I think moving towards a more
> integrated solution is clearly a step in the right direction, and this
> is what makes the choice of Phabricator over Gerrit a clear case to me.

I assume we all agree in wanting to have a more integrated solution than 
the status quo (which is basically not integrated at all), but keep in mind 
that "integration" does not require a "vendor lock-in", eg. not two items 
in my HiFi system are from the same vendor.

A fully integrated pre-solution might look nice on a glimpse, but the 
pre-integration does not necessarily compensate for defects in the 
components.

So far, this entire thread has actually only ever addressed the review 
process or maybe SCM entirely (unless I missed something) and the 
pre-integration has been brought up as a benefit (and from sysadming POV, I 
do certainly understand why), but I wonder whether the other required 
components have been checked for feature completeness.

Eg. I do not see the Phabricator Task tracker approach to be fundamentally 
different from (read: "superior to") bugzilla (notably the comments seem to 
be just as linear and there also does not seem to be a "summary" comment to 
be edited by maintainers anytime - two things I would actually like in a 
bugtracker), but even a short research suggested it neither does suggest 
duplicates, not is there intention to add such.
To me, this raises the question whether it's actually capable (or will ever 
be) of replacing (let alone "surpassing") the current bugzilla solution.

For another example (and vastly discussed) the integrated CI is "when it's 
done", nobody has actually seen it in process, so we might end up with the 
patched-on Jenkins forever.

Also the definitive blocker of scratching on-behalf-commit meta-info (for 
the SCM) has been brought up.

I'm not familiar enough with either Jenkins nor Zuul to say which one's 
"better" and I cannot judge about the Phabricator bugtracker feature 
completeness, but if we end up with having to use external components 
because the pre-integrated ones do not fit our requirements (for an 
undefined time), the pre-integration argument is simply void.


Bottom line is:
---------------
When you can well integrate the things you like, that's not necessarily 
inferior to some pre-integrated solution.

And to asset the advance of the pre-integrated solution, that solution has 
to be evaluated in its completeness - as one has to presume that it might 
be much harder to replace components of a solution that is meant to run en 
bloc, than it would be to plug together components which provide a public 
API for that very designed purpose.

Cheers,
Thomas