[Spread-users] Spread 4

[Gavin Sherry]

On Sat, 2 Jul 2005, Theo Schlossnagle wrote:

> Gavin Sherry wrote:
>
> >Hi all,
> >
> >Neil Conway and I are busily hacking on spread to see if we can increase
> >its robustness and usability. There is some discussion in the source and
> >in the mailing list archives of spread 4. Is spread 4 being actively
> >worked upon? If so, is the source publicly available?
> >
> >
> The SpreadConcepts guys can give some insight into Spread 4.  I only
> know some of it's benefits (like vastly more intelligent wide-area
> operations).  I have only waded through the Spread 3 code, so I couldn't
> enumerate the differences.

Okay.

> However, busily hacking for robustness sounds like it could use more
> eyes looking at commits.  Such a venue would also offer more
> collaboration?  Would CNDS be interested in hosting a CVS module
> (separate from Spread 3 itself) with much more liberal commit priveleges
> that would facility community participation?

This sounds like a good idea. I think we've made a fair bit of progress on
readability (run GNU indent, removed some code duplication, disentangled
ambiguous code) so I think the code should be more approachable now.
However, since there is no unit test or regression test suite to help us
work out if we've busted something, peer review from those who have been
around the code for more than a week sounds like a very good idea. As an
aside, automated testing is near the top of my list of TODOs for spread.

>
> Given Spread's licensing, this would provide a platform on which
> contributors could play that would make it more likely that people's
> improvements are visible to the rest of the world.
>
> Just some thoughts.

They are much appreciated.

>
> Theo
>

Thanks,

Gavin