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Re: usefulness of ITPs (Re: mosh ITP not done, just package name taken over)



Jon Dowland wrote:
> That was Joey's hypothetical, iirc, and I don't really agree with his
> supposition that initial packaging is such quick work that the ITP
> delay is significant.

The typical package is fairly trivial to create. Often the rules file
doesn't need modifications anymore, so unless a man page has to be
written (which can be put off anyway), the control and copyright file
are probably what takes the longest. 

But, writing an ITP requires looking up most of the control file data,
and requires researching the copyright too. For that matter, I'll bet
that many developers do some basic compiling and running of the program
before sending off the ITP -- why ITP something that you've never used?
So the package can easily be half way complete before the ITP is sent.

Running reportbug WNPP, filtering the existing reports to find a
duplicate, and filling in basic data with cut-n-paste takes two or three
minutes. Add the several minutes it takes to get a number back, add the
interrupt needed to go check mail and get the bug, avoid getting dragged
into some thread on debian-devel while doing it, and you've spent 10
minutes on the ITP if you're lucky, and I would guess, more likely half
an hour.

The best way to become "hyper-efficient" is to avoid this kind of
overhead, automate everything, and be prepared to fail quickly and
iterate.

-- 
see shy jo

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