[Sugar-devel] new journal and datastore maintainer

[James Cameron]

On Thu, Sep 17, 2009 at 04:51:47PM +0200, Martin Langhoff wrote:
> So I am strictly looking forward -- and wondering if we can help these
> users of 0.82 now.

By branching at the 0.82 point as deployed, determining from evidence
(those renamed DS directories you have been unable to obtain) what the
likely problem is, and then making a minor change to prevent or handle
it.

The authors of the 0.82 DS or the 0.84 DS might also use their knowledge
of the code to  comment on the likely causes so that the investigation
can be refined.

It's not impossible, just more difficult than a rewrite.  Maintenance
programming is like that; more difficult.

If the current writers are unable to dedicate that extra time, then an
upgrade becomes the only option they will encourage.

git://git.sugarlabs.org/sugar-datastore/mainline.git

I've reviewed the changes just now from 0.82 to 0.84.  It was certainly
an entire rewrite, so what you are in effect asking is for someone to
support the 0.82 DS to fix a problem that is not yet well defined.  Is
Benjamin Saller available?  ;-)

You've said that coincident with total datastore loss you've also
observed the datastore directory is renamed and journal items are no
longer listed.  I've looked for this code, but have not found it.  Can
anyone tell me where in the sugar or sugar-datastore code this rename
decision is made?

> And how we'll handle similar issues when 0.84 is deployed and if
> dataloss bugs are reported.

There is no evidence yet to suggest that the same bugs will be reported,
and since the datastore code is entirely different I think it is
unlikely that you'll get the same bugs.

Have there been any instances of entire datastore loss on 0.84 or 0.86?

The saved datastore and the logs will be very pertinent to the problem.
So that's the first way to handle it ... gather the critical problem
data.

-- 
James Cameron
http://quozl.linux.org.au/