Development IRC meeting 16 February 2016

Place

The #koha IRC channel (IRC server irc.oftc.net).

If you don't have an IRC client you can join the meeting using your web browser.

Time

• 16 February 2016, 19 UTC Time and Date.com converter for various local times

Agenda

• Introductions (please use "#info" in front of your introduction to have it show up in the automatic minutes)

• Review coding guidelines
  • New coding guidelines
    • [marcelr] In relation to Plack: Should we add a PERL rule that prohibits defining lexical variables (my $var) in MODULES at the outermost block (file level), and also prohibits directly accessing file level lexicals in subroutines of SCRIPTS.
      Suggested wording: Forbid global state variables in modules and CGI scripts, and discourage their use elsewhere. (see https://perl.apache.org/docs/general/perl_reference/perl_reference.html#my____Scoped_Variable_in_Nested_Subroutines for context)
    • Handling disagreements
      Action from last meeting: pianohacker to suggest a possible guideline wording (http://paste.koha-community.org/309)
    • [khall] All methods should take a single argument, bit it an object, an id, or a hashref. This makes future modification of parameters for subroutines far simpler and less error prone, and reduces the changes needed.
    • [khall] I think we need something about limiting the use of the html filter to prevent XSS attacks (post Bug 13618)
      • [Joubu] New test added to the QA script, is it enough?
  • Reword/update coding guidelines
    • [kfischer] Merge new PERL20 and PERL20.1 into PERL15
    • [khall] Update JS4 based on the availability of the format method (from Bug 15662)
    • [kfischer] 'PERL7: Definitions' - point to Terminology instead and note that terminology in the code should follow the default en GUI terminology?
      • [marcelr] Code changes should adhere to naming conventions published elsewhere on the wiki (Patron versus Borrower, etc.)
  • Remove/obsolete/archive coding guidelines
    • [kfischer] 'PERL12: VERSION [Deprecated as of start of 3.12 release cycle] Each module should have a $VERSION variable to preserve progressive levels of compatibility with dependent code.' A bit confusing - should remaining VERSION variables be removed?
      Action from last meeting: Verify if perlcritic complains about missing VERSION and figure out, if we want/can reconfigure it.
      • [mtompset] perlcritic does not complain about missing $VERSION until -2, but since we only perlcritic to -5, there is no need to keep this.
  • Revamp/restructure coding guidelines page
    • [khall] I would like to revamp our guidelines page in the manner of https://make.wordpress.org/core/handbook/best-practices/coding-standards/ I can start a new page for this which can be voted on at a later date if everyone approves of the idea.
    • [kfischer] Divide coding guidelines into separate pages, for example: frontend, backend, database, and/or by language
• Any bugs that are in discussion
  • Please add links to bugs and comments here...
• General development discussion (Trends, ideas, ...)
  • [Joubu] Merge borrowers and deletedborrowers tables
  • [Joubu] Get rid of item-level_itype
  • [kfischer] Performance issues: Benchmark for 3.22, Bug 15242
• Updates from the QA team
  • List of blockers and critical bugs

• Set time of next meeting

Apologies

• Joubu

Minutes

• Minutes: http://meetings.koha-community.org/2016/development_irc_meeting_16_february_2016.2016-02-16-19.02.html
• Minutes (text): http://meetings.koha-community.org/2016/development_irc_meeting_16_february_2016.2016-02-16-19.02.txt
• Logs: http://meetings.koha-community.org/2016/development_irc_meeting_16_february_2016.2016-02-16-19.02.log.html