oracular (3) Moose::Manual::Contributing.3pm.gz
NAME
Moose::Manual::Contributing - How to get involved in Moose
VERSION
version 2.2207
GETTING INVOLVED
Moose is an open project, and we are always willing to accept bug fixes, more tests, and documentation
patches. Commit bits are given out freely and it's easy to get started!
Get the Code
If you just want to get your feet wet and check out the code, you can do so from the comfort of your web
browser by going to the official repository on GitHub: <https://github.com/moose/Moose>.
However, if you know how to use git and would rather have a local copy (because, why wouldn't you?!),
then you can clone it:
git clone git@github.com:moose/Moose.git
If, at some point, you think you'd like to contribute a patch, please see "Getting Started".
NOTE: Your contribution is very important to us. If, for some reason, you would prefer not to use
Git/GitHub, come talk to us at #moose on irc.perl.org and we can work something out.
People
As Moose has matured, some structure has emerged in the process.
Cabal - people who can release moose
These people are the ones who have co-maint on Moose itself and can create a release. They're listed
under "CABAL" in Moose in the Moose documentation. They are responsible for reviewing branches, and
are the only people who are allowed to push to stable branches.
Cabal members are listed in Moose and can often be found on irc in the
<irc://irc.perl.org/#moose-dev> channel.
Contributors - people creating a topic or branch
You!
New Features
Moose already has a fairly large feature set, and we are currently not looking to add any major new
features to it. If you have an idea for a new feature in Moose, you are encouraged to create a MooseX
module first.
At this stage, no new features will even be considered for addition into the core without first being
vetted as a MooseX module, unless it is absolutely 100% impossible to implement the feature outside the
core.
If you think it is 100% impossible, please come discuss it with us on IRC or via e-mail. Your feature may
need a small hook in the core, or a refactoring of some core modules, and we are definitely open to that.
Moose was built from the ground up with the idea of being highly extensible, and quite often the feature
requests we see can be implemented through small extensions. Try it, it's much easier than you might
think.
Branch Layout
The repository is divided into several branches to make maintenance easier for everyone involved. The
branches below are ordered by level of stability.
stable/*
The branch from which releases are cut. When making a new major release, the release manager makes a
new "stable/X.YY" branch at the current position of "master". The version used in the stable branch
should not include the last two digits of the version number.
For minor releases, patches will be committed to "master", and backported (cherry-picked) to the
appropriate stable branch as needed. A stable branch is only updated by someone from the Cabal during
a release.
master
The main development branch. All new code should be written against this branch. This branch contains
code that has been reviewed, and will be included in the next major release. Commits which are judged
to not break backwards compatibility may be backported into "stable" to be included in the next minor
release.
topic/*
Small personal branches that are still in progress. They can be freely rebased. They contain
targeted features that may span a handful of commits. Any change or bugfix should be created in a
topic branch.
rfc/*
Topic branches that are completed and waiting on review. A Cabal member will look over branches in
this namespace, and either merge them to "master" if they are acceptable, or move them back to a
different namespace otherwise. This namespace is being phased out now that we are using GitHub's
pull requests in our "Development Workflow".
attic/*
Branches which have been reviewed, and rejected. They remain in the repository in case we later
change our mind, or in case parts of them are still useful.
abandoned/*
Topic branches which have had no activity for a long period of time will be moved here, to keep the
main areas clean.
Larger, longer term branches can also be created in the root namespace (i.e. at the same level as master
and stable). This may be appropriate if multiple people are intending to work on the branch. These
branches should not be rebased without checking with other developers first.
WORKFLOWS
Getting Started
So, you've cloned the main Moose repository to your local machine (see "Get the Code") and you're ready
to do some hacking. We couldn't be happier to welcome you to our community!
Of course, to ensure that your first experience is as productive and satisfying as possible, you should
probably take some time to read over this entire POD document. Doing so will give you a full
understanding of how Moose developers and maintainers work together and what they expect from one
another. Done? Great!
Next, assuming you have a GitHub account, go to <http://github.com/moose/Moose> and fork the repository
(see <https://help.github.com/articles/fork-a-repo>). This will put an exact replica of the Moose
repository into your GitHub account, which will serve as a place to publish your patches for the Moose
maintainers to review and incorporate.
Once your fork has been created, switch to your local working repository directory and update your
"origin" remote's push URL. This allows you to use a single remote ("origin") to both pull in the latest
code from GitHub and also push your work to your own fork:
# Replace YOUR_USERNAME below with your GitHub username
git remote set-url --push origin git@github.com:YOUR_USERNAME/moose.git
You can verify your work:
$ git remote -v
origin git@github.com:moose/Moose.git (fetch)
origin git@github.com:YOUR_USERNAME/moose.git (push)
Now, you're ready for action! From now on, you just follow the "Development Workflow" to publish your
work and submit pull requests to the Moose Cabal.
Development Workflow
The general gist of the STANDARD WORKFLOW is:
1. Update your local repository with the latest commits from the official repository
2. Create a new topic branch, based on the master branch
3. Hack away
4. Commit and push the topic branch to your forked repository
5. Submit a pull request through GitHub for that branch
What follows is a more detailed rundown of that workflow. Please make sure to review and follow the steps
in the previous section, "Getting Started", if you have not done so already.
Update Your Repository
Update your local copy of the master branch from the remote:
git checkout master
git pull --rebase
Create Your Topic Branch
Now, create a new topic branch based on your master branch. It's useful to use concise, descriptive
branch names such as: pod-syntax-contrib, feat-autodelegation, patch-23-role-comp, etc. However, we'll
just call ours "my-feature" for demonstration purposes:
git checkout -b topic/my-feature
Hack. Commit. Repeat.
While you're hacking, the most important thing to remember is that your topic branch is yours to do with
as you like. Nothing you do there will affect anyone else at this point. Commit as often as little or as
often as you need to and don't let perfection get in the way of progress. However, don't try to do too
much as the easiest changes to integrate are small and focused.
If it's been a while since you created your topic branch, it's often a good idea to periodically rebase
your branch off of the upstream master to reduce your work later on:
git fetch # or, git remote update
git rebase origin/master # or, git pull --rebase origin master
You should also feel free to publish (using "push --force" if necessary) your branch to your GitHub fork
if you simply need feedback from others. (Note: actual collaboration takes a bit more finesse and a lot
less "--force" however).
Clean Up Your Branch
Finally, when your development is done, it's time to prepare your branch for review. Even the smallest
branches can often use a little bit of tidying up before they are unleashed on a reviewer.
Clarifying/cleaning up commit messages, reordering commits, splitting large commits or those which
contain different types of changes, squashing related or straggler commits are all highly worthwhile
activities to undertake on your topic branch.
Remember: Your topic branch is yours. Don't worry about rewriting its history or breaking fast-forward.
Some useful commands are listed below but please make sure that you understand what they do as they can
rewrite history:
- git commit --amend
- git rebase --interactive
- git cherry-pick
Ultimately, your goal in cleaning up your branch is to craft a set of commits whose content and messages
are as focused and understandable as possible. Doing so will greatly increase the chances of a speedy
review and acceptance into the mainline development.
Rebase on the Latest
Before your final push and issuing a pull request, you need to ensure that your changes can be easily
merged into the master branch of the upstream repository. This is done by once again rebasing your branch
on the latest "origin/master".
git fetch # or, git remote update
git rebase origin/master # or, git pull --rebase origin master
Publish and Pull Request
Now it's time to make your final push of the branch to your fork. The "--force" flag is only necessary if
you've pushed before and subsequently rewriting your history:
git push --force
After your branch is published, you can issue a pull request to the Moose Cabal. See
<https://help.github.com/articles/using-pull-requests> for details.
Congratulations! You're now a contributor!
Approval Workflow
Moose is an open project but it is also an increasingly important one. Many modules depend on Moose being
stable. Therefore, we have a basic set of criteria for reviewing and merging branches. What follows is a
set of rough guidelines that ensures all new code is properly vetted before it is merged to the master
branch.
It should be noted that if you want your specific branch to be approved, it is your responsibility to
follow this process and advocate for your branch.
Small bug fixes, doc patches and additional passing tests.
These items don't really require approval beyond one of the core contributors just doing a simple
review. For especially simple patches (doc patches especially), committing directly to master is
fine.
Larger bug fixes, doc additions and TODO or failing tests.
Larger bug fixes should be reviewed by at least one cabal member and should be tested using the
xt/author/test-my-dependents.t test.
New documentation is always welcome, but should also be reviewed by a cabal member for accuracy.
TODO tests are basically feature requests, see our "New Features" section for more information on
that. If your feature needs core support, create a "topic/" branch using the "Development Workflow"
and start hacking away.
Failing tests are basically bug reports. You should find a core contributor and/or cabal member to
see if it is a real bug, then submit the bug and your test to the RT queue. Source control is not a
bug reporting tool.
New user-facing features.
Anything that creates a new user-visible feature needs to be approved by more than one cabal member.
Make sure you have reviewed "New Features" to be sure that you are following the guidelines. Do not
be surprised if a new feature is rejected for the core.
New internals features.
New features for Moose internals are less restrictive than user facing features, but still require
approval by at least one cabal member.
Ideally you will have run the xt/author/test-my-dependents.t script to be sure you are not breaking
any MooseX module or causing any other unforeseen havoc. If you do this (rather than make us do it),
it will only help to hasten your branch's approval.
Backwards incompatible changes.
Anything that breaks backwards compatibility must be discussed by the cabal. Backwards incompatible
changes should not be merged to master if there are strong objections from any cabal members.
We have a policy for what we see as sane "BACKWARDS COMPATIBILITY" for Moose. If your changes break
back-compat, you must be ready to discuss and defend your change.
Release Workflow
# major releases (including trial releases)
git checkout master
# minor releases
git checkout stable/X.YY
# do final changelogging, etc
git commit
dzil release # or dzil release --trial for trial releases
Release How-To
Moose uses Dist::Zilla to manage releases. Although the git repository comes with a "Makefile.PL", it is
a very basic one just to allow the basic "perl Makefile.PL && make && make test" cycle to work. In
particular, it doesn't include any release metadata, such as dependencies. In order to get started with
Dist::Zilla, first install it: "cpanm Dist::Zilla", and then install the plugins necessary for reading
the "dist.ini": "dzil authordeps | cpanm".
Moose releases fall into two categories, each with their own level of release preparation. A minor
release is one which does not include any API changes, deprecations, and so on. In that case, it is
sufficient to simply test the release candidate against a few different Perls. Testing should be done
against at least two recent major versions of Perl (5.8.8 and 5.10.1, for example). If you have more
versions available, you are encouraged to test them all. However, we do not put a lot of effort into
supporting older 5.8.x releases.
For major releases which include an API change or deprecation, you should run the
xt/author/test-my-dependents.t test. This tests a long list of MooseX and other Moose-using modules from
CPAN. In order to run this script, you must arrange to have the new version of Moose in Perl's include
path. You can use "prove -b" and "prove -I", install the module, or fiddle with the "PERL5LIB"
environment variable, whatever makes you happy.
This test downloads each module from CPAN, runs its tests, and logs failures and warnings to a set of
files named test-mydeps-$$-*.log. If there are failures or warnings, please work with the authors of the
modules in question to fix them. If the module author simply isn't available or does not want to fix the
bug, it is okay to make a release.
Regardless of whether or not a new module is available, any breakages should be noted in the conflicts
list in the distribution's dist.ini.
Emergency Bug Workflow (for immediate release)
The stable branch exists for easily making bug fix releases.
git remote update
git checkout -b topic/my-emergency-fix origin/master
# hack
git commit
Then a cabal member merges into "master", and backports the change into "stable/X.YY":
git checkout master
git merge topic/my-emergency-fix
git push
git checkout stable/X.YY
git cherry-pick -x master
git push
# release
Project Workflow
For longer lasting branches, we use a subversion style branch layout, where master is routinely merged
into the branch. Rebasing is allowed as long as all the branch contributors are using "git pull --rebase"
properly.
"commit --amend", "rebase --interactive", etc. are not allowed, and should only be done in topic
branches. Committing to master is still done with the same review process as a topic branch, and the
branch must merge as a fast forward.
This is pretty much the way we're doing branches for large-ish things right now.
Obviously there is no technical limitation on the number of branches. You can freely create topic
branches off of project branches, or sub projects inside larger projects freely. Such branches should
incorporate the name of the branch they were made off so that people don't accidentally assume they
should be merged into master:
git checkout -b my-project--topic/foo my-project
(unfortunately Git will not allow "my-project/foo" as a branch name if "my-project" is a valid ref).
BRANCH ARCHIVAL
Merged branches should be deleted.
Failed branches may be kept, but should be moved to "attic/" to differentiate them from in-progress topic
branches.
Branches that have not been worked on for a long time will be moved to "abandoned/" periodically, but
feel free to move the branch back to "topic/" if you want to start working on it again.
TESTS, TESTS, TESTS
If you write any code for Moose, you must add tests for that code. If you do not write tests then we
cannot guarantee your change will not be removed or altered at a later date, as there is nothing to
confirm this is desired behavior.
If your code change/addition is deep within the bowels of Moose and your test exercises this feature in a
non-obvious way, please add some comments either near the code in question or in the test so that others
know.
We also greatly appreciate documentation to go with your changes, and an entry in the Changes file. Make
sure to give yourself credit! Major changes or new user-facing features should also be documented in
Moose::Manual::Delta.
DOCS, DOCS, DOCS
Any user-facing changes must be accompanied by documentation. If you're not comfortable writing docs
yourself, you might be able to convince another Moose dev to help you.
Our goal is to make sure that all features are documented. Undocumented features are not considered part
of the API when it comes to determining whether a change is backwards compatible.
BACKWARDS COMPATIBILITY
Change is inevitable, and Moose is not immune to this. We do our best to maintain backwards
compatibility, but we do not want the code base to become overburdened by this. This is not to say that
we will be frivolous with our changes, quite the opposite, just that we are not afraid of change and will
do our best to keep it as painless as possible for the end user.
Our policy for handling backwards compatibility is documented in more detail in Moose::Manual::Support.
All backwards incompatible changes must be documented in Moose::Manual::Delta. Make sure to document any
useful tips or workarounds for the change in that document.
AUTHORS
• Stevan Little <stevan@cpan.org> • Dave Rolsky <autarch@urth.org> • Jesse Luehrs <doy@cpan.org> • Shawn M Moore <sartak@cpan.org> • יובל קוג'מן (Yuval Kogman) <nothingmuch@woobling.org> • Karen Etheridge <ether@cpan.org> • Florian Ragwitz <rafl@debian.org> • Hans Dieter Pearcey <hdp@cpan.org> • Chris Prather <chris@prather.org> • Matt S Trout <mstrout@cpan.org>
COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE
This software is copyright (c) 2006 by Infinity Interactive, Inc.
This is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as the Perl 5
programming language system itself.