[webkit-dev] ENABLE_FORM_VALIDATION

[David Hyatt]

On Jul 13, 2009, at 1:52 PM, Jeremy Orlow wrote:

> On Mon, Jul 13, 2009 at 11:40 AM, David Hyatt <hyatt at apple.com> wrote:
> On Jul 13, 2009, at 12:52 PM, Peter Kasting wrote:
>
>> On Mon, Jul 13, 2009 at 10:47 AM, David Hyatt <hyatt at apple.com>  
>> wrote:
>> I agree.  We should formalize this as policy too in my opinion.   
>> Maybe something time-based, e.g., if you have an implementation of  
>> a new Web technology that is going to take > (1month?) to  
>> implement, then the feature should be landed inside ENABLE ifdefs  
>> (that can then be removed when the feature is sufficiently far  
>> along).
>>
>> For Chromium this kind of time frame can be problematic, since  
>> there's pretty much no guarantee of when a WebKit trunk build could  
>> be shipped as (eventually) a stable Chromium/Google Chrome  
>> release.  Even having an incomplete feature in the tree a few days  
>> can result in the incomplete feature getting shipped to web authors.
>>
>
> The way to ship "ToT" (in my opinion) is to cut a branch, watch ToT  
> for any regressions from recent work, merge those fixes into the  
> branch, and then turn off anything that is "in-progress" on the  
> branch.  Expecting ToT to actually be shippable all the time is not  
> very practical.  Realistically people will always be causing  
> occasional regressions from bug fixes and feature work.  Branches  
> are the way to stabilize from some known point.
>
> I agree, but I also agree with Peter's heuristic for when things  
> should be behind a flag.  Regressions can always happen, but if  
> you're knowingly introducing something that's half-baked it really  
> seems like it should be behind a flag.

I agree with that.  I'm just asserting that some reasonable time limit  
before requiring ifdefs is ok.  If a feature only takes 1-2 weeks to  
land, I think it's total overkill to put it inside an ifdef.  Any cut  
branch should take long enough to stabilize that it could merge the  
rest of the feature in anyway.  If you're ever cutting a branch off  
ToT and shipping it as a full-blown release with less than 2 weeks  
turnaround, you're doing it wrong in my opinion.

dave
(hyatt at apple.com)

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