Code Health Group/20171018

Attendees: JR, Erika, Kevin, Erik, Greg

Topics:

 * Activity update:
 * Code Health Blog post - https://blog.wikimedia.org/2017/10/11/mediawiki-code-health-group/
 * Tech Debt Program
 * Tech Debt SIG kick off sessions
 * Identification of component/code ownership gaps
 * Related existing (but not fully current) page: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Developers/Maintainers
 * That list is very out of date in some places
 * Defining code stewardship level
 * Education/Alignment
 * Post 1 of Tech Debt Series of blog posts to go out in the next week or so
 * Draft should be ready for review this week
 * Hoping to publish a new blog post every couple weeks

ACTION: JR will send email mentioning that IRC kickoff probably won't be re-scheduled

Q: Is JR aware of Technology teams setting up Q2 goals specifically around reducing tech debt?

Q: Is JR aware that Technology teams categorize their goals into 1 of 4 quadrants, one of which is Tech Debt

Note: There is overlap between ownership and the Sunsetting Working Group

Greg is in both groups. Yes, syncing between the 2 groups will be important. At a minimum, avoid duplication of effort.

Erika: When we identify something as orphaned or with unclear ownership, it might be important but not obvious that is is. Example: Logstash, which Search Platform is currently evaluating whether they should take ownership. Taking ownership of a platform/product/service that is used by multiple teams may be daunting. There seems to be a missing process.

JR: I agree. Current focus is code, but other aspects (e.g. operational) may show up over time.

JR: I'm very interested in how the decisions are made to take on one type of tech debt vs. another.

Erika: In the logstash case, it was proposed for sunsetting, but it is very important to the team.

JR and Erika plan to meet within the next couple days. Are others interested in participating? Might relate to Jon's email to RelEng.
 * Code Health Attributes
 * Erika and I planned to meet earlier this week, but I needed to reschedule

Jon: I don't think we really understand how much of our code is poorly maintained. Our team is interested in sunsetting where possible. One product is very old, with code that could use a rewrite, and would be a great sunsetting candidate, but there are a small number of vocal users, so we need to have that conversation.

An example: Someone reached out to JR with experience at a previous org about rolling out TDD. We would need people with passion to evangelize it.
 * New Code Health opportunities?

Not sure if there will be anything at Dev Summit around Code Health, but if there is, that would be a good educational opportunity

If All Hands has an unconference, we could have a session there.

There is a weekly Code Review Office Hours, but it is very lightly attended (Thursdays at noon pacific).

Topics in the blog post would make interesting sessions. It's hard to think about these things in the moment of coding. But it would be good do step back and think about what we could do to support each of these huge categories. External-facing, not just aimed at this group.

This group only meets monthly.

Erika volunteers to go out and interview people.

Q: Should these be called "Code Health" (more general) or "Tech Debt" (to align with a program)?
 * Code Health vs Tech Debt Office Hours

Erika: Probably Code Health, and then communicate that Tech Debt falls within that

Kevin: +.5 for Code Health. Maybe next year we won't have a Tech Debt program.