[cosmo-dev] steps to push new cosmo release out

[Travis Vachon]

>
>
> We no longer have qa resources, so what steps should we take to  
> verify the code is ready for release?  At a minimum we verify fixed  
> bugs and get all automated tests passing.

Long term I'm a little concerned about a separate manual bug  
verification step, though I'd be interested in finding out what steps  
similar organizations without dedicated QA teams do. I'm a little  
naive about our possible options here, so I'd love to hear from other  
folks on the feasibility of reducing bug verification.

Personally I'd favor an even greater degree of automated testing,  
available on demand, combined with even greater developer  
responsibility for unit and integration tests that can be integrated  
into the automated test cycles.

I know we don't have a ton of resources now, but I wonder if the time  
we would devote to manual bug verification now would be better devoted  
to planning and implementing a qa/release process that can be  
trivially integrated into the development cycle.

Informal conversations with Jared in the office yielded some ideas  
about what this might look like, and I've expanded on them a little  
more here:

http://occident.us/2008/01/17/osaf-20/   (scroll to the 4th paragraph  
or so)


-Travis