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Robert Sparks edited this page Mar 14, 2022 · 29 revisions

Instructions for IETF Contractors (Software Development)

Reporting

  • Weekly reports are required. Please send an email update weekly even if nothing happened.

Repositories

Repository Commits and PRs

  • See https://github.com/ietf-tools/.github/blob/main/CONTRIBUTING.md

  • Work is expected to be in a fork of a project that the designated project manager has access to. Unless otherwise specified, these forks must be public.

  • Progress will be monitored through activity in the fork. Commits should be frequent and regular. Commits must not introduce artifacts specific to local toolchains.

  • The full test suite must pass on any PR, with no exceptions. The full test suite SHOULD pass with thencompletion of each functional change or bugfix committed while working towards that PR. If you find yourself making a series of several interim commits where there are failing tests, please stop and focus on bringing things back to a passing state.

  • For projects with multiple contributors (particularly the datatracker) When there's a new release, please bring your fork up to date, and move your development branch(es) up to be based on at least the release.

Issue Tracking

  • Unless otherwise specified, issue tracking will occur in the GitHub repository for each project.

Required Files

New Projects will include the following:

  • A top-level README.md calling out (using links to separate files as appropriate) ** How to Contribute ** Documentation for installation ** Documentation for building a development environment

  • LICENCE: The license prescribed by the IETF Trustees in the latest Trust Legal Provisions document at http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info. The current license as of 23 Nov. 2011 is reproduced below under [#CurrentLicense Current Licence] for ease of reference, but the license to be used is at all times that prescribed by the IETF Trust, with the removal of the words 'and the persons identified as authors of the code' when the code has been produced as Work for Hire.

Coding Practices

(It is anticipated that this section will be replaced by an ietf-tools wide Contributing document. In the meantime, please review https://github.com/ietf-tools/.github/blob/main/CONTRIBUTING.md adapting it to all projects, and talk with the project manager if you think those instructions and these conflict in any way.)

Even for new projects, assume multiple contractors and a bunch of individuals will be working concurrently on the code. To make things go smoothly, there are some practices which are common in team coding efforts that must be followed:

  • >>> import this (Run this in your python interpreter!)

  • Follow the coding style in the piece of code you are working on. Don't re-format code you're not working on to fit your preferred style. As a whole, the piece of code you're working on will be more readable if the style is consistent, even if it's not your style.

  • For Python code, PEP 8 is the style guide. Please adhere to it, except when in conflict with the bullet above.

  • Don't change whitespace in files you are working on, (except for in the code you're actually adding/changing, of course); and don't let your editor do end-of-line space stripping on saving. Gratuitous whitespace changes may give commit logs and diffs an appearance of there being a lot of changes, and your actual code change can be buried in all the whitespace-change noise.

  • Now and then, code clean-up projects are run. During those, it can be the right thing to do whitespace clean-up, coding style alignment, moving code around in order to have it live in a more appropriate place, etc. The point in those cases is that when you do that kind of work, it is labelled as such, and actual code changes are not to be inserted in style and whitespace-change commits. If you are not in a clean-up project, don't move code around if you're not actually doing work on it.

  • If you are modifying existing code, consider whether you're bending it out of shape in order to support your needs. If you're bending it too much out of shape, consider refactoring. Always try to leave code you change in a better shape than you found it.

Testing

  • Reasonably comprehensive test suites should be written and committed to the project repository.

  • Projects written for Django should use Django's test facility, in files tests.py in each application directory.

  • Other projects, written in Python, should use Python's doctests or unittest framework.

  • Other projects should use the best practice for the respective code environment for testing.

  • Testing should be configured to include coverage, and PRs should not make the test coverage drop below the latest release. Please run the full test suite regularly, to keep an eye on your coverage numbers.

  • Please work towards a test suite with nearly-complete code coverage for new code and and other artifacts like django templates.

  • When a reported functional bug is being addressed, a test must be written or updated to fail while the bug is present and succeed when it has been fixed, and made part of the bugfix. This is not applicable for minor functional bugs, typos or template changes.

Dependencies

Python

If the code produced as part of the project has dependencies on Python library modules outside of the standard Python library, those modules should be known to the "pip" (Package Installer for Python) tool, and should be captured in the standard requirements file format for pip, in a file named "requirements.txt". This file should be made part of the deliverable, in the revision control repository. It should be placed at top level in the delivered repository branch.

PHP (No new php code will be accepted)

If the code has dependencies on PHP modules, these modules should be described in a Composer-compatible "composer.json" file. The appropriate composer command should be included in the installation instructions, and the composer.json file should be made part of the deliverable, in the revision control repository. It should be placed at top level in the delivered repository branch.

Perl

If the code has dependencies on Perl modules, those modules must either be available in the CPAN repository, or provided in source form by the designer as a part of the package delivery. The packages should be listed as dependencies in the product Makefile, and must compile and/or install as a "make deps" step.

C / C++

If the code has dependencies on C or C++ functions, those functions must either (a) be a part of the GLIBC C Standard Library, or (b) be a a part of the Boost library collection, or (c) provided in full source form as a part of the deliverable. Functions provided should be described in the product Makefile, and should build as a part of the "make" for the compilation step.

OS libs

If the code has dependencies on OS level packages, the project manager must be consulted to make sure such dependencies are acceptable.

Packaging

If the project deliverable is intended for a single or small number of server installations, such as is the case for a web project or database front-ends, it should be possible to install a version the project by simply checking it out from the code repository and running packaged setup scripts (provided of course that the appropriate web-server configuration has been set up). See the [#ServerDeploymentExample Server Deployment Example] below.

If the project deliverable is a Python tool that is to be distributed to and installed by end users, it should be packaged as a python package according to the "Python Packaging User Guide", and uploaded to the "Python Package Index" (PyPI). The web-page "Distributing Python Modules" provides an introduction to the packaging guide and the package index.

Deployment

Python

For Python-based stand-alone user-installed tools, deployment should normally be possible by simply using the "pip" tool to install the package. Assuming the package name is foobaz, the command to download the packaged code from PyPI and install it would be

  $ pip install foobaz

For server-installed projects, installation in a virtual python environment, a "virtualenv", is strongly preferred. This isolates the specific versions of the project's dependencies from other projects, and makes it easy to install up-to-date requirements from the specification in the "requirements.txt" file.

Non-Python

For all other server-installed projects, use of a Makefile is strongly preferred. Additional steps, such as CPAN module installations, and/or Composer integrations, can be specified. Use of a server-based "configure" tool is optional. The Makefile should be written to current standards, describing dependencies, build procedures for all dependencies and main targets, configuration file deployment, documentation processing, and final target installation. The software should be installable using "make; sudo make install" or a similar, common procedure. The Makefile should be upgrade-aware, and should not disturb existing modified configuration files, but should deploy new example configuration files alongside the live files when an upgrade install is performed.

Server Deployment Examples

Python/Django

As an example of how a project could follow the guidelines above, here is a brief list of the actual actions done to deploy a new version of the IETF datatracker (A Django project, using the Django manage.py management command):

  • Check out the release from repository in a version-named directory
  • Run virtualenv env" in the top directory
  • Activate the environment
  • Run pip install --upgrade -r requirements.txt
  • Run (if needed) .../manage.py collectstatic
  • Run .../manage.py migrate
  • Run .../manage.py check
  • Symlink the version-named directory to the name served by apache
  • Reload Apache

(The datatracker INSTALL file gives more detailed information.)

Non-Python

As an example of how a C- or PHP-based project could follow the guidelines above, here is a brief list of the typical actions taken to deploy a typical C-based program.

  • Check out the release from repository in a version-named directory
  • Run ./configure
  • Run make
  • Run sudo make install
  • Reload Apache

Current License

This is the Simplified BSD Licence:

Copyright (c) <insert year> IETF Trust. All rights reserved.

Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:

 * Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this
 list of conditions and the following disclaimer.

 * Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice,
 this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation
 and/or other materials provided with the distribution.

 * Neither the name of Internet Society, IETF or IETF Trust, nor the names of
 specific contributors, may be used to endorse or promote products derived
 from this software without specific prior written permission.

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS “AS IS”
AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE
IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE
DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT OWNER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE
FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL
DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR
SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER
CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY,
OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE
OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.
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