[arch-releng] Iso tests

[Dieter Plaetinck]

On Sun, 15 May 2011 11:04:32 -0500
Dan McGee <dpmcgee at gmail.com> wrote:

> Why on earth does the one person doing admin on this app even need a
> link for this? The admin is always at /admin/. We don't do this
> anywhere else, so I see no need to do it here...

IMHO it's good practice to make these things explicit.  I always expect a web application to provide links for its subpages and sections, it's mostly intuitive reasoning but I'll try to explain some arguments.

Say I do not do any Arch stuff for a year, and I forget the admin is on /admin (or forget where any page is, for that matter), and then when I get back in business, I can just look at the menu / links section to see which pages exist and what I can do. [*].  I probably won't really forget after only a year, but I like the "luxury" of not _needing_ to remember (and hence needlessly occupy space in my memory) these things.

Also, say we add $new_dev to the releng group.
If the link is on the page for $new_dev to see, he can clearly explore what he can do and will need little clarifications.
If it's not, we will definitely forget to mention it, and a month later $new_dev will ask "hey, how do you change this or that? I have been looking around but can't find it", then we need to reply with a link to the admin section and a mention "do not forget this".
then imagine what happens if 2 more people join the releng team.

or imagine what happens if somebody - without much django knowledge - clones the project and wants to run his own archweb instance, is he supposed to "just know"?  I really don't get what's wrong with a simple link to the admin section.


[*] Similarly, I know you have a stats page somewhere with network traffic and
such, but i always forget the url, and I don't think there is a link to it (or at least not one clearly visible).  I think individual developers should not
be expected to remember the url or bookmark the page, rather a link should be
made from http://www.archlinux.org/devel/

Dieter