Re: current build failure automated messages

[Andreas Gustafsson <gson%gson.org@localhost>]

Robert Elz wrote:
> From time to time there are messages to current-users about
> build failures (the messages are generally useful even if sometimes
> the content - just what failed - can be most obscure ... but that's
> not the point of this message.)
> 
> I was wondering if it would be possible to also send "build now succeeding
> again" messages ?
>
> There are times when a build failure looks to be something I could
> investigate and perhaps fix - sometimes just looking at the commits
> around the time of the build failure report are enough to see that
> it already has been fixed, and so there is nothing to investigate,
> but other times it is not nearly so obvious.
> 
> A message indicating that the failing build is not failing any more
> seems like it would be useful to me (well, I know it would be useful
> to me, I suspect it might be useful to others as well.)
> 
> It could just contain that message, or better, as clearly from the
> failure reports, the info is available somewhere, a list of commits
> from the version that (first, since the previous success) failed, to
> the first version that succeeded building again.

It would not be hard to implement, but I'm not sure it would be useful
enough to justify doubling the number of messages to the list.

What I do when I want to know if a reported build failure has been
fixed is to visit the web page whose URL is given at the very end of
the email.  If the page says "Build: OK" at the end, the issue has
been fixed.  At least for me, this is less work overall than it would
be to handle twice the number of emails.

Most build failures are fixed quickly anyway.  If we're going to start
sending more emails, I think adding notifications saying "build is still
failing after 24 hours" would be more useful than "build now
succeeding again".
-- 
Andreas Gustafsson, gson%gson.org@localhost