Release Meeting: 15 May 2017

(08:59:45 AM) gac410: Hi everyone ... Ready to get started?
(09:00:00 AM) gac410: I've got a hard stop today in 1 hour.
(09:00:07 AM) MichaelDaum: hi there
(09:00:20 AM) gac410: 1) Release blockers
(09:00:50 AM) gac410: There are currently no PatchReleaseBlockers we are in pretty good shape for a 2.1.4
(09:02:00 AM) gac410: Hi Michael
(09:04:21 AM) gac410: Any other Tasks discussion? I decided to check in the fix for Item14396 - Force any redirect "Location" headers to be absolute, not relative.
(09:05:42 AM) gac410: The RFC is pretty clear that a relative Location: /Web/Topic returned by CGI script is subject to redirect locally on the server Just like a relative rewrite rule - it's does not have to be returned to the client.
(09:06:37 AM) gac410: Only some versions of lighttpd seem to actually do that, but when they do, the client cannot get the new cookie after we "rotate" the session id after login.
(09:08:21 AM) MichaelDaum: I have nothing that could hold back a 2.1.4ie
(09:09:32 AM) gac410: Okay. I'll check in one more minor fix - Editing the first row in an edit table opens up the editor on the whole table. will build 2.1.4 RC2 later this week.
(09:10:09 AM) gac410: For feature proposals. I started working on https://foswiki.org/Development/EnableFriendlyAttributeParser ... and ran into some challenges.
(09:11:00 AM) gac410: The big issue is that our docs are really clear. Macros need their arguments quoted. I could not find any examples in the docs that do not use quotes. ie SCRIPTURL{view} is not legal ... but
(09:11:12 AM) gac410: It works, and is used extensively in our default topics.
(09:12:06 AM) gac410: the "friendly" context-free parser does require that default parameters are quoted.
(09:12:25 AM) MichaelDaum: I am probably not the best advocate for this proposal
(09:13:36 AM) MichaelDaum: got mixed feelings about it in general. but wont veto against it either.
(09:14:44 AM) MichaelDaum: e.g. param4='value 5" is pretty odd
(09:14:48 AM) gac410: I was not a strong proponent, but it is confusing that our macros are currenty inconsistent. Some let you use single quotes ... most do not. It turns out that %IF is set to use the Friendly parser. Thats the only core macro that does.
(09:15:31 AM) gac410: Oh... no it doesn't allow that. But you can use ='value4' or ="value4" not mixed on a single param.
(09:15:47 AM) MichaelDaum: ah ok
(09:15:48 AM) MichaelDaum: well
(09:16:25 AM) gac410: IF is the only macro where you can single-quote arguments. I've seen others expresss surprise that that works.
(09:17:00 AM) gac410: And it's really handy if the else= clause contains double quotes. But that is not documented.
(09:18:10 AM) gac410: So today. IF{"some condition" then='foo' else="var"}% is legal. But try that in any other macro and it won't work. And that is really confusing.
(09:18:24 AM) MichaelDaum: from what I get this is more of a task to bring more consistency to the attr parser?
(09:19:06 AM) gac410: Yes. The "friendly" context-free parser was actually written back on Twiki, by cdot It was never made the default because of BDFL objections
(09:19:45 AM) gac410: ActionTracker, and %IF use the new parser. Other extensions can request it by adding 'context-free' as the 3rd param to register_tag
(09:20:01 AM) MichaelDaum: what is so context-free about it?
(09:21:06 AM) ***MichaelDaum prefers mixed-martial-quotes ;)
(09:21:07 AM) gac410: Not sure why that name is used. But it allows spaces around equal signs, comma or space separator between arguments. unquoted boolean arguments.
(09:21:51 AM) MichaelDaum: so the _technique_ might probably be a context-free grammar. but. frankly. who cares.
(09:22:01 AM) gac410: So you could do %SEARCH{"foo" noheader nofooter]% without using the ='1' or ='on'
(09:22:14 AM) vrurg: Hi everyone
(09:22:18 AM) gac410: Hi vrurg
(09:23:13 AM) gac410: Basically my feature flips the defaults, so you would register a tag with TAG, \&routine, 'classic' to get the old parser.
(09:23:47 AM) MichaelDaum: does the new one seems supersede the classic one?
(09:23:51 AM) gac410: But this common use of unquoted parameters throws a real wrench in the works.
(09:24:14 AM) MichaelDaum: oic
(09:24:36 AM) MichaelDaum: %SEARCH{noheader}% is either a %SEARCH{"" noheader="on"}% or a %SEARCH{"noheader"}%
(09:25:37 AM) gac410: Right In classic parser it's a search for "noheader" in friendly parser its a search for nothing, with the noheader option.
(09:27:13 AM) MichaelDaum: %SCRIPTHURL{view}% is rather common. switching ot to "context-free" will probably mess it up
(09:27:21 AM) gac410: Our docs are pretty clear. Always quote the arguments. Its only that we don't follow our own docs. Indeed that's true.
(09:28:08 AM) gac410: If you look at VarSCRIPTURL the examples are always quoted. I can't find anywhere in the docs that is inconsistent. ... other than what we do in our usage.
(09:28:20 AM) MichaelDaum: yea. I always tell people to quote and escape quotes as necessary. keeping it to a simple drill.
(09:28:43 AM) gac410: yup. Then when they look at our templates / implementation wtf ...
(09:29:19 AM) MichaelDaum: hard to grasp the impact of such a change.
(09:30:10 AM) MichaelDaum: and thats probably the reason we've been so reluctant about it
(09:30:10 AM) gac410: I've implemented this with a switch to fall back to the old default. So we could probably make our distributed topics "clean" and make it the default without too much trouble. other than finding all the bad macros.
(09:30:37 AM) gac410: And sites upgrading may just have to keep the classic parser the default.
(09:31:57 AM) gac410: Anyway, It certainly is not an earth-shattering development. :D and we could easily just leave it all as is. I just figured it would be nice to have an old hidden feature visible.
(09:32:20 AM) gac410: And it would fix up an inconsistency. Why does IF allow single quotes, but nothing else does.
(09:36:13 AM) gac410: What I've done so far is in the Item14398 branch. But it's pretty broken still, until I get all the *URL macros quoted.
(09:37:21 AM) MichaelDaum: yea I agree. good work hidden in the woods.
(09:38:56 AM) gac410: I don't really have anything else to discuss. I've not done anything else on my other features for 2.2.
(09:42:19 AM) MichaelDaum: then let's call it a day
(09:44:20 AM) vrurg: I think with only three of as available it's pointless to raise 3.0 related matters?
(09:44:45 AM) gac410: Great. Thanks Michael. Next meeting the 29th
(09:45:01 AM) gac410: Vrurg, yeah. we really need to drum up more participation;.
(09:45:37 AM) vrurg: Ok. :)
(09:45:41 AM) gac410: cdot will be away for a few weeks ... he asked for a proxy at our special general assembly.
(09:46:23 AM) gac410: Lets see if we can get more at the 29th. Make 3.0 the focus of that meeting. maybe that will bring in some more interest.
(09:46:45 AM) MichaelDaum: did he say where he went?
(09:47:19 AM) gac410: just some business, and some time diving as well.
(09:47:47 AM) gac410: But he'll be off the grid.
(09:48:29 AM) gac410: Anyway. ... I'm going to run off. Thanks everyone.
(09:48:56 AM) vrurg: thanks
(09:55:12 AM) MichaelDaum: thanks George
(01:00:15 PM) MichaelDaum left the room (quit: Quit: quit).
(07:17:22 PM) vrurg left the room (quit: Quit: vrurg).
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