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97 lines
4.9 KiB
Plaintext
97 lines
4.9 KiB
Plaintext
Design and Architecture
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Bugzilla 3 is being designed from the ground up using a Perl based
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technology that has been developed explicitly for the purpose of
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developing UI agnostic applications. This technology is called PLIF
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and will soon be available as an open source resource from
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mozilla.org. PLIF has been developed over the course of the last
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couple of months by 1 (talented?) developer. PLIF provides the
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structure necessary to facilitate the development of web, IRC, command
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line and other applications by combining not only a large collection
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of useful code, but a model in which to develop these applications. In
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addition to using PLIF, we will also be using COSES as the template
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language for providing an environment where the HTML/XUL/text/whatever
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is completely abstracted from the business logic of the
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application. We are aware that people often claim that their
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applications provide this, so we have worked hard to insure that this
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is a reality.
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We choose Perl for a few reasons. The first is that the current
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Bugzilla 2.x developers are primarily interested in Perl for
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developing web applications. Perl has many advantages over other
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technologies. It's fast, stable, portable and easy to write. There
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are other languages such as Python and Java that are also popular and
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we hope that people will choose to use Bugzilla-3-compatible ideas as
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the basis for developing their own front end applications. Just
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because we have chosen Perl does not mean that we are adverse to
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seeing Bugzilla 3 implemented in multiple different environments, it
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is just we needed to make a decision and our first decision and
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priority is Perl. :-)
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We are not interested at this point in getting into language wars. We
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chose Perl because it is a widely used technology that has been proven
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to work in large scale systems. As stated above, we feel that
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designing a solid foundation will allow anyone to port the UI front
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end of Bugzilla to any other language. In fact, we are encouraging
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this.
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One goal of Bugzilla 3 is to be able to translate from a Bugzilla 2.x
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schema to a Bugzilla 3 schema. Given this requirement, the
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functionality within the 2.x schema will remain available in Bugzilla
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3's schema. For instance, the Milestone field in Bugzilla will become
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a generic field called "Milestone" in Bugzilla 3. The only primary
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differences between the two will be additional features that are
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required by Bugzilla 3 and a more thought out and normalized database
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and code design.
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Features
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Bugzilla 3's initial goal is to have equal feature functionality to
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Bugzilla 2.x, because Bugzilla 2.x is the most used issue tracking
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system for OSS projects. While Bugzilla 2.x is a great step forward
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from other systems (like GNATS), it is still missing out on a good UI
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design, code design and database schema design. So, what we have done
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is start with the concepts in Bugzilla 2.x's database schema and
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identified areas where it can be improved through better design and
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additional database normalization. Since we are using a web
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application framework (PLIF) and back end technology (Perl), we will
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also kill the code and design problems inherent in Bugzilla with one
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stone.
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A major problem with Bugzilla 2.x is that it is implemented in such a
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fashion that security is not taken into consideration and this has
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resulted in being a catalyst for high profiles sites being hacked into
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(including apache.org). The fact of the matter is that Bugzilla was
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never meant to be used outside of Netscape and the code shows. When
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Mozilla.org was created, there was a great hurry to provide some sort
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of issue tracking system for people to use. Bugzilla was available
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internally at Netscape and there were people at Netscape that knew how
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to install and use it. To Mozilla.org's credit (and the contributors
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to the project), Bugzilla has grown quite a bit, the TCL/TK
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dependencies were removed, the code has been cleaned up quite a bit,
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bugs have been fixed and features added. The problem is that this has
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been done on top of a poorly designed base which is not only hard to
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setup and configure (the first thing you have to do is change the path
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to the Perl executable in each and every file!), but also hard to
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customize the look and feel of because much of the look and feel is
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hard coded in Perl code. It is time to start over with something new
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that is designed from the ground up to scale to other people's needs.
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Processes
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There are some well defined process's within Bugzilla 2.x that we do
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appreciate. For example, the Anatomy of a Bugs Life is a terrific
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example of how the whole process of dealing with an issue should
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work. However, some people do not wish to use this model, and so
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duplicating these rules within Bugzilla 3 is not a priority. Instead,
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we instead to make everything customisable and generic. The point we
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are trying to convey is that we are encouraging the idea of taking the
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good pieces and dropping the bad.
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With apologies to the Scarab people [1].
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[1] http://scarab.tigris.org/scarab-design.html
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