Meeting notes for 1st January 2022

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+[[!meta title="Iteration planning: January 1st"]]
+[[!tag meeting]]
+[[!meta date="Sat, 01 Jan 2022 14:15:00 +0000"]]
+
+[[!toc levels=2]]
+
+# Review of actions from previous meeting
+
+Actions from last time, and their status are:
+
+- Lars will open an issue to use pandoc-filter-diagram.
+  **DONE** [[!issue 260]]
+- Lars will approach WMF about how `scap` uses Subplot.
+  Lars spoke to Brennan and they are still using it.
+  They've not changed how they use it, so Lars knows it all
+  still.
+
+* We submitted a talk proposal to the Safety in Open Source
+  devroom.
+
+# Review of the iteration that has ended
+
+[[!milestone 41]] was long, and we did not complete anything. That's
+OK.
+
+We made some progress on:
+
+- [[!issue 259]] _Top level subplots should be run in Rust too_
+
+We moved some of the open issues to the next milestone ([[!milestone 42]])
+and then closed off this iteration having unmilestoned everything else.
+
+# Review of the repositories
+
+Currently open MRs:
+
+- `subplot`: one draft, solving [[!issue 259]]
+- `subplot-web`: none
+- `subplot-container-images`: none
+
+Extra branches unrelated to MRs:
+
+- `subplot`:
+  - `subplot-rust` -- Daniel is keeping this around until he has
+    completed the work on [[!issue 141]].
+  - `docgen-cmark` -- Lars is working on making docgen use cmark
+    rather than pandoc for the initial parse and processing.
+  - `more-rust-subplots` -- Daniel is working here to solve [[!issue 259]]
+- `subplot-web`: none
+- `subplot-container-images`: none
+
+Pipelines:
+
+- `subplot`: clean
+- `subplot-web`: none
+- `subplot-container-images`: clean, and we triggered the one to build
+  a new container image
+
+# Current goal (goal 2; not changed for this iteration)
+
+Subplot provides a set of libraries with identical capabilities in
+each of the supported languages. Python remains a supported language.
+Rust is promoted to supported-language status. Subplot will be tested
+with all supported languages. In addition, any quality of life
+improvements which can be done shall be done. This goal will be
+considered complete when a release of Subplot has been made with the
+unified language handling support complete.
+
+# Issue review
+
+We had 56 open issues at the start of the meeting.
+
+We reviewed non-`someday-maybe` issues for `subplot` that have been
+changed since thee previous meeting.
+
+We made the following changes:
+
+- [[!issue 261]] _Cleanup functions should run regardless…_ we discussed,
+  agreed, retitiled, and labelled this - we want it doing, but we're not
+  in a rush to get it done.
+- [[!issue 262]] _Should subplotlib ScenarioContext derive Debug?_ we discussed,
+  agreed, retitled, and labelled this for further discussion.
+- [[!issue 263]] _What is a good way to include Rust…_ we discussed,
+  labelled, and put this aside for now. We should return to this one once
+  we've finished our talk.
+- [[!issue 264]] _The Subplot subplot should verify we support all the Markdown features we want to support_
+  We discussed this, and labelled it `someday-maybe` and `docgen`
+
+We left the docker-for-subplot issue alone, and subplot-web had no issues.
+
+# Plan for next iteration
+
+We opened [[!milestone 42]] to cover this iteration, with the
+following issues:
+
+- [[!issue 133]] _No feature table comparing scenario runners from different codegen templates_
+- [[!issue 251]] _We depend on a vulnerable version of chrono_
+- [[!issue 252]] _We transitively depend on a vulnerable version of time_
+- [[!issue 259]] _Top level subplots should be run in Rust too_
+
+Wew assigned the dependency issues to Lars.
+
+# Other business
+
+Lars provided his gripes from his attempt to use Subplot's Rust template
+when writing a test suite for his Obnam benchmarking tool:
+
+> - Gripes I have about Subplot with Rust template.
+>
+>   - overall, Rust step functions are too much magic
+>     - great when everything works, not when something doesn't
+>   - it's too damn hard to debug a failure when a step function fails
+>     - which step failed?
+>     - runcmd eats stdout and stderr
+>     - not just about logging
+>   - the way we use macros to implement step functions is harmful
+>
+>     - at runtime ("cargo test"), line numbers are useless: last line
+>       of step function
+>     - they confuse compiler: Result values can be ignored, which can
+>       lead to bugs
+>
+>   - codegen as a separate step meshes badly with Rust tooling
+>   - build.rs is unergonomic - systemic with Rust, not specific to
+>     Subplot
+>
+>     - when there's a problem, it's unnecessarily hard to find the
+>       source file
+>
+>   - having source files for step functions not be part of the crate
+>     means tooling like "cargo fmt" doesn't find it
+
+- We decided to defer making a release of whatever is in the `main` branch
+  until we have done our talk. When we do, we'll
+  label it 0.3.2 or 0.4.0, depending on whether it has breaking
+  changes or not. [[!issue 254]]
+
+- We are not yet ready to file an RFP bug to get Subplot packaged for
+  Debian. It will happen after we think we won't be making breaking
+  changes anymore. We probably want to do a review of the dependencies
+  as well, to make packaging easier.
+
+- We are not yet ready to make a whole code base review of Subplot.
+  However we feel at least part of the new goal 3 will be reviewing a
+  portion of the code.
+
+- We will switch an issue based agenda when other people join the
+  meeting.
+
+- We won't be reaching out for feedback until goal 3 is done.
+
+- Regarding talk preparation:
+
+  1. We have submitted to the Safety in Open Source devroom
+  2. We need to prepare an outline etc.
+  3. Daniel will write an outline, provide it to Lars to review,
+     and then we can write the content during the iteration.
+
+- Regarding the `media` repository question - we believe this is
+  premature at this point - once we are ready to write the talk
+  mentioned above, it will be time for the repository.
+
+- Lars spotted <https://mastodon.social/@humanetech/107477632485291404> during
+  the holiday period and raised the question "Should we stop using the term
+  'stakeholder' in Subplot?" - we discussed this briefly and concluded that
+  if there was a better term, we would happily switch, but in the absence of
+  such, we do not feel that 'stakeholder' is inherently bad and so will not
+  choose to switch to a less useful term by default.
+
+# Actions
+
+- Daniel will review Lars' gripes and look to file appropriate issues
+  to cover correcting the problems
+
+- Between Daniel and Lars - the talk will be drafted.