Re: Better managing PHP 8.1 updates

On 18.05.2021 at 22:40, Larry Garfield wrote:

> Hello, docuzitiens.  A proposal.
>
> We generally wait to document anything in a new PHP version until sometime in the betas, often RCs, to avoid confusing people with future functionality.  OK, fine, but that does create a problem of tracking changes so we don't forget anything.
>
> For 8.0, there was a manually maintained big punch list: https://github.com/php/php-tasks/issues/26 .  That required manual updates by Girgias, and assumed we remembered everything.
>
> I think we can do better for PHP 8.1.
>
> Proposal: Instead, let's go ahead and create issue tickets on the docs repo now for any future-8.1 documentation tasks.  Every RFC would need one, plus other stuff that bypasses RFCs.  That's a low-enough barrier that we can also ask/beg/plead people working on core directly to file such tickets too, although we'll likely need to flesh them out a bit.  Anyone with access to manage issues can then tag them for "8.1" (or some name like that).  When filing PRs in the future, then, the PR can include "Resolves #whatever" to auto-close that issue when it gets merged, which will happen directly on GitHub now so the built-in automation all works.
>
> Advantages:
>
> * A GH issue lets us put in more todo-information than just a bulleted list.
> * The punch list is just a list of all issues with the 8.1 tag, and is then self-updating.  No need to harass Girgias.
> * We can start building a task list now, in advance, when stuff is fresh in the appropriate person's memory.
> * We can assign issues to people (including ourselves) to indicate intent to work on it.
> * Easier for drive-by contributors to see what needs doing. Odds are they won't know to go look at the php-tasks repository.
>
> Thoughts?

The problem I see with this approach is that we would have to open
issues for php/doc-en, and I presume that we will get quite some issue
reports regarding doc bugs.

Maybe it would be better to label PRs for php/php-src which need
documentation with "documentation needed" (or so)?

Christoph