# Build Servers, Process Automation, and Reducing Cognitive Load
-Over the past month, Jacob, and a new project member Cole, set up a new build
-server for the project. The build server is an old computer that Jacob wasn't
-using anymore, that he decided to make available to the project for running
-continuous integration (CI) testing for the many modules and submodules of
-the project. The build server is a gitlab test runner instance using a Docker
-backend. As Luke has taken pains to make clear many times, very large and
-complex python projects are guaranteed to fail without proper, extensive test
-coverage. This new build server will allow us to automate the running,
-monitoring, and reporting of these tests, giving us the ability to push a
-commit and have it automatically "verified" as cohesive with the existing
-codebase. Automating feedback, will help provide more confidence
-to the engineers that their code isn't breaking some other functionality in
-a codebase they are working on, and should also help improve the ease of
-long-term maintainability of the code. The more we can automate the menial
-tasks that have to be repeated frequently, and are important for success of
-the project but are not related to progressing the engineering of the Libre-SOC,
+(*written kindly by Cole*)
+
+Over the past month, Jacob, and a new project member Cole, set up a new
+build server for the project. The build server is an old computer that
+Jacob wasn't using anymore, that he decided to make available to the
+project for running continuous integration (CI) testing for the many
+modules and submodules of the project. The build server is a gitlab test
+runner instance using a Docker backend. As Luke has taken pains to make
+clear many times, very large and complex python projects are guaranteed
+to fail without proper, extensive test coverage. This new build server
+will allow us to automate the running, monitoring, and reporting of these
+tests, giving us the ability to push a commit and have it automatically
+"verified" as cohesive with the existing codebase. Automating feedback,
+will help provide more confidence to the engineers that their code isn't
+breaking some other functionality in a codebase they are working on,
+and should also help improve the ease of long-term maintainability
+of the code. The more we can automate the menial tasks that have to
+be repeated frequently, and are important for success of the project
+but are not related to progressing the engineering of the Libre-SOC,
the more productive project members can be.
-While we are in the early stages of the CI testing integration into our project
-workflows, eventually Jacob should be able to simply push a commit on his Kazan
-SPIR-V to LLVM-IR compiler, and continue working, automatically recieving
-feedback on how well his new code integrates with his existing code. As a
-result he can be more confident in his code-quality and also work a bit faster
-because he no longer needs to take time out of his workflow to run the tests.
-More significant than this however, is that the automation of continuous
-integration testing significantly diminishes the probability that the project
-will get out of sync, or become cluttered with erroneous test failures,
-obscuring the clarity with which a project developer can view the codebase.
-Automating this kind of more "administrative" work, reduces the overall
-cognitive load on the project developers allowing them to allocate
-proportionally more attention to the primary engineering aspects of the project.
-
-To help continue to ease such administrative burdens on the engineers, Cole is
-working on a repository of setup automation scripts. The first script is one
-that will replicate the setup of Jacob's build server, so that others who want
-to contribute computational resources to the project may do so easily. Cole is
-also working on a collection of modular scripts to automate the setup of the
-development environment for the HDL workflow and the layout of the SOC,
-including the installation of development branches of a substainal number of
-very complex pieces of software. This should help ease the process of
-onboarding new members to the project, especially some interns that we have
-coming onboard in the next few months to do the layout of the chip. These
-scripts will be available via the git.libre-riscv.org repository dev-env-setup,
-at the following link **TODO ADD LINK TO REPO**.
+While we are in the early stages of the CI testing integration into
+our project workflows, eventually Jacob should be able to simply push a
+commit on his Kazan SPIR-V to LLVM-IR compiler, and continue working,
+automatically recieving feedback on how well his new code integrates
+with his existing code. As a result he can be more confident in his
+code-quality and also work a bit faster because he no longer needs to
+take time out of his workflow to run the tests. More significant than
+this however, is that the automation of continuous integration testing
+significantly diminishes the probability that the project will get out
+of sync, or become cluttered with erroneous test failures, obscuring the
+clarity with which a project developer can view the codebase. Automating
+this kind of more "administrative" work, reduces the overall cognitive
+load on the project developers allowing them to allocate proportionally
+more attention to the primary engineering aspects of the project.
+
+To help continue to ease such administrative burdens on the engineers,
+Cole is working on a repository of setup automation scripts. The first
+script is one that will replicate the setup of Jacob's build server,
+so that others who want to contribute computational resources to the
+project may do so easily. Cole is also working on a collection of modular
+scripts to automate the setup of the development environment for the
+HDL workflow and the layout of the SOC, including the installation of
+development branches of a substainal number of very complex pieces of
+software. This should help ease the process of onboarding new members
+to the project, especially some interns that we have coming onboard in
+the next few months to do the layout of the chip. These scripts will be
+available via the git.libre-riscv.org repository dev-env-setup, at the
+[following link](http://git.libre-riscv.org/dev-env-setup.git)
# Conclusion
projects / crowdsupply.git / commitdiff