4 ms·

I mean, Gitlab is a web platform. It's pretty easy to test how it's going to work on different platforms without needing full machines. Heck, you can even just

by jchw 4y ago

I mean, Gitlab is a web platform. It's pretty easy to test how it's going to work on different platforms without needing full machines. Heck, you can even just get Microsoft Edge binaries on macOS and Linux if you want to test Edge. But failing that, VMs are pretty sufficient.

ModernMech 4y ago
Gitlab ships various ci runner executables for all platforms. I use their Windows ci runner and it works well, but I wonder how they test it without running windows.
- jchw 4y ago
  This policy about which OS your laptop runs does not seem to preclude the use of Windows VMs (and presumably CI runners, though I bet we could see if that was the case ourselves) if it were needed. The open source nature of Gitlab also makes it easy for a developer to test things on an unprivileged personal device, I'd imagine. If that was not enough, I believe the CI runner is written in the Go programming language, which has a surprisingly decent abstraction of OS functionality in it's standard library. Imperfect as it may be, I suspect that helps reduce the amount of effort needed to ensure individual platforms work properly.
  - trelane 4y ago
    This is exactly how I used to operate. I'd develop on Linux then ensure it works on Windows in a VM.
- milkshakes 4y ago
  This is a policy for personal workstations. Presumably, there is a different policy for QA/CI environments.
- aikah 4y ago
  > Gitlab ships various ci runner executables for all platforms. I use their Windows ci runner and it works well, but I wonder how they test it without running windows. Maybe with a Windows VM.
  - bart_spoon 4y ago
    If that’s the case then Windows isn’t actually prohibited at Gitlab.
    - jchw 4y ago
      It is prohibited at Gitlab according to this policy. On developer laptops. It is not necessarily prohibited in all contexts. The one-line title could've been slightly clearer, but I think it's a totally fair statement. The prohibition on developer laptops is not just a trivial or nitpicky detail; while the security of a VM obviously still matters, as you can't simply assume that malicious software in the VM can't escape, I would assume that the policy effectively means it would also be prohibited to setup a Linux dom0 and just run Windows under that and use it as your developer workspace. The benefit of only using Windows for testing is that you presumably won't be reading emails, talking on team chat, taking video calls, opening documents, etc. inside of Windows, only doing the thing you actually need (testing.) From a security standpoint, this can be helpful. I think that Windows vs Linux security is a rabbit hole not worth debating; both are very flawed and have many challenges, nothing is a panacea. However, I would say that every OS you don't need to harden is a huge operational advantage no matter how you slice it. You effectively cut off an entire slice of the malware market, and easily the largest slice in case of Windows.
Diggsey 4y ago
Tell that to the FE devs who add `overflow: scroll` everywhere and don't spot the problem...
- jchw 4y ago
  I agree with this nitpick. Unfortunately, I think we are losing that battle, because more platforms are adopting the hidden scrollbar (anti-)pattern. That, however, is bound to happen even if you have Windows workstations. It happened at a job where I was, in fact, running Windows, because the designer ran macOS and was oblivious to this issue. (Of course, I would fix it when spotted. But it still managed to make it out to prod at times.)
- Guid_NewGuid 4y ago
  God yes, I hate how all FEs have tunnel vision on MacOS nowadays. Our sign-up flow had godawful scrollbars both horizontally and vertically for the longest time but they didn't notice because they're all on retina display Macbooks instead of what the bulk of our users will be using.
  - mmis1000 4y ago
    Macos do have a option to always show scrollbar. And I think this is a pre-requirement to enable that if you ever care about what your user may actually see as a FE. Besides that, there isn't actually obvious different between firefox/chrome/edge on macos/windows. The most problematic one is actually safari(which is on mac only). If you dev on chrome and use on firefox or vise versus. You usually get a "mostly work with minor visual different". But safari… will give you a fail and are't even usable. It is outright the modern age ie.
    - patrakov 4y ago
      In the past, I was able to reproduce a supposedly Safari-only issue using Epiphany on Linux. This browser uses a closely-related engine.
- hbn 4y ago
CSSer 4y ago
The binary is still platform specific. Chrome, for example, does not render identical select element menus across platforms and certain select style rules are interpreted differently across said platforms. I'll give you a point on VMs but it's cumbersome. There's a big difference between rolling to another machine or asking someone in the department who uses that machine every day and waiting for a VM to finish booting or using a service like Browserstack (and both cost $$ anyway).
jakear 4y ago
VM's are sufficient only if you want "idk, it runs kinda glitchy on the VM" to be the end of the conversation when Windows-specific bugs come up in dev. And "idk, works fine on the VM" when Windows-specific tickets come up in prod.
miki123211 4y ago
Not if you're doing any kind of accessibility testing, and considering they want to sell to the US government, they will have to at some point. Screen readers are not consistent across platforms, and things that work on Windows sometimes don't work on other platforms, and vice versa.
- jchw 4y ago
  I have done this using virtual machines.

by jchw 4y ago

ModernMech 4y ago

Gitlab ships various ci runner executables for all platforms. I use their Windows ci runner and it works well, but I wonder how they test it without running windows.

jchw 4y ago
This policy about which OS your laptop runs does not seem to preclude the use of Windows VMs (and presumably CI runners, though I bet we could see if that was the case ourselves) if it were needed. The open source nature of Gitlab also makes it easy for a developer to test things on an unprivileged personal device, I'd imagine. If that was not enough, I believe the CI runner is written in the Go programming language, which has a surprisingly decent abstraction of OS functionality in it's standard library. Imperfect as it may be, I suspect that helps reduce the amount of effort needed to ensure individual platforms work properly.
- trelane 4y ago
  This is exactly how I used to operate. I'd develop on Linux then ensure it works on Windows in a VM.
milkshakes 4y ago
This is a policy for personal workstations. Presumably, there is a different policy for QA/CI environments.
aikah 4y ago
> Gitlab ships various ci runner executables for all platforms. I use their Windows ci runner and it works well, but I wonder how they test it without running windows. Maybe with a Windows VM.
- bart_spoon 4y ago
  If that’s the case then Windows isn’t actually prohibited at Gitlab.
  - jchw 4y ago
    It is prohibited at Gitlab according to this policy. On developer laptops. It is not necessarily prohibited in all contexts. The one-line title could've been slightly clearer, but I think it's a totally fair statement. The prohibition on developer laptops is not just a trivial or nitpicky detail; while the security of a VM obviously still matters, as you can't simply assume that malicious software in the VM can't escape, I would assume that the policy effectively means it would also be prohibited to setup a Linux dom0 and just run Windows under that and use it as your developer workspace. The benefit of only using Windows for testing is that you presumably won't be reading emails, talking on team chat, taking video calls, opening documents, etc. inside of Windows, only doing the thing you actually need (testing.) From a security standpoint, this can be helpful. I think that Windows vs Linux security is a rabbit hole not worth debating; both are very flawed and have many challenges, nothing is a panacea. However, I would say that every OS you don't need to harden is a huge operational advantage no matter how you slice it. You effectively cut off an entire slice of the malware market, and easily the largest slice in case of Windows.

Diggsey 4y ago

Tell that to the FE devs who add `overflow: scroll` everywhere and don't spot the problem...

jchw 4y ago
I agree with this nitpick. Unfortunately, I think we are losing that battle, because more platforms are adopting the hidden scrollbar (anti-)pattern. That, however, is bound to happen even if you have Windows workstations. It happened at a job where I was, in fact, running Windows, because the designer ran macOS and was oblivious to this issue. (Of course, I would fix it when spotted. But it still managed to make it out to prod at times.)
Guid_NewGuid 4y ago
God yes, I hate how all FEs have tunnel vision on MacOS nowadays. Our sign-up flow had godawful scrollbars both horizontally and vertically for the longest time but they didn't notice because they're all on retina display Macbooks instead of what the bulk of our users will be using.
- mmis1000 4y ago
  Macos do have a option to always show scrollbar. And I think this is a pre-requirement to enable that if you ever care about what your user may actually see as a FE. Besides that, there isn't actually obvious different between firefox/chrome/edge on macos/windows. The most problematic one is actually safari(which is on mac only). If you dev on chrome and use on firefox or vise versus. You usually get a "mostly work with minor visual different". But safari… will give you a fail and are't even usable. It is outright the modern age ie.
  - patrakov 4y ago
    In the past, I was able to reproduce a supposedly Safari-only issue using Epiphany on Linux. This browser uses a closely-related engine.
hbn 4y ago

CSSer 4y ago

The binary is still platform specific. Chrome, for example, does not render identical select element menus across platforms and certain select style rules are interpreted differently across said platforms. I'll give you a point on VMs but it's cumbersome. There's a big difference between rolling to another machine or asking someone in the department who uses that machine every day and waiting for a VM to finish booting or using a service like Browserstack (and both cost $$ anyway).

jakear 4y ago

VM's are sufficient only if you want "idk, it runs kinda glitchy on the VM" to be the end of the conversation when Windows-specific bugs come up in dev. And "idk, works fine on the VM" when Windows-specific tickets come up in prod.

miki123211 4y ago

Not if you're doing any kind of accessibility testing, and considering they want to sell to the US government, they will have to at some point. Screen readers are not consistent across platforms, and things that work on Windows sometimes don't work on other platforms, and vice versa.

jchw 4y ago
I have done this using virtual machines.