[HOLD #333755] [$500] [MEDIUM] Distance: Create a fork for react-beautiful-dnd and remove patch

[hayata-suenaga]

To fix some bugs found in react-beautiful-dnd, we created a patch file.

There was a discussion on whether we should consider creating a fork for better maintainability.

There is a strong argument that a fork should be created instead of leaving the patch file. Create a fork.

cc: @kosmydel @fabioh8010 @blazejkustra

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• Last Price Increase: 2023-10-16

[fabioh8010]

FYI I will be on vacations starting tomorrow for the next two weeks and will return on Oct 23, but I will leave my thoughts here.

First of all, patches are intended to be temporary fixes until you have a newer release of the library you are patching with the proper fix. In this case, we face the first problem here: The authors of the library made it clear that they won't be addressing fixes / PRs unless is a security issue.

This library continues to be relied upon heavily by Atlassian products, but we are focused on other priorities right now and have no current plans for further feature development or improvements.

It will continue to be here on GitHub and we will still make critical updates (e.g. security fixes, if any) as required, but will not be actively monitoring or replying to issues and pull requests.

We recommend that you don’t raise issues or pull requests, as they will not be reviewed or actioned until further notice.

So we can assume that this patch file has a high probability of staying here forever in our repo if we continue to use this library.

Then the second problem comes, that is simply hard to make changes and manage patch files. It's difficult to understand why they are there and what they are fixing exactly. Currently we have means to separate patches fixes by using different files (e.g. the react-native patch files we have), but they need extra careful when managing and creating new ones, which increases complexity.

I understand that managing a separate fork comes with an overhead to Expensify, and I'm totally fine when you are dealing with temporary situations, but this one is different by the reasons I mentioned first.

[melvin-bot]

Job added to Upwork: https://www.upwork.com/jobs/~01be5681d4b0e2511a

[melvin-bot]

Triggered auto assignment to Contributor-plus team member for initial proposal review - @narefyev91 (External)

[hayata-suenaga]

Link to the fork repository

[DylanDylann]

Proposal

Please re-state the problem that we are trying to solve in this issue.

Create a fork for react-beautiful-dnd and remove patch

What is the root cause of that problem?

It is a improvement

What changes do you think we should make in order to solve the problem?

1. We need to apply all changes in the patch file to fork repository
2. Remove the patch of this lib on patch file
3. Add the fork to package.json
4. npm install to load this lib
5. Test again to make sure it works well

[melvin-bot]

@narefyev91, @hayata-suenaga Uh oh! This issue is overdue by 2 days. Don't forget to update your issues!

[hayata-suenaga]

Link to the fork repository

[trjExpensify]

@hayata-suenaga this issue has no status in the wave5 project. Should it be CRITICAL, HIGH, MEDIUM or LOW? Thanks!

[melvin-bot]

@narefyev91, @hayata-suenaga Whoops! This issue is 2 days overdue. Let's get this updated quick!

[hayata-suenaga]

don't know why the title wasn't updated to put the price. updating the title

[melvin-bot]

⚠️ This issue has had its price increased by 4x or more. Please review the issue and ensure the price is correct.

[melvin-bot]

Upwork job price has been updated to $500

[nebiyuelias1]

Proposal

Please re-state the problem that we are trying to solve in this issue.

We're using a package called react-beautiful-dnd that is no longer being maintained. To fix problems, we've created a patch and now it's decided to maintain the package ourselves. Therefore, we've forked the repo.

What is the root cause of that problem?

The package is no longer being maintained. It says on their page:

This library continues to be relied upon heavily by Atlassian products, but we are focused on other priorities right now and have no current plans for further feature development or improvements.

It will continue to be here on GitHub and we will still make critical updates (e.g. security fixes, if any) as required, but will not be actively monitoring or replying to issues and pull requests.

We recommend that you don’t raise issues or pull requests, as they will not be reviewed or actioned until further notice.

What changes do you think we should make in order to solve the problem?

We need to apply the patch to our forked repo. We can apply the .patch file using the git apply command:

git apply react-beautiful-dnd+13.1.1.patch

We can then create a pr to the forked repo. After the pr is merged we can use the forked repo in our Expensify project.

What alternative solutions did you explore? (Optional)

[neonbhai]

Proposal

Please re-state the problem that we are trying to solve in this issue.

The react-beautiful-dnd library is not maintained. Meaning we will have a permanent patch file in the repo. We need to move this patch to a forked repo.

What is the root cause of that problem?

Feature Request.

What changes do you think we should make in order to solve the problem?

Here are the steps:

We need to:

1. Have an official Expensify fork of react-beautiful-dnd.
2. I will be submitting a PR to the Expensify fork, applying the changes in the patch file;
3. When the patch file PR is accepted, I will be submitting a PR our main repo which will:
   • Update npm to use the forked repo.
   • Delete the patch file from App/patches folder.

[hungvu193]

Proposal

Please re-state the problem that we are trying to solve in this issue.

Using our own fork of react-beatiful-dnd and remove the current patch.

What is the root cause of that problem?

react-beatiful-dnd is not maintained for a while and we should use our own fork instead of using the patch.

What changes do you think we should make in order to solve the problem?

• Apply the current patch react-beautiful-dnd+13.1.1.patch to our fork here (https://github.com/Expensify/react-beautiful-dnd) and create a PR.
• Remove the current patch file react-beautiful-dnd+13.1.1.patch
• Wait for the PR in our fork to merge then update our package json of Expensify app to use our own fork.

What alternative solutions did you explore? (Optional)

N/A

[DylanDylann]

@hayata-suenaga Any update here?

[hayata-suenaga]

might have time to work on this this month

[DylanDylann]

@hayata-suenaga Any update here?

[hayata-suenaga]

sorry this GH ticket has the least priority in my backlog

[hayata-suenaga]

same as above 🙇

[hayata-suenaga]

not a high priority issue now. will come back to this when I have time

[hayata-suenaga]

will come back to this when I have time 🙇

[DylanDylann]

@rafecolton Any update here?

[rafecolton]

Sorry I'm not involved in this particular issue, I just removed Hayata's assignment. Please ask in Slack.

[trjExpensify]

@DylanDylann what exactly needs to be done here? I can see we have the fork of this library, what are we waiting on?

[DylanDylann]

Waiting for @hayata-suenaga to fix this problem #28797 (comment)

[DylanDylann]

@hayata-suenaga Could you help to give an ETA on this issue? Or should we close this issue?

cc @trjExpensify

[trjExpensify]

@DylanDylann, Hayata is no longer at Expensify. I think we close it for focus and circle back if we have a need for it.

[DylanDylann]

@trjExpensify Yes

[trjExpensify]

Cool, done.

[DylanDylann]

@trjExpensify In this issue, I created two PRs and one of them was merged

• Merged: fix apply patch to fork react-beautiful-dnd#1
• Created (Not merged yet): Fix/28797: Remove patch and change dependence #29875

As mentioned on Slack, the contributor should get fully paid because I am hired and did the work

I am happy to hear your though. Thanks

[DylanDylann]

It has been almost a year since I started working on this issue

[trjExpensify]

Oh sorry, I thought you were settled on that. Cool, sent you an offer for $500 per the issue title.

[DylanDylann]

@trjExpensify Thank you! I accepted the offer

[trjExpensify]

Paid!