Motivating long-slog projects

[pp-mo]

We have a bit of a history of coming up with ideas that would make widespread changes to the codebase, but then find it hard to follow through to completion.

My personal list of examples ...

• all tests to be categorised into integration / unit tests
• all public functions to document whether they lazy preserve lazy data or not
  • an honourable mention, as this added note about laziness of operations to statistical functions #3293 did get completely finished, by @ESadek-MO (Finalises Lazy Data documentation #5137)
• numpydoc style for all docstrings
  • ongoing -- see numpydoc adoption tick list #4721
• pytest adoption
• type hinting
• 100% code coverage, by unit tests, of every code module / facility

I'd class these are "code refresh projects" -- they seem to follow a pattern where any/all code may need adjusting to conform with a new desired standard

However, the strategic point here is not the content of such a list, but
HOW we can more effectively drive these types of "code refresh projects" to completion

[pp-mo]

Emerged from offline discussion between @pp-mo @trexfeathers @bjlittle
Some observations + ideas ...

• problem of ownership
• the approach numpydoc adoption tick list #4721 is useful, but the long list is rather daunting -- probably does not encourage people to join in !
• if each "work section" is an issue it could seem overwhelming ..
  • .. likewise if they are all in a project
  • however, we could open only a few sections of work as "live" issues at any one time, starting others as they get resolved
• @bjlittle relates progress towards full ruff compliance in geovista
  • divide + conquer by definite sections (a subset of rules)
  • applying iteratively : a measure (#remaining errors) looks manageable at each step
• we need a goal to be "completion"
• some kind of numeric measure, like a "%ge compliant" or "remaining issues countdown", would act as a motivator
• we could use a sprint effort to divide + conquer with a focussed approach, which can deliver ...
  * team working
  * shared goals
  * recognition of contribution
  * friendly competition

[trexfeathers]

Thanks very much for capturing this, @pp-mo!