Ch-ch-changes

Alex Rønne Petersen alex at lycus.org
Wed Sep 26 08:19:33 PDT 2012


On 26-09-2012 13:47, monarch_dodra wrote:
> On Tuesday, 25 September 2012 at 22:09:37 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
>> Hello all,
>>
>> [SNIP]
>>
>> We want to move dmd forward faster, and we're encouraging committers
>> to be more aggressive about reviewing and merging patches. Language
>> changes will still have to get through Scylla and Charybdis (that's
>> Walter and yours truly), but bug fixes and other non-controversial
>> work can be safely parallelized.
>>
>> [SNIP]
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> Andrei
>>
>> [SNIP]
>
> Any chance we could see some sort of "dedicated hand holders" for the
> newer contributors? That or "semi-trusted" validators: They wouldn't
> have the power to merge themselves, but could still tag pulls as
> "Validated by XXX": Basically, a screening process.

There are several people who go over pull requests and weigh in on them 
even though they are not committers (me being one). Anyone can feel free 
to do so. :)

>
> I know that personally, I feel like I can help, but at the same time, I
> know I sometimes try to push some bad code/design. I'm glad there is
> someone that actually takes the time to review my code, but at the same
> time, I don't want to bother the dedicated pullers that already have a
> lot on their plate.

 From what I've seen, it's not like your pull requests have been 
completely unreasonable or annoying to review or anything.

I see it as the responsibility of committers/authors to review pull 
requests that touch areas they're familiar with, so long as their spare 
time permits it.

>
> Also (but more related to Phobos), I have myself tried to review others'
> code (when my field of knowledge permits), but it seems like it is not
> something that is done very often.

Yes, we desperately need more people to do reviews.

>
> Overall, I think the most important thing would be promoting cross
> puller reviews. If only just to say "looks good to me!": It can give the
> puller that extra confidence in the pull, without having to delve into it.
>
> I don't mind having to wait 3 weeks for a pull to go through, but it is
> kind of weird when the pull just sits there with no comments *from
> anyone* during those 3 weeks...

It's quite unfortunate that pull request reviews take so long in our 
community, and it really is something we need to fix. But without people 
actually willing to do reviews, we're not going to get anywhere.

Perhaps a post in D.announce that encourages peer review would be in order.

-- 
Alex Rønne Petersen
alex at lycus.org
http://lycus.org


More information about the Digitalmars-d mailing list