10 Tips for Better Pull Requests

[Walter Bright via Digitalmars-d]

On 1/16/2015 12:44 PM, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
> On 1/16/15 11:23 AM, Walter Bright wrote:
>> On 1/16/2015 9:49 AM, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
>>> I'm thinking of something like: if there's $(legitimate) request for
>>> changes but
>>> the author is dormant for more than $(X) days, then close.
>>
>> That's also a hamfisted policy. I've seen PR's that were good, but
>> needed a bit of work, but the author disappeared. Sometimes, I've taken
>> those over and finished them.
>>
>> Arbitrarily closing them means they get lost forever.
>
> Look for a champion after $(X) days? It looks like once a pull request is open
> it's impossible to close it. There's got to be some garbage collection somehow
> :o). -- Andrei

Should we also simply close open Bugzilla issues after X days? I don't think so.

Sometimes we just aren't 'ready' for a particular PR, but it is still valuable, 
such as the concurrent GC one. Deleting it (what closing really is) is not a 
solution.

I'd like to revisit the assumption that aged PRs is so bad that they must be 
removed. It reminds me of how the government got Amtrak trains to run on time by 
redefining on time from +-5 min to +-30 min.

I do agree that often good PRs get overlooked, and that's shameful. Deleting 
them is not the answer. Old PRs are not garbage.