[dmd-internals] DVCS and patches feedback [was: dmd commit, revision 515]

[Don Clugston]

On 3 June 2010 16:28, Leandro Lucarella <llucax at gmail.com> wrote:
> Walter's job goes from:
> 1) Copy the text from bugzilla
> 2) Open a text file
> 3) Paste the text
> 4) Save the text file
> 5) Apply the patch
> 5bis) Maybe modify the patch in some way
> 6) Commit, writing a commit message

>
> To:
> 1) run git pull URL BRANCH

This shows a significant misunderstanding of where the time goes.
There are three things that take a lot of time: (1) understanding the
bug, and how the patch is trying to fix it;  (2) running the test
suite (takes about half an hour); (3) adding the bug to the test
suite.
Making the changes to the existing code is usually (though not always)
pretty trivial and quick. The majority of the patches which I have
made are just one-line or two-line changes.

You've also missed the steps of reproducing the existing bug, and
checking that the bug now passes. This always involves copying code
from bugzilla into a text editor.

It should be pretty clear from this that (2) and (3) have some major
opportunities for efficiency improvement. Far more significant IMHO
than any changes to the compiler version control system.