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

Leandro Lucarella llucax at gmail.com
Thu Jun 3 15:37:08 PDT 2010


Don Clugston, el  3 de junio a las 22:45 me escribiste:
> 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.

That is (or should be) all part of fixing the bug, not merging the
patch.

(The non-availability of the test suite is another *big* issue in
allowing good contributions).

> 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.

OK, but I don't see the relation with what I was talking about.

> 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.

And, again, is (or should be) part of making the patch, not merging it.

> 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.

That's probably true, but without a public test suite I can't make any
suggestions on how to improve that =)

But again, I don't want to flame in this list, I really like this list
being concise and to the point, and let the NG general group for more
philosophic discussions. So, I'm not trying to convince anyone of
anything, just wanted you to give it a thought. If you really think that
using a DVCS will not help enough to make the effort, seems pretty
reasonable for me. I just think the development model of D has a lot to
improve (as I stated before), but I know this kind of changes are hard.

-- 
Leandro Lucarella (AKA luca)                     http://llucax.com.ar/
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Plans that either come to nought or half a page of scribbled lines.
Hanging on in quiet desparation is the English way.
The time is gone, the song is over, thought I'd something more to say.



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