Re: [dpdk-dev] [dpdk-techboard] Consider improving the DPDK contribution processes

[Maxime Coquelin <maxime.coquelin@redhat.com>]

On 5/25/20 5:35 PM, Jerin Jacob wrote:
> On Mon, May 25, 2020 at 8:52 PM Thomas Monjalon <thomas@monjalon.net> wrote:
>>
>> 25/05/2020 16:28, Burakov, Anatoly:
>>> On 25-May-20 1:53 PM, Thomas Monjalon wrote:
>>>> 25/05/2020 13:58, Jerin Jacob:
>>>>> 25/05/2020 11:34, Morten Brørup:
>>>>>> sending patches over an
>>>>>> email as opposed to a well-integrated web interface workflow is so alien
>>>>>> to most people that it definitely does discourage new contributions.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I understand the advantages of mailing lists (vendor independence,
>>>>>> universal compatibility, etc.), but after doing reviews in Github/Gitlab
>>>>>> for a while (we use those internally), going through DPDK mailing list
>>>>>> and reviewing code over email fills me with existential dread, as the
>>>>>> process feels so manual and 19th century to me.
>>>>>
>>>>> Agree. I had a difference in opinion when I was not using those tools.
>>>>> My perspective changed after using Github and Gerrit etc.
>>>>>
>>>>> Github pull request and integrated public CI(Travis, Shippable ,
>>>>> codecov) makes collaboration easy.
>>>>> Currently, in patchwork, we can not assign a patch other than the set
>>>>> of maintainers.
>>>>> I think, it would help the review process if the more fine-grained
>>>>> owner will be responsible for specific
>>>>> patch set.
>>>>
>>>> The more fine-grain is achieved with Cc in mail.
>>>> But I understand not everybody knows/wants/can configure correctly
>>>> an email client. Emails are not easy for everybody, I agree.
>>>>
>>>> I use GitHub as well, and I really prefer the clarity of the mail threads.
>>>> GitHub reviews tend to be line-focused, messy and not discussion-friendly.
>>>> I think contribution quality would be worst if using GitHub.
>>>
>>> I have more experience with Gitlab than Github, but i really don't see
>>> it that way.
>>>
>>> For one, reviewing in Gitlab makes it easier to see context in which
>>> changes appear. I mean, obviously, you can download the patch, apply it,
>>> and then do whatever you want with it in your editor/IDE, but it's just
>>> so much faster to do it right in the browser. Reviewing things with
>>> proper syntax highlighting and side-by-side diff with an option to see
>>> more context really makes a huge difference and is that much faster.
>>
>> OK
>>
>>
>>> I would also vehemently disagree with the "clarity" argument. There is
>>> enforced minimum standard of clarity of discussion in a tool such as
>>> Gitlab. I'm sure you noticed that some people top-post, some
>>> bottom-post. Some will remove extraneous lines of patches while some
>>> will leave on comment in a 10K line patch and leave the rest as is, in
>>> quotes. Some people do weird quoting where they don't actually quote but
>>> just copy text verbatim, making it hard to determine where the quote
>>> starts. If the thread is long enough, you'd see the same text quoted
>>> over and over and over. All of that is not a problem within a single
>>> patch email, but it adds up to lots of wasted time on all sides.
>>
>> Yes
>>
>> My concern about clarity is the history of the discussion.
>> When we post a new versions in GitHub, it's very hard to keep track
>> of the history.
>> As a maintainer, I need to see the history to understand what happened,
>> what we are waiting for, and what should be merged.
> 
> IMO, The complete history is available per pull request URL.
> I think, Github also email notification mechanism those to prefer to see
> comments in the email too.
> 
> In addition to that, Bugzilla, patchwork, CI stuff all integrated into
> one place.
> I am quite impressed with vscode community collaboration.
> https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode/pulls

Out of curiosity, just checked the git history and I'm not that
impressed. For example last commit on the master branch:

https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/commit/2a4cecf3f2f72346d06990feeb7446b3915d6148

Commit title: " Fix #98530 "
Commit message empty, no explanation on what the patch is doing.

Then, let's check the the issue it is pointed to:
https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/issues/98530

Issue is created 15 minutes before the patch is being merged. All that
done by the same contributor, without any review.