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

["Burakov, Anatoly" <anatoly.burakov@intel.com>]

On 25-May-20 4:22 PM, Thomas Monjalon 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.

And AFAIK you do have access to discussion for older versions of the PR, 
do you not? Again, i didn't do in-depth reviews with multiple revisions 
and threads on Github, but assuming Gitlab works similarly, we do have 
access to that.

> 
> 
>> And all of the above will not be a problem with a tool like
>> Gitlab/Github. There are "general" comments that can be used for general
>> discussion, and there are line-specific comments that can be used to
>> discuss certain sections of the patch. I've done this many times in many
>> reviews, and it works very well. Now, granted, I've never maintained an
>> entire repository like DPDK, so you may have a different perspective,
>> but i really don't see how long email chains have "clarity" that a
>> discussion thread with proper quoting, links to code, markdown syntax,
>> etc. doesn't.
> 
> You don't have discussion threading in GitHub. Is there?

Threading is implicit when you are commenting under a line of code. Of 
course this rests on an assumption that you wouldn't use a random 
comment thread to bring up things from another thread, but nothing is 
perfect :)

> 
> 
>> (for the record, i don't consider Gerrit to be a good tool because it
>> enforces a particular git workflow, one that is not at all compatible
>> with how our community works. GitLab, on the other hand, "just works" -
>> i'm assuming GitHub is very similar)
>>
>>>
>>> There is a mailing list discussing workflow tooling:
>>> 	https://lore.kernel.org/workflows/
> 
> 
> 


-- 
Thanks,
Anatoly