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

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

On 5/25/20 5:59 PM, Burakov, Anatoly wrote:
> On 25-May-20 4:52 PM, Maxime Coquelin wrote:
>>
>>
>> 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.
>>
> 
> Just because they do it wrong doesn't mean we can't do it right :) This
> says more about Microsoft's lack of process around VSCode than it does
> about Github the tool.
> 

True. I was just pointing out that is not the kind of process I would
personally want to adopt.