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Re: Patch queue and reviewing (Was Re: Generator programs can only be built with optimization enabled?)
On Jun 13, 2006, at 8:24 PM, Daniel Berlin wrote:
> >Past the above, I have no better ideas for getting patches reviewed
> >other than appointing more maintainers.
On Wed, Jun 14, 2006 at 11:34:33AM -0700, Mike Stump wrote:
> I'd welcome the issue be addressed by the SC. I'd favor more timely
> reviews. Maybe auto approval for a patch that sits for more than a
> week? :-)
I see your smilie, Mike, but GCC would rapidly decay into a pile of
random bytes, unable to build itself, much less anything else, under such a
policy.
The SC mainly has negative power, it can't make people do work.
There have been a number of proposals that basically amount to threatening
the patch reviewers with negative consequences, but I'm not for that.
Certainly we can talk about mechanisms to help the reviewers, or try
to recruit new help.
I know it's frustrating for people when their hard work doesn't get
reviewed for long periods of time. But GCC is a mature compiler, it's
stable, and while it has bugs and could be better, I'm not sure I *want*
GCC to start changing much more rapidly than it changes today. Bugs will
be fixed, yes. New features will be introduced, yes. But will the
quality level be maintained? That's the whole reason we insist on
patch review, so any process that speeds it up has to guarantee that
will still get a decent review of all patches (other than the truly
obvious ones).