Re: increasing the number of GCC reviewers

[Andrew Haley <aph at redhat dot com>]

Basile STARYNKEVITCH wrote:
> Andrew Haley wrote:
>> Basile STARYNKEVITCH wrote:
>>
>> This is going to sound rude, but if you don't know what reload is
>> you're not able to talk about gcc maintenance.
> 
> Reload is probably in the register allocator, which indeed is in the
> backend part I know nothing about (and I don't care much).

OK, that's pretty close.

> Your opinion is not rude, but I still believe one don"t need to
> understand all of the GCC internals to talk about the review process.

No, they don't.  But they need to have some kind of a clue about how
it works, and what the pieces are.

> I even disagree on your opinion. I believe I might even become in a few
> years some kind of gcc/ggc*.[ch] secondary reviewer.

Sure, I don't see why not.  It'll take work, but it's perfectly possible.

> This is precisely my point. It should be perfectly acceptable that some
> people be authorized to approve some few patches without understanding
> the whole of GCC, and even without knowing all of it.

GCC isn't really like that.  Changes in one part can affect things much
later on, and you really have to know why.  That doesn't mean you have
to understand all of the compiler, but you need to have a lot of
knowledge.

> Now, I understand you or others can disagree with my opinion. You may
> think that most reviewers should know most of GCC (I disagree with that).

No-one knows most of GCC.  At least, I very much doubt it.

Rather than saying "the set of reviewers should significantly grow", let me
challenge you.  Suggest someone who should be added to that set.

Andrew.