Re: Patch pinging

[Ian Lance Taylor <iant at google dot com>]

Paolo Carlini <paolo.carlini@oracle.com> writes:

> On 06/07/2010 09:23 PM, NightStrike wrote:
>> Annoying or not, I wasn't offering to sift through svn commit logs.
>> It's very trivial for me to read through a mailing list that I already
>> read, and scan for messages that say "committed to branch B at
>> revision R."  It's a lot more complicated to find out if something has
>> been committed myself, for every single patch out there, when the
>> committer already knows and can send his followup message saying that
>> the patch went in.  Ideally, after a day of this, people will start
>> sending such messages to effectively close threads, and then you'll
>> see very few messages from me.
>>   
> I'm seeing all those "did you commit it yet?" without even attempting to
> check yourself if the patch has been actually committed (it's trivial).
> IMO, it doesn't make sense. To be clear, you will *never* get replies
> from me.

The gcc project currently has a problem: when people who are not
regular gcc developers send in a patch, those patches often get
dropped.  They get dropped because they do not get reviewed, and they
get dropped because after review they do not get committed.  This
discourages new developers and it means that the gcc project does not
move as fast as it could.

Nightstrike volunteered to implement one approach which could improve
matters: http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc/2010-06/msg00154.html .  It
requires a change in process: after committing a patch, we send a
"committed" message on the thread on gcc-patches.  Some people already
do this.

Note that the plethora of patch pings will not continue if people
routinely send "committed" messages.

The question we face now is: are we willing to change our process in
order to improve it?  And, if we are willing, is this specific change
a reasonable one to make?

It is certainly true that this could be done in different ways.
However, nobody is volunteering to implement those other ways.
Somebody is volunteering to implement this way.  Are we willing to try
this, since we have a volunteer?  Or should we do nothing until and
unless somebody is willing to volunteer to implement something else?

Ian