Re: [stellation-res] Code review process

["Jonathan Gossage" <jonathan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Mark C. Chu-Carroll" <mcc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "Stellation-res" <stellation-res@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, March 26, 2003 11:44 AM
Subject: Re: [stellation-res] Code review process


>
> I'm against this. My reasoning, roughly, is that this won't eliminate
> any problems; it will merely make them harder to detect.
>
> The problems with patches come about when the workspaces of the patch
> creator, and the workspace of the patch verifier are not in synch. Doing
> the patch creation manually by  packaging changes files won't eliminate
> that error.
>
> If you're using an absolutely clean workspace as a starting point, and
> making a single change in that clean workspace, and you generate patches
> from the project itself, you're essentially doing exactly what's being
> described below - only you're creating the patches by hand, by figuring
> out what files you changed.
>
> If you make a mistake doing this using patches, the patches will reveal
> the mistake. If you make a mistake doing his manually, it will be easy
> to miss. You lose the systems ability to help you view what has changed;
> and you lose the systems ability to tell you when something is wrong.
>
> To be honest, I'm frustrated with the code review process as a whole. I
> don't think it's working out.
>
> In theory, it's a great idea. In practice, there just aren't enough
> people involved, so patches don't get checked quickly enough, and we
> constantly run into problems because we're not in sync, because we went
> ahead and started our next task while waiting for the last patch to be
> verified.
>
> In favor of the patch process, I've liked the way it helps me keep track
> of what's going on: I can see things happening in bugzilla, and it's
> easy for me to look at an incoming change in the patch viewer and see
> exactly what was changed. That's been very helpful to me. But overall,
> I think its negatives are outweighing its positives.
>
> -Mark
>

Then we are going to have to decide how to proceed from here. There are a
couple items in the current pipeline including the Windows port. How would
you like to proceed on this?

Regards

Jonathan