On Tue, Jun 9, 2009 at 2:10 PM, Basile STARYNKEVITCH<bas...@starynkevitch.net> wrote: > FWIW, I am not taking this question personally (I don't really claim that I > could become any kind of reviewer; I believe in general that reviewing > abilities should be evaluated by others.). I just think the set of reviewers > should significantly grow. > > > Andrew Haley wrote: >> >> >>> >>> My feeling is on the contrary that the set of people having a real >>> knowledge of gcc (or at least of substantial parts of it [*]) is much >>> bigger than the set of reviewers allowed to say OK. >>> >> >> > > I am not at the summit. So I don't know if my perception "there are not > enough reviewers" [0] is shared by others or not. I suppose it is agreed > (that the set of reviewers should be increased [1]) If not, ignore the > rest. I really don't know if other people believe (as I do) that the set of > reviewers should significantly increase. > > My perception is that many reviewers have too much reviews [2] in their > queue, and that these tasks might overwhelm or bore them. But since I am not > a reviewer, I cannot reliably understand what it is to be one. For instance, > my feeling is that Diego Novillo -whom I know, and I admire a lot- (and some > other GCC gurus) is almost exhausted by his pending review queue. > >> That's certainly true, but there's a big difference between having real >> knowledge of gcc and having enough real knowledge to approve a patch. >> > > What might perhaps be discussed at the summit is possibly this (perhaps too > strong) requirement on the reviewer's level. If there are too few reviewers, > and if making a big lot of reviews is boring (or just too demanding or too > tiring) to them, then we might consider lowering the threshold to become a > reviewer (e.g. dispatch review abilities to more people, or perhaps define > some fine grain policy on future reviewers; I could imagine that some people > could review just a few GCC source files). >> >> It is quite possibly the case that some maintainers should be "promoted". >> But it isn't sufficient to have a blanket policy of "let's have more >> reviewers". > > But we first should agree on the wish than an increase of the set of > reviewers is desirable. > >> We need something more like "I think Fred Bloggs knows gcc >> well enough to approve patches to reload" or "I am Fred Bloggs and I >> know gcc well enough to approve patches to reload." >> > > I am not sure to parse correctly this sentence. Sorry, English is a foreign > language to me. Is "reload" some functionality (PCH?) you refer inside GCC, > or is it the task of making reviews on patches submitted on gcc-patches@ ? I > was just thinking about stuff like "Fred Bloggs knows enough to approve > patches submitted on gcc-patches@ to files gcc/ggc*.[ch]" > > > And it could happen that the plugin infrastructure might in the future move > some code out of GCC core (and into plugins). In that future situation, the > set of reviewers might not need to increase. > > Regards. > > Note 0: for me a reviewer is any person admitted to say ok to some (even > very few) patches. > > Note 1: My intuition is that the number of reviewers should be proportional > (at least; and one could believe to O(n log n) where n is the size of GCC) > to the GCC source size. I am not sure (& I don't know if) it has increased > by 30% in 3 years, as did the source code! > > Note 2: I have no idea if the patch-to-be-reviewed queue of each reviewer > has increased since 2 years ago! I intuitively feel it did increase a lot, > i.e. reviewers have much more pressure on them. Maybe I am wrong!
You are wrong. ;) Richard. > -- > Basile STARYNKEVITCH http://starynkevitch.net/Basile/ > email: basile<at>starynkevitch<dot>net mobile: +33 6 8501 2359 > 8, rue de la Faiencerie, 92340 Bourg La Reine, France > *** opinions {are only mines, sont seulement les miennes} *** > >
