Thanks for raising this point Robert. I think it is important to remind the community about the agreed practices once in a while.
In most of the cases I had the impression that the majority of the community sticks to the agreed rules. W/o more detailed numbers (how many of the hotfix commits are of category b) I think this discussion makes only limited sense. Moreover, what is the underlying problem you would like to solve here? Is it that too many commits have the hotfix tag in the commit log? Is it that it's hard to figure out with which PR a hotfix commit has been merged? Or did you observe a decline in Flink's quality because of too many unreviewed changes? If we are discussing the latter case, then I think it is very urgent. In the former cases I'm not entirely sure whether this is an immediate problem because from what I have seen people include many more clean up/hotfix commits in their PRs these days. Concerning the proposed practice with the [minor] tag I'm a bit torn. The benefit of not doing it like this is that it's easier to see which commits need to be cherry-picked if a feature needs to be ported, for example. On the other hand if the commits are not unrelated and the feature commits use parts of the hotfix commits, then it makes the cherry-picking more tricky and the commits should have the JIRA issue tag. But I would be fine with trying it out. Cheers, Till On Mon, Feb 17, 2020 at 3:56 PM Robert Metzger <rmetz...@apache.org> wrote: > Hi all, > > I would like to revive this very old thread on the topic of "unreviewed > hotfixes on master" again. > Out of the 35 commits listed on the latest commits page on GitHub, 18 have > the tag "hotfix", on the next page it is 9, then 16, 17, ... > In the last 140 commits, 42% were hotfixes. > > For the sake of this discussion, let's distinguish between two types of > hotfixes: > a) *reviewed hotfix commits*: They have been reviewed through a pull > request, then committed to master. > b) *unreviewed hotfix commits*: These have been pushed straight to master, > without a review. > > It's quite difficult to find out whether a hotfix has been reviewed or not > (because many hotfix commits are reviewed & pushed as part of a PR), but > here are some recent examples of commits where I could not find evidence of > a pull request: > > // these could probably be combined into on JIRA ticket, as they affect the > same component + they touch dependencies > 47a1725ae14a772ba8590ee97dffd7fdf5bc04b2 [hotfix][docs][conf] Log included > packages / excluded classes > a5894677d95336a67d5539584b9204bcdd14fac5 [hotfix][docs][conf] Setup logging > for generator > 325927064542c2d018f9da33660c1cdf57e0e382 [hotfix][docs][conf] Add query > service port to port section > 3c696a34145e838c046805b36553a50ec9bfbda0 [hotfix][docs][conf] Add query > service port to port section > > // dependency change > 736ebc0b40abab88902ada3f564777c3ade03001 [hotfix][build] Remove various > unused test dependencies > > // more than a regeneration / typo / compile error change > 30b5f6173e688ea20b82226db6923db19dec29a5 [hotfix][tests] Adjust > FileUtilsTest.testDeleteSymbolicLinkDirectory() to handle unsupported > situations in Windows > fc59aa4ecc2a7170bfda14ffadf0a30aa2b793bf [FLINK-16065][core] Unignore > FileUtilsTest.testDeleteDirectoryConcurrently() > > // dependency changes > fe7145787a7f36b21aad748ffea4ee8ab03c02b7 [hotfix][build] Remove unused > akka-testkit dependencies > dd34b050e8e7bd4b03ad0870a432b1631e1c0e9d [hotfix][build] Remove unused > shaded-asm7 dependencies > > // dependency changes > 244d2db78307cd7dff1c60a664046adb6fe5c405 [hotfix][web][build] Cleanup > dependencies > > In my opinion, everything that is not a typo, a compile error (breaking the > master) or something generated (like parts of the docs) should go through a > quick pull request. > Why? I don't think many people review changes in the commit log in a way > they review pull request changes. > > In addition to that, I propose to prefix hotfixes that have been added as > part of a ticket with that ticket number. > So instead of "[hotfix] Harden kubernetes test", we do > "[FLINK-13978][minor] > Harden kubernetes test". > Why? For people checking the commit history, it is much easier to see if a > hotfix has been reviewed as part of a JIRA ticket review, or whether it is > a "hotpush" hotfix. > > For changes that are too small for a JIRA ticket, but need a review, I > propose to use the "[minor]" tag. A good example of such a change is this: > > https://github.com/apache/flink/commit/0dc4e767c9c48ac58430a59d05185f2b071f53f5 > > My tagging minor changes accordingly in the pull requests, it is also > easier for fellow committers to quickly check them. > > Summary: > [FLINK-XXXX]: regular, reviewed change > [FLINK-XXXX][minor]: minor, unrelated changes reviewed with a regular > ticket > [minor]: minor, reviewed change > [hotfix]: unreviewed change that fixes a typo, compile error or something > generated > > > What's your opinion on this? > > > On Sat, May 28, 2016 at 1:36 PM Vasiliki Kalavri < > vasilikikala...@gmail.com> > wrote: > > > Hi all, > > > > in principle I agree with Max. I personally avoid hotfixes and always > open > > a PR, even for javadoc improvements. > > > > I believe the main problem is that we don't have a clear definition of > what > > constitutes a "hotfix". Ideally, even cosmetic changes and documentation > > should be reviewed; I've seen documentation added as a hotfix that had > > spelling mistakes, which led to another hotfix... Using hotfixes to do > > major refactoring or add features is absolutely unacceptable, in my view. > > On the other hand, with the current PR load it's not practical to ban > > hotfixes all together. > > > > I would suggest to update our contribution guidelines with some > definition > > of a hotfix. We could add a list of questions to ask before pushing one. > > e.g.: > > - does the change fix a spelling mistake in the docs? => hotfix > > - does the change add a missing javadoc? => hotfix > > - does the change improve a comment? => hotfix? > > - is the change a small refactoring in a code component you are > maintainer > > of? => hotfix > > - did you change code in a component you are not very familiar with / not > > the maintainer of? => open PR > > - is this major refactoring? (e.g. more than X lines of code) => open PR > > - does it fix a trivial bug? => open JIRA and PR > > > > and so on... > > > > What do you think? > > > > Cheers, > > -V. > > > > On 27 May 2016 at 17:40, Greg Hogan <c...@greghogan.com> wrote: > > > > > Max, > > > > > > I certainly agree that hotfixes are not ideal for large refactorings > and > > > new features. Some thoughts ... > > > > > > A hotfix should be maven verified, as should a rebased PR. Travis is > > often > > > backed up for half a day or more. > > > > > > Is our Jira and PR process sufficiently agile to handle these hotfixes? > > > Will committers simply include hotfixes with other PRs, and would it be > > > better to retain these as smaller, separate commits? > > > > > > For these cosmetic changes and small updates will the Jira and PR yield > > > beneficial documentation addition to what is provided in the commit > > > message? > > > > > > Counting hotfixes by contributor, the top of the list looks as I would > > > expect. > > > > > > Greg > > > > > > Note: this summary is rather naive and includes non-squashed hotfix > > commits > > > included in a PR > > > $ git shortlog --grep 'hotfix' -s -n release-0.9.0.. > > > 94 Stephan Ewen > > > 42 Aljoscha Krettek > > > 20 Till Rohrmann > > > 16 Robert Metzger > > > 13 Ufuk Celebi > > > 9 Fabian Hueske > > > 9 Maximilian Michels > > > 6 Greg Hogan > > > 5 Stefano Baghino > > > 3 smarthi > > > 2 Andrea Sella > > > 2 Gyula Fora > > > 2 Jun Aoki > > > 2 Sachin Goel > > > 2 mjsax > > > 2 zentol > > > 1 Alexander Alexandrov > > > 1 Gabor Gevay > > > 1 Prez Cannady > > > 1 Steve Cosenza > > > 1 Suminda Dharmasena > > > 1 chengxiang li > > > 1 jaoki > > > 1 kl0u > > > 1 qingmeng.wyh > > > 1 sksamuel > > > 1 vasia > > > > > > On Fri, May 27, 2016 at 6:10 AM, Maximilian Michels <m...@apache.org> > > > wrote: > > > > > > > Hi Flinksters, > > > > > > > > I'd like to address an issue that has been concerning me for a while. > > > > In the Flink community we like to push "hotfixes" to the master. > > > > Hotfixes come in various shapes: From very small cosmetic changes > > > > (JavaDoc) to major refactoring and even new features. > > > > > > > > IMHO we should move away from these hotfixes. Here's why: > > > > > > > > 1) They tend to break the master because they lack test coverage > > > > 2) They are usually not communicated with the maintainer or person > > > > working on the part being fixed > > > > 3) They are not properly documented for future reference or > follow-ups > > > > (JIRA/Github) > > > > > > > > That's why I have chosen not to push hotfixes anymore. Even for small > > > > fixes, I'll open a JIRA/Github issue. The only exception might be > > > > fixing a comment. It improves communication, documentation, and test > > > > coverage. All this helps to mature Flink and develop the community in > > > > a transparent way. > > > > > > > > I'm not sure what our contribution guidelines say about this but I > > > > would like to update them to explicitly address hotfixes. Let me know > > > > what you think. > > > > > > > > Best, > > > > Max > > > > > > > > > >
