On 25/06/13 15:56, Tom Lane wrote:
Mark Kirkwood <mark.kirkw...@catalyst.net.nz> writes:
One of the reasons for fewer reviewers than submitters, is that it is a
fundamentally more difficult job. I've submitted a few patches in a few
different areas over the years - however if I grab a patch on the queue
that is not in exactly one of the areas I know about, I'll struggle to
do a good quality review.
Now some might say "any review is better than no review"... I don't
think so - one of my patches a while was reviewed by someone who didn't
really know the context that well and made the whole process grind to a
standstill until a more experienced reviewer took over. I'm quite wary
of doing the same myself - anti-help is not the answer!
FWIW, a large part of the reason for the commitfest structure is that
by reviewing patches, people can educate themselves about parts of the
PG code that they don't know already, and thus become better qualified
to do more stuff later. So I've got no problem with less-experienced
people doing reviews.
At the same time, it *is* fair to expect someone to phrase their review
as "I don't understand this, could you explain and/or improve the
comments" rather than saying something more negative, if they aren't
clear about what's going on. Without some specific references it's hard
to be sure if the reviewer you mention was being unreasonable.
Anyway, the point I'm trying to make is that this is a community effort,
and each of us can stand to improve our knowledge of what is fundamentally
a complex system. Learn something, teach something, it's all good.
Yes - the reason I mentioned this was not to dig into history and bash a
reviewer (who was not at all unreasonable in my recollection)... but to
highlight that approaching a review is perhaps a little more complex and
demanding that was being made out, hence the shortage of volunteers.
However I do completely agree, that encouraging reviewers to proceed
with the approach you've outlined above seems like "the way". And yes -
it is going to be a good way to get to know the code better.
Regards
Mark
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