Re: [openstack-dev] Re : welcoming new committers (was Re: When is it okay for submitters to say 'I don't want to add tests' ?)
On 10/31/2013 10:36 PM, Jeremy Stanley wrote: As has been said many times already, OpenStack does not lack developers... it lacks reviewers. In regards to reviews in general and in particular for welcoming new committers I think we need to be careful about reviewers NAK'ing a submission for what is essentially bikeshedding [1]. Reviewers should focus on code correctness and adherence to required guidelines and not NAK a submission because the submission offends their personal coding preferences [2]. If a reviewer thinks the code would be better with changes which do not affect correctness and are more in the vein of style modifications they should make helpful suggestions but give the review a 0 instead of actually NAK'ing the submission. NAK'ed reviews based on style issues force the submitter to adhere to someone else's unsubstantiated opinion and slows down the entire contribution process while submissions are reworked multiple times without any significant technical change. It's also demoralizing for submitters to have their contributions NAK'ed for reasons that are issues of opinion only, the submitter has to literally submit [3]. [1] http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bikeshedding [2] Despite the best attempts of computer science researchers over the years software development remains more of a craft than a science with unambiguous rules yielding exactly one solution. Often there are many valid approaches to solve a particular coding problem, the selection of one approach often boils down to the personal preferences of the craftsperson. This does not diminish the value of coding guidelines gleaned from years of analyzing software issues, what it does mean is those guidelines still leave plenty of room for different approaches and no one is the arbiter of the one and only correct way. [3] to give over or yield to the power or authority of another. -- John ___ OpenStack-dev mailing list OpenStack-dev@lists.openstack.org http://lists.openstack.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/openstack-dev
Re: [openstack-dev] Re : welcoming new committers (was Re: When is it okay for submitters to say 'I don't want to add tests' ?)
Good points from John. The only concern for first time reviewers is that their comments gets overseen by the committer. If the review comment is good, I feel core-reviewer must put some weight on it and thus encourage genuine suggestions. On Mon, Nov 4, 2013 at 9:33 AM, John Dennis jden...@redhat.com wrote: On 10/31/2013 10:36 PM, Jeremy Stanley wrote: As has been said many times already, OpenStack does not lack developers... it lacks reviewers. In regards to reviews in general and in particular for welcoming new committers I think we need to be careful about reviewers NAK'ing a submission for what is essentially bikeshedding [1]. Reviewers should focus on code correctness and adherence to required guidelines and not NAK a submission because the submission offends their personal coding preferences [2]. If a reviewer thinks the code would be better with changes which do not affect correctness and are more in the vein of style modifications they should make helpful suggestions but give the review a 0 instead of actually NAK'ing the submission. NAK'ed reviews based on style issues force the submitter to adhere to someone else's unsubstantiated opinion and slows down the entire contribution process while submissions are reworked multiple times without any significant technical change. It's also demoralizing for submitters to have their contributions NAK'ed for reasons that are issues of opinion only, the submitter has to literally submit [3]. [1] http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bikeshedding [2] Despite the best attempts of computer science researchers over the years software development remains more of a craft than a science with unambiguous rules yielding exactly one solution. Often there are many valid approaches to solve a particular coding problem, the selection of one approach often boils down to the personal preferences of the craftsperson. This does not diminish the value of coding guidelines gleaned from years of analyzing software issues, what it does mean is those guidelines still leave plenty of room for different approaches and no one is the arbiter of the one and only correct way. [3] to give over or yield to the power or authority of another. -- John ___ OpenStack-dev mailing list OpenStack-dev@lists.openstack.org http://lists.openstack.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/openstack-dev -- Ravi ___ OpenStack-dev mailing list OpenStack-dev@lists.openstack.org http://lists.openstack.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/openstack-dev
Re: [openstack-dev] Re : welcoming new committers (was Re: When is it okay for submitters to say 'I don't want to add tests' ?)
On 10/31/2013 10:36 PM, Jeremy Stanley wrote: On 2013-10-31 22:45:56 + (+), Romain Hardouin wrote: Adding a message for new comers is a good idea. I am a new Horizon contributor, some of my fixes have been merged (thanks to Upstream University :-) and reviewers of course) but I still hesitate to do code review. To my mind, it is reserved to known developpers whose opinion matters... Not at all. One of the best ways to become known within the community is to review code and provide good recommendations. Even something as simple as spotting typographical errors in changes to user-facing messages and documentation provides value. The more problems you can find (and ultimately help prevent) in a change, the faster your reputation will grow. As has been said many times already, OpenStack does not lack developers... it lacks reviewers. Reviewing and contributing unit tests are the developer activities we have for addressing quality. I think the issue here is how we as a community make sure there is balance between these activities and raw feature (and bug) contribution, given that most developers most enjoy hacking away, myself included. In a corporate software project, this balance would be enforced by one or all of: 1. Slowing down development 2. Providing more qa resources, including requiring developers to write unit tests 3. Knowingly accepting quality risk in exchange for some business-related gain As an open source community we cannot do some of these things. But lack of reviewers effectively slows down development, and we can strive for the scalability of quality that comes from developers writing unit tests. My first contribution to swift was rejected until I enhanced the test infrastructure even though what I did was similar to other things that were not really being tested. We should be nice about it, and spend a little extra effort in helping new contributors get into the swing of writing unit tests, but the review gate is the only real mechanism we have for making sure we have sufficient coverage to keep the code base maintainable by others in the future. I really like Rob's list because it leads down a path of better shared understanding of how lax/lenient reviewers should be about this. -David -David ___ OpenStack-dev mailing list OpenStack-dev@lists.openstack.org http://lists.openstack.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/openstack-dev
[openstack-dev] Re : welcoming new committers (was Re: When is it okay for submitters to say 'I don't want to add tests' ?)
Hi all, br/br/Adding a message for new comers is a good idea. br/I am a new Horizon contributor, some of my fixes have been merged (thanks to Upstream University :-) and reviewers of course) but I still hesitate to do code review. To my mind, it is reserved to known developpers whose opinion matters... br/br/- Romain___ OpenStack-dev mailing list OpenStack-dev@lists.openstack.org http://lists.openstack.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/openstack-dev
Re: [openstack-dev] Re : welcoming new committers (was Re: When is it okay for submitters to say 'I don't want to add tests' ?)
On 2013-10-31 22:45:56 + (+), Romain Hardouin wrote: Adding a message for new comers is a good idea. I am a new Horizon contributor, some of my fixes have been merged (thanks to Upstream University :-) and reviewers of course) but I still hesitate to do code review. To my mind, it is reserved to known developpers whose opinion matters... Not at all. One of the best ways to become known within the community is to review code and provide good recommendations. Even something as simple as spotting typographical errors in changes to user-facing messages and documentation provides value. The more problems you can find (and ultimately help prevent) in a change, the faster your reputation will grow. As has been said many times already, OpenStack does not lack developers... it lacks reviewers. -- Jeremy Stanley ___ OpenStack-dev mailing list OpenStack-dev@lists.openstack.org http://lists.openstack.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/openstack-dev
