[dpdk-dev] Consider improving the DPDK contribution processes

[Wiles, Keith]

> On May 25, 2020, at 9:28 AM, Burakov, Anatoly <anatoly.burakov at intel.com> wrote:
> 
> On 25-May-20 1:53 PM, Thomas Monjalon wrote:
>> 25/05/2020 13:58, Jerin Jacob:
>>> 25/05/2020 11:34, Morten Brørup:
>>>> sending patches over an
>>>> email as opposed to a well-integrated web interface workflow is so alien
>>>> to most people that it definitely does discourage new contributions.
>>>> 
>>>> I understand the advantages of mailing lists (vendor independence,
>>>> universal compatibility, etc.), but after doing reviews in Github/Gitlab
>>>> for a while (we use those internally), going through DPDK mailing list
>>>> and reviewing code over email fills me with existential dread, as the
>>>> process feels so manual and 19th century to me.
>>> 
>>> Agree. I had a difference in opinion when I was not using those tools.
>>> My perspective changed after using Github and Gerrit etc.
>>> 
>>> Github pull request and integrated public CI(Travis, Shippable ,
>>> codecov) makes collaboration easy.
>>> Currently, in patchwork, we can not assign a patch other than the set
>>> of maintainers.
>>> I think, it would help the review process if the more fine-grained
>>> owner will be responsible for specific
>>> patch set.
>> The more fine-grain is achieved with Cc in mail.
>> But I understand not everybody knows/wants/can configure correctly
>> an email client. Emails are not easy for everybody, I agree.
>> I use GitHub as well, and I really prefer the clarity of the mail threads.
>> GitHub reviews tend to be line-focused, messy and not discussion-friendly.
>> I think contribution quality would be worst if using GitHub.
> 
> I have more experience with Gitlab than Github, but i really don't see it that way.
> 
> For one, reviewing in Gitlab makes it easier to see context in which changes appear. I mean, obviously, you can download the patch, apply it, and then do whatever you want with it in your editor/IDE, but it's just so much faster to do it right in the browser. Reviewing things with proper syntax highlighting and side-by-side diff with an option to see more context really makes a huge difference and is that much faster.
> 
> I would also vehemently disagree with the "clarity" argument. There is enforced minimum standard of clarity of discussion in a tool such as Gitlab. I'm sure you noticed that some people top-post, some bottom-post. Some will remove extraneous lines of patches while some will leave on comment in a 10K line patch and leave the rest as is, in quotes. Some people do weird quoting where they don't actually quote but just copy text verbatim, making it hard to determine where the quote starts. If the thread is long enough, you'd see the same text quoted over and over and over. All of that is not a problem within a single patch email, but it adds up to lots of wasted time on all sides.
> 
> And all of the above will not be a problem with a tool like Gitlab/Github. There are "general" comments that can be used for general discussion, and there are line-specific comments that can be used to discuss certain sections of the patch. I've done this many times in many reviews, and it works very well. Now, granted, I've never maintained an entire repository like DPDK, so you may have a different perspective, but i really don't see how long email chains have "clarity" that a discussion thread with proper quoting, links to code, markdown syntax, etc. doesn't.
> 
> (for the record, i don't consider Gerrit to be a good tool because it enforces a particular git workflow, one that is not at all compatible with how our community works. GitLab, on the other hand, "just works" - i'm assuming GitHub is very similar)
> 
>> There is a mailing list discussing workflow tooling:
>> 	https://lore.kernel.org/workflows/
> 

Bummer, I did not have to write my email, so +1000 to this one.
> 
> -- 
> Thanks,
> Anatoly