[dpdk-dev] [dpdk-techboard] Consider improving the DPDKcontribution processes

[Maxime Coquelin]

On 5/26/20 9:06 AM, Tom Barbette wrote:
> Le 25/05/2020 à 22:34, Thomas Monjalon a écrit :
>> 25/05/2020 20:44, Morten Brørup:
>>> From: Thomas Monjalon
>>>> 25/05/2020 18:09, Burakov, Anatoly:
>>>>> obviously, but i have a suspicion that we'll get more of it if we
>>>> lower
>>>>> the barrier for entry (not the barrier for merge!). I think there is
>>>> a
>>>>> way to lower the secondary skill level needed to contribute to DPDK
>>>>> without lowering coding/merge standards with it.
>>>
>>> That is exactly what I am asking for: Lowering the barrier and
>>> increasing the feeling of success for newcomers. (The barrier for
>>> merge is probably fine; I'll leave that discussion to the maintainers.)
>>
>> I understand.
>>
>>
>>>> About the barrier for entry, maybe it is not obvious because I don't
>>>> communicate a lot about it, but please be aware that I (and other
>>>> maintainers I think) are doing a lot of changes in newcomer patches
>>>> to avoid asking them knowing the whole process from the beginning.
>>>> Then frequent contributors get educated on the way.
>>>
>>> Great! I wish that every developer would think and behave this way.
>>>
>>>>
>>>> I think the only real barrier we have is to sign the patch
>>>> with a real name and send an email to right list.
>>>> The ask for SoB real name is probably what started this thread
>>>> in Morten's mind. And the SoB requirement will *never* change.
>>>
>>> The incorrect Signed-off-by might be the only hard barrier (which we
>>> cannot avoid). But that did not trigger me.
>>>
>>> I was raising the discussion to bring attention to soft barriers for
>>> contributors. What triggered me was the request to split the patch
>>> into multiple patches; a kind of feedback I have seen before. For an
>>> experienced git user, this is probably very easy, but for a git
>>> newbie (like myself), it basically means starting all over and trying
>>> to figure out the right set of git commands to do this, which can be
>>> perceived as a difficult task requiring a lot of effort.
>>
>> Yes I am aware about this difficulty.
>> It is basically knowing git-reset and git-add -p.
>> I agree a cookbook for this kind of thing is required.
>>
>> I would like to do the split for newcomers,
>> but we need also to validate the explanations of each commit.
>> A solution in such case is to send the split so the newbie can just
>> fill what is missing.
>> This kind of workflow is really what we should look at improving.
>>
>>
>>> Perhaps we could supplement the Contributor Guidelines with a set of
>>> cookbooks for different steps in the contribution process, so
>>> reviewers can be refer newcomers to the relevant of these as part of
>>> the feedback. Just like any professional customer support team has a
>>> set of canned answers ready for common customer issues. (Please note:
>>> I am not suggesting adding an AI/ML chat bot reviewer to the mailing
>>> list!)
>>
>> OK
>>
>>
>>> The amount of Contributor Guideline documentation is also a
>>> balance... it must be long enough to contain the relevant information
>>> to get going, but short enough for newcomers to bother reading it.
>>
>> Yes, we need short intros and long explanations when really needed.
>> It is touching another issue: we lack some documentation love.
>>
>>
> 
> 
> Maybe we could find something that allows to "git push" to the
> patchwork, where it kind of appears already as a github-like discussion?
>  It doesn't miss a lot to enable writing from the website directly
> (basically auto-email).
> 
> Personnaly I've put a lot of efforts to fix simple comments, be sure
> that I wrote "v2" here, sign-off there, cc-ed the right person, not mess
> my the format-patch versions, changed only the cover letter, ... Quite
> afraid of bothering that big mailing list for nothing.

Maybe using git-publish would help here:
https://github.com/stefanha/git-publish

Using the simple git-puslish command, it manages revisions
automatically, open an editor for the cover letter, can run some scripts
to add proper maintainers, and hook available to run basic checks,
etc...

We could add a .gitpublish file to automate adding right maintainers
depending on the branch, etc...

For example, for Qemu the .gitpublish file looks like this:
https://github.com/qemu/qemu/blob/master/.gitpublish

> I'm infrequent enough to have te re-learn every time basically. It would
> be much easier with a git push, a fast online review of the diff, as on
> github/gitlab, and done. Also, those allow online edits, and therefore
> allows "elders" to do small fixes directly in the "patch". Some fixes
> are not worth the discussion and the chain of mails. That's what I'm
> missing the most personnaly.
> 
> Tom
>