[Python-Dev] Appeal for reviews
Stephen J. Turnbull
stephen at xemacs.org
Tue Apr 15 18:15:57 CEST 2014
On 14 Apr 2014 08:42, "R. David Murray" <rdmurray at bitdance.com> wrote:
>> Or to put it another way, I'd like to encourage contributors who
>> want to get commit access to focus just as much on doing good
>> reviews as they do on writing new patches. Currently the focus is
>> all on getting patches accepted.
>Huh, I hadn't thought of it that way before, but it's a very good
>point.
AFAICS Python already does very well at getting people to do reviewing
by comparison to most projects, though. And it's *not* all about
getting patches accepted -- newer people seem to do a lot of work on
PEPs and testing compared to most projects I've seen, and not just
because Python-Dev insists on them before getting code approved.
I've always really liked MvL's 5-reviews-to-get-1 approach. In the
context of this thread it has a number of nice properties. First, it
makes it explicit that cooperative work (even if it's expressed as
out-and-out horse-trading, it's still working together) is central to
python-dev. Second, it makes that work visible if people post their
requests to either python-dev or core-mentorship.[1][2] Third, it
emphasizes reviewing as a good thing and an important contribution.
People tend to think of reviews as "criticism", or even us-against-
them. Again, the activity and the idea that it is a Good Thing is (or
can be) visible to the contributors in general.
The only thing I don't like about it[3] is that it puts an explicit
price on core developer time ("my time is worth 5x as much as
yours"). I fear that it may be a little off-putting.
In this vein, I wonder if a slot for "new comments on old issues" in
the tracker report might not be useful. (Yeah, I know, the tracker
reporting function is free software. :) Maybe a "most active issues"
report, too.
This isn't to deprecate the "50% core developer" idea at all -- it's
great! I just don't know enough bosses in the field to know how to
sell that one.
Footnotes:
[1] Bazaar had a "patch pilot" program where an experienced developer
was detailed to clean the patch queue by shepherding newer developers
through their rather detailed process. But it had two disadvantages:
first, it really was all about getting patches accepted, and second,
the actual piloting tended to be done off-list.
[2] I know some people don't like core-mentorship because it's
somewhat less visible than python-dev. Let's not discuss that now,
it's just an example.
[3] Well, actually, when wearing my economist hat I like it a lot. :-)
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