Re: Sync Rep for 2011CF1

On Wed, Feb 9, 2011 at 7:53 AM, Peter Eisentraut <peter_e(at)gmx(dot)net> wrote:
> Moreover, under the current process, it is apparent that reviewing is
> the bottleneck.  More code gets written than gets reviewed.  By
> insisting on the current schedule, we would just push the growing review
> backlog ahead of ourselves.  The solution (at least short-term, while
> maintaining the process) has to be to increase the resources (in
> practice: time) dedicated to reviewing relative to coding.

Yep. People who submit patches must also review patches if they want
their own stuff reviewed.

It sounds to me like what's being proposed is that I should spend
another month working on other people's patches, while they work on
their own patches. I can't get excited about that. The situation
with reviewing has gotten totally out of hand. I review and commit
more patches as part of each CommitFest than anyone except Tom, and I
think there have been some CommitFests where I did more patches than
he did (though he still wins by a mile if you factor in patch
complexity). But on the flip side, I can't always get a reviewer for
my own patches, or sometimes I get a perfunctory review that someone
spent ten minutes on. Huh?

So I heartily approve of the suggestion that we need to devote more
energy to reviewing, if it means "more reviewing by the people who are
not me". And allow me to suggest that that energy get put in NOW,
rather than a month from now. Most of the patches that still need
review are not that complicated. At least half of them could probably
be meaningfully reviewed in an hour or two. Then the author could
post an update tomorrow. Then the reviewer could spend another 30
minutes and mark them ready for committer. Next!

There are certainly some patches in this CommitFest that need more
attention than that, and that probably need the attention of a senior
community member. Jeff's range types patch and Alvaro's key lock
patch are two of those. And I would be willing to do that, except
that I'm already listed as a reviewer for FOURTEEN PATCHES this
CommitFest, plus I committed some others that someone else reviewed
and am also functioning as CommitFest manager. The problem isn't so
much the amount of calendar time that's required to get through 100
patches as the many people either submit half-baked code and assume
that they or someone else will fix it later, or else they submit code
but don't do an amount of review work equal to the amount of review
work they generate.

--
Robert Haas
EnterpriseDB: http://www.enterprisedb.com
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