[lldb-dev] [cfe-dev] [RFC] Deprecate pre-commit email code reviews in favor of Phabricator

Tue May 18 13:01:06 PDT 2021

On Tue, May 18, 2021 at 6:50 AM Krzysztof Parzyszek <kparzysz at quicinc.com>
wrote:

> Post-commit reviews are conducted, in order of preference, on Phabricator,
>
> This still seems like a change in practice that I'm not in favor of,
> personally - due to the current divergence between email and phab review
> feedback. Yes, this would be one way to unify it - but I'm not sure it's
> necessarily the best one.
>
> I'd suggest leaving this to a separate proposal so as not to
> complicate/muddy the waters of the formalization of pre-commit review
> practice.
>
>
>
> I simply broke up the existing sentence from the documentation into two
> parts, one about pre-commit reviews and the other about all other code
> reviews (which are basically the post-commit reviews, although I’m open to
> corrections here).  The first part was modified to reflect the proposed
> change, the second part was left unchanged.
>

I think the issue is that the original phrasing was probably only intended
to describe the preference for pre-commit review. (I think statements about
post-commit review could reasonably read to be only those that say
"post-commit review", in this (
https://llvm.org/docs/CodeReview.html#can-code-be-reviewed-after-it-is-committed
) section.

So I think (at least in terms of how to read it in a way that matches
existing practice) the original wording amounted to something like this:

... "post-commit review can use any of the tools listed below" ...
... "pre-commit review is done in this order of phab, email, etc... "

ie: the post-commit review didn't have the same order of preference as
pre-commit review.

I'd probably pull out the post-commit review-specific wording back up to
where post-commit review is discussed, and leave the rest of this to talk
about pre-commit review (most of this document discussing unqualified
"review" seems predominantly to be talking about "pre-commit review" except
the part that talks about "post commit review").

Probably move the "on our web-based code-review tool (see Code Reviews with
Phabricator), by email on the relevant project’s commit mailing list, on
the project’s development list, or on the bug tracker." (without the "in
order of preference") up to the "post-commit review" section, instead of
referencing a version of it here.

> In this RFC I only want to change the part of the documentation that
> pertains specifically to pre-commit code reviews.  If the wording I used
> creates confusion, what would you suggest instead?
>
>
>
>
>
> --
>
> Krzysztof Parzyszek  kparzysz at quicinc.com   AI tools development
>
>
>
> *From:* David Blaikie <dblaikie at gmail.com>
> *Sent:* Monday, May 17, 2021 4:40 PM
> *To:* Krzysztof Parzyszek <kparzysz at quicinc.com>
> *Cc:* llvm-dev <llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org>; clangd-dev at lists.llvm.org;
> openmp-dev at lists.llvm.org; lldb-dev at lists.llvm.org; cfe-dev at lists.llvm.org;
> libcxx-dev at lists.llvm.org; flang-dev at lists.llvm.org;
> parallel_libs-dev at lists.llvm.org
> *Subject:* [EXT] Re: [cfe-dev] [RFC] Deprecate pre-commit email code
> reviews in favor of Phabricator
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Mon, May 17, 2021 at 11:12 AM Krzysztof Parzyszek via cfe-dev <
> cfe-dev at lists.llvm.org> wrote:
>
> This is a revision of the previous RFC[1].  This RFC limits the scope to
> pre-commit reviews only.
>
>
>
> *Statement:*
>
> Our current code review policy states[2]:
>
> “Code reviews are conducted, in order of preference, on our web-based
> code-review tool (see Code Reviews with Phabricator), by email on the
> relevant project’s commit mailing list, on the project’s development list,
> or on the bug tracker.”
>
> This proposal is to limit pre-commit code reviews only to Phabricator.
> This would apply to all projects in the LLVM monorepo.  With the change in
> effect, the amended policy would read:
>
> “Pre-commit code reviews are conducted on our web-based code-review tool
> (see Code Reviews with Phabricator).
>
> I'm with you here ^, this seems to document/formalize existing practice -
> though does this accurately reflect all the projects in the mororepo? I get
> the impression that mlir, maybe flang, etc might be doing reviews
> differently?
>
> Post-commit reviews are conducted, in order of preference, on Phabricator,
>
> This still seems like a change in practice that I'm not in favor of,
> personally - due to the current divergence between email and phab review
> feedback. Yes, this would be one way to unify it - but I'm not sure it's
> necessarily the best one.
>
> I'd suggest leaving this to a separate proposal so as not to
> complicate/muddy the waters of the formalization of pre-commit review
> practice.
>
> by email on the relevant project’s commit mailing list, on the project’s
> development list, or on the bug tracker.”
>
>
>
> *Current situation:*
>
>    1. In a recent llvm-dev thread[3], Christian Kühnel pointed out that
>    pre-commit code reviews rarely originate via an email (most are started on
>    Phabricator), although, as others pointed out, email responses to an
>    ongoing review are not uncommon.  (That thread also contains examples of
>    mishaps related to the email-Phabricator interactions, or email handling
>    itself.)
>    2. We have Phabricator patches that automatically apply email comments
>    to the Phabricator reviews, although reportedly this functionality is not
>    fully reliable[4,5].  This can cause review comments to be lost in the
>    email traffic.
>
>
>
> *Benefits:*
>
>    1. Single way of doing pre-commit code reviews: these code reviews are
>    a key part of the development process, and having one way of performing
>    them would make the process clearer and unambiguous.
>    2. Review authors and reviewers would only need to monitor one source
>    of comments without the fear that a review comment may end up overlooked.
>    3. This change simply codifies an existing practice.
>
>
>
> *Concerns:*
>
>    1. Because of the larger variety, email clients may offer better
>    accessibility options than web browsers.
>
>
>
>
>
> [1] https://lists.llvm.org/pipermail/llvm-dev/2021-May/150344.html
>
> [2]
> https://llvm.org/docs/CodeReview.html#what-tools-are-used-for-code-review
>
> [3] https://lists.llvm.org/pipermail/llvm-dev/2021-April/150129.html
>
> [4] https://lists.llvm.org/pipermail/llvm-dev/2021-April/150136.html
>
> [5] https://lists.llvm.org/pipermail/llvm-dev/2021-April/150139.html
>
>
>
>
>
> --
>
> Krzysztof Parzyszek  kparzysz at quicinc.com   AI tools development
>
>
>
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> cfe-dev at lists.llvm.org
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>
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