[llvm-dev] [RFC] 'Review corner' section in LLVM Weekly

[Alex Bradbury via llvm-dev]

On 27 August 2017 at 00:01, Alex Bradbury <asb at asbradbury.org> wrote:
> Hi all. I'm assuming most people reading this email are familiar with LLVM's
> code review process <http://llvm.org/docs/DeveloperPolicy.html#code-reviews>
> as well as LLVM Weekly, the development newsletter I've written and sent out
> every Monday since Jan 2014. Since that time, it's provided something of a
> "signal boost" for important mailing list discussions and commits. I feel it
> could play a similar role in helping patches that are stuck waiting for code
> reviews, or drawing attention to submissions from first time contributors.
> There may be alternative or complementary approaches to tackling this
> perceived problem we should discuss - I'm coming from a position of trying to
> apply the tools I have at my disposal. Also see my previous thoughts on this
> issue <http://lists.llvm.org/pipermail/llvm-dev/2016-November/106696.html>.

Hans Wennborg suggested on Twitter that bugs could also be included. I
can't write a coherent response in 140 characters, so am responding
here.

I think that highlighting important bugs is also a useful activity,
but I have less faith that there's something LLVM Weekly can do to
help here. There may be some value in highlighting bugs which are
release blockers (though I already try to make sure I link to any such
list when posted by the release manager) or a selection of 'beginner'
bugs, (props to Brian Gesiak for pushing for this category). But
beyond that, how do you decide which bugs to highlight? With patches,
it's normally the case that a highly motivated party (the patch
author) has put in the majority of the work, and a relatively smaller
amount of incremental effort is required from others in the LLVM
community (code review). With bugs it's the other way around - a huge
amount of additional work might be required to properly diagnose and
address a bug report.

I'm totally open to trying something if you think there's a way LLVM
Weekly can have an impact in this area, but I'm less hopeful about the
potential impact in reducing the number of open bugs.

Best,

Alex