| > Make it clear that it is the contributor's responsibility to identify | reviewers for their merge requests. | | Asking for reviews is one of the most frustrating parts of | contributing patches, even if you know who to ask! So I think the | maintainer's should be responsible for finding suitable and willing | reviewers. It is true that it's hard to find reviewers. But if it's hard for the author it is also hard for the maintainers. A patch is a service that an author is offering, which is great. But every patch is owed, as a matter of right, suitable and willing reviewers, the patch is /also/ a blank cheque that any author can write, but it's up to someone else to pay. That's not good either. No author has an unlimited call on the time of other volunteers, and I don't think any author truly expects that. It's an informal gift economy. I review your patches (a) because I have learned that you have good judgement and write good code (b) because I want the bug that you are fixing to be fixed and (c) because you give me all sorts of helpful feedback about my patches, or otherwise contribute to the community in constructive ways. That may make it hard for /new/ authors to get started. Being an assiduous reviewer is an excellent plan, because it gets you into GHC's code base, guided by someone else's work; and it earns you all those good-contributor points. But even then it may be hard. So I think it's absolutely reasonable for authors to ask for help in finding reviewers. But simply saying that it's "the maintainers" responsibility to find reviewers goes much too far in the other direction, IMHO. Perhaps we should articulate some of this thinking. Simon | -----Original Message----- | From: ghc-devs On Behalf Of Matthew | Pickering | Sent: 09 October 2019 11:18 | To: Ben Gamari | Cc: ghc-devs@haskell.org | Subject: Re: Proposed changes to merge request workflow | | Sounds good in principal but I object to | | > Make it clear that it is the contributor's responsibility to identify | reviewers for their merge requests. | | Asking for reviews is one of the most frustrating parts of | contributing patches, even if you know who to ask! So I think the | maintainer's should be responsible for finding suitable and willing | reviewers. | | Cheers, | | Matt | | On Tue, Oct 8, 2019 at 7:17 PM Ben Gamari wrote: | > | > tl;dr. I would like feedback on a few proposed changes [1] to our merge | > request workflow. | > | > | > Hello everyone, | > | > Over the past six months I have been monitoring the operation of our | > merge request workflow, which arose rather organically in the wake of | > the initial move to GitLab. While it works reasonably well, there is | > clearly room for improvement: | > | > * we have no formal way to track the status of in-flight merge | > requests (e.g. for authors to mark an MR as ready for review or | > reviewers to mark work as ready for merge) | > | > * merge requests still at times languish without review | > | > * the backport protocol is somewhat error prone and requires a great | > deal of attention to ensure that patches don't slip through the | > cracks | > | > * there is no technical mechanism to prevent that under-reviewed | > patches from being merged (either intentionally or otherwise) to | > `master` | > | > To address this I propose [1] a few changes to our workflow: | > | > 1. Define explicit phases of the merge request lifecycle, | > systematically identified with labels. This will help to make it | > clear who is responsible for a merge request at every stage of its | > lifecycle. | > | > 2. Make it clear that it is the contributor's responsibility to | > identify reviewers for their merge requests. | > | > 3. Institute a final pre-merge sanity check to ensure that | > patches are adequately reviewed, documented, tested, and have had | > their ticket and MR metadata updated. | > | > Note that this is merely a proposal; I am actively seeking input from | > the developer community. Do let me know what you think. | > | > Cheers, | > | > - Ben | > | > | > [1] | https://nam06.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fgitlab.h | askell.org%2Fghc%2Fghc%2Fwikis%2Fproposals%2Fmerge-request- | workflow&data=02%7C01%7Csimonpj%40microsoft.com%7Cd1199fd308b442cf744f | 08d74ca2074b%7C72f988bf86f141af91ab2d7cd011db47%7C1%7C0%7C6370621311033130 | 52&sdata=SxBADAuF%2FvGzduaytetUzIxGr8lC%2BjTX2eCLNEoOCkQ%3D&reserv | ed=0 | > _______________________________________________ | > ghc-devs mailing list | > ghc-devs@haskell.org | > | https://nam06.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fmail.hask | ell.org%2Fcgi-bin%2Fmailman%2Flistinfo%2Fghc- | devs&data=02%7C01%7Csimonpj%40microsoft.com%7Cd1199fd308b442cf744f08d7 | 4ca2074b%7C72f988bf86f141af91ab2d7cd011db47%7C1%7C0%7C637062131103313052&a | mp;sdata=T%2FyLoRH9BTIVPxMzF0%2BAa3c20qCBkhvQrp53FtROz40%3D&reserved=0 | _______________________________________________ | ghc-devs mailing list | ghc-devs@haskell.org | https://nam06.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fmail.hask | ell.org%2Fcgi-bin%2Fmailman%2Flistinfo%2Fghc- | devs&data=02%7C01%7Csimonpj%40microsoft.com%7Cd1199fd308b442cf744f08d7 | 4ca2074b%7C72f988bf86f141af91ab2d7cd011db47%7C1%7C0%7C637062131103323047&a | mp;sdata=IwsIP3P6W5qtsLxfePbYOWTXdPLttNMLHWXkuTtVWgI%3D&reserved=0

If the maintainers are not willing to either review or find reviewers for a new contributors patch then it doesn't seem to me that a project wants or values new contributors. A maintainer can make a value judgement about a patch that is isn't worth reviewing, but such situations are exceedingly rare. Everyone contributes patches in good faith in order to make the compiler better. Realistically it's impossible to be a good reviewer without having implemented patches on the code base. If you don't have a good handle for how things work then it's too big to get a feel for just by reading the code. You need to learn how things fit together by getting stuck writing patches. At least some of the maintainers are paid to maintain GHC and as such, should be expected to perform responsibilities that volunteers are not willing to perform. One of these tasks should be finding reviewers for all patches and making sure contributions do not languish indefinitely. Apart from this one point the suggested process sounds good but it seems to have stalled in the last month. Cheers, Matt On Wed, Oct 9, 2019 at 11:31 AM Simon Peyton Jones wrote:

| > Make it clear that it is the contributor's responsibility to identify | reviewers for their merge requests. | | Asking for reviews is one of the most frustrating parts of | contributing patches, even if you know who to ask! So I think the | maintainer's should be responsible for finding suitable and willing | reviewers.

It is true that it's hard to find reviewers. But if it's hard for the author it is also hard for the maintainers. A patch is a service that an author is offering, which is great. But every patch is owed, as a matter of right, suitable and willing reviewers, the patch is /also/ a blank cheque that any author can write, but it's up to someone else to pay. That's not good either. No author has an unlimited call on the time of other volunteers, and I don't think any author truly expects that.

It's an informal gift economy. I review your patches (a) because I have learned that you have good judgement and write good code (b) because I want the bug that you are fixing to be fixed and (c) because you give me all sorts of helpful feedback about my patches, or otherwise contribute to the community in constructive ways.

That may make it hard for /new/ authors to get started. Being an assiduous reviewer is an excellent plan, because it gets you into GHC's code base, guided by someone else's work; and it earns you all those good-contributor points. But even then it may be hard. So I think it's absolutely reasonable for authors to ask for help in finding reviewers.

But simply saying that it's "the maintainers" responsibility to find reviewers goes much too far in the other direction, IMHO.

Perhaps we should articulate some of this thinking.

Simon

| -----Original Message----- | From: ghc-devs On Behalf Of Matthew | Pickering | Sent: 09 October 2019 11:18 | To: Ben Gamari | Cc: ghc-devs@haskell.org | Subject: Re: Proposed changes to merge request workflow | | Sounds good in principal but I object to | | > Make it clear that it is the contributor's responsibility to identify | reviewers for their merge requests. | | Asking for reviews is one of the most frustrating parts of | contributing patches, even if you know who to ask! So I think the | maintainer's should be responsible for finding suitable and willing | reviewers. | | Cheers, | | Matt | | On Tue, Oct 8, 2019 at 7:17 PM Ben Gamari wrote: | > | > tl;dr. I would like feedback on a few proposed changes [1] to our merge | > request workflow. | > | > | > Hello everyone, | > | > Over the past six months I have been monitoring the operation of our | > merge request workflow, which arose rather organically in the wake of | > the initial move to GitLab. While it works reasonably well, there is | > clearly room for improvement: | > | > * we have no formal way to track the status of in-flight merge | > requests (e.g. for authors to mark an MR as ready for review or | > reviewers to mark work as ready for merge) | > | > * merge requests still at times languish without review | > | > * the backport protocol is somewhat error prone and requires a great | > deal of attention to ensure that patches don't slip through the | > cracks | > | > * there is no technical mechanism to prevent that under-reviewed | > patches from being merged (either intentionally or otherwise) to | > `master` | > | > To address this I propose [1] a few changes to our workflow: | > | > 1. Define explicit phases of the merge request lifecycle, | > systematically identified with labels. This will help to make it | > clear who is responsible for a merge request at every stage of its | > lifecycle. | > | > 2. Make it clear that it is the contributor's responsibility to | > identify reviewers for their merge requests. | > | > 3. Institute a final pre-merge sanity check to ensure that | > patches are adequately reviewed, documented, tested, and have had | > their ticket and MR metadata updated. | > | > Note that this is merely a proposal; I am actively seeking input from | > the developer community. Do let me know what you think. | > | > Cheers, | > | > - Ben | > | > | > [1] | https://nam06.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fgitlab.h | askell.org%2Fghc%2Fghc%2Fwikis%2Fproposals%2Fmerge-request- | workflow&data=02%7C01%7Csimonpj%40microsoft.com%7Cd1199fd308b442cf744f | 08d74ca2074b%7C72f988bf86f141af91ab2d7cd011db47%7C1%7C0%7C6370621311033130 | 52&sdata=SxBADAuF%2FvGzduaytetUzIxGr8lC%2BjTX2eCLNEoOCkQ%3D&reserv | ed=0 | > _______________________________________________ | > ghc-devs mailing list | > ghc-devs@haskell.org | > | https://nam06.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fmail.hask | ell.org%2Fcgi-bin%2Fmailman%2Flistinfo%2Fghc- | devs&data=02%7C01%7Csimonpj%40microsoft.com%7Cd1199fd308b442cf744f08d7 | 4ca2074b%7C72f988bf86f141af91ab2d7cd011db47%7C1%7C0%7C637062131103313052&a | mp;sdata=T%2FyLoRH9BTIVPxMzF0%2BAa3c20qCBkhvQrp53FtROz40%3D&reserved=0 | _______________________________________________ | ghc-devs mailing list | ghc-devs@haskell.org | https://nam06.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fmail.hask | ell.org%2Fcgi-bin%2Fmailman%2Flistinfo%2Fghc- | devs&data=02%7C01%7Csimonpj%40microsoft.com%7Cd1199fd308b442cf744f08d7 | 4ca2074b%7C72f988bf86f141af91ab2d7cd011db47%7C1%7C0%7C637062131103323047&a | mp;sdata=IwsIP3P6W5qtsLxfePbYOWTXdPLttNMLHWXkuTtVWgI%3D&reserved=0

Hi! I have contributed a patch or two to GHC, so I guess I’m a reasonable example of an newbie. The step of nominating reviewers just wouldn’t work for me. I have no idea of who in this project would be willing and able to give a review. Or who the eligible reviewers are. Maybe I’d select someone who haven’t been active for years. If you do this, can you please add an alternative “I’m a clueless newbie, help me select reviewers” to that step? Regards, Niklas

8 nov. 2019 kl. 11:53 skrev Simon Peyton Jones via ghc-devs :

| If the maintainers are not willing to either review or find reviewers | for a new contributors patch | then it doesn't seem to me that a project wants or values new | contributors.

Yes, that would be an unfortunate -- and indeed wrong -- impression to convey. Thanks for highlighting it.

You'd like the maintainers to have an *obligation* to cause someone to produce a good review on every patch. Here's the worst-case scenario: a well-meaning but inexperienced person produces a stream of large, ill-thought-out, and mostly wrong patches. To give a guarantee of high quality reviews of those patches amounts to a blank cheque on the time of volunteers working mostly in their spare time.

Now, of course, that's an extreme scenario. But that's why I'm keen to avoid making it an unconditional obligation that the few maintainers must discharge.

I don’t think there is really a difference of opinion here. Of course we welcome patches; of course everyone will try to help find reviewers if they are lacking!

So how about this - the author nominates reviewers - if he or she finds difficulty in doing so, or the reviewers s/he nominates are unresponsive, then he or she should ask for help - maintainers should make efforts to help

In other words, as an author you remain in control. But help is available if you need it.

What do others think?

Simon

| -----Original Message----- | From: Matthew Pickering | Sent: 08 November 2019 10:25 | To: Simon Peyton Jones | Cc: Ben Gamari ; ghc-devs@haskell.org | Subject: Re: Proposed changes to merge request workflow | | If the maintainers are not willing to either review or find reviewers | for a new contributors patch | then it doesn't seem to me that a project wants or values new | contributors. | | A maintainer can make a value judgement about a patch that is isn't | worth reviewing, but such | situations are exceedingly rare. Everyone contributes patches in good | faith in order to make the compiler better. | | Realistically it's impossible to be a good reviewer without having | implemented patches on the code base. If you don't | have a good handle for how things work then it's too big to get a feel | for just by reading the code. You need to learn how things | fit together by getting stuck writing patches. | | At least some of the maintainers are paid to maintain GHC and as such, | should be expected to perform responsibilities that | volunteers are not willing to perform. One of these tasks should be | finding reviewers for all patches and making sure contributions | do not languish indefinitely. | | Apart from this one point the suggested process sounds good but it | seems to have stalled in the last month. | | Cheers, | | Matt | | On Wed, Oct 9, 2019 at 11:31 AM Simon Peyton Jones | wrote: | > | > | > Make it clear that it is the contributor's responsibility to | identify | > | reviewers for their merge requests. | > | | > | Asking for reviews is one of the most frustrating parts of | > | contributing patches, even if you know who to ask! So I think the | > | maintainer's should be responsible for finding suitable and willing | > | reviewers. | > | > It is true that it's hard to find reviewers. But if it's hard for the | author it is also hard for the maintainers. A patch is a service that an | author is offering, which is great. But every patch is owed, as a matter | of right, suitable and willing reviewers, the patch is /also/ a blank | cheque that any author can write, but it's up to someone else to pay. | That's not good either. No author has an unlimited call on the time of | other volunteers, and I don't think any author truly expects that. | > | > It's an informal gift economy. I review your patches (a) because I have | learned that you have good judgement and write good code (b) because I | want the bug that you are fixing to be fixed and (c) because you give me | all sorts of helpful feedback about my patches, or otherwise contribute to | the community in constructive ways. | > | > That may make it hard for /new/ authors to get started. Being an | assiduous reviewer is an excellent plan, because it gets you into GHC's | code base, guided by someone else's work; and it earns you all those good- | contributor points. But even then it may be hard. So I think it's | absolutely reasonable for authors to ask for help in finding reviewers. | > | > But simply saying that it's "the maintainers" responsibility to find | reviewers goes much too far in the other direction, IMHO. | > | > Perhaps we should articulate some of this thinking. | > | > Simon | > | > | -----Original Message----- | > | From: ghc-devs On Behalf Of Matthew | > | Pickering | > | Sent: 09 October 2019 11:18 | > | To: Ben Gamari | > | Cc: ghc-devs@haskell.org | > | Subject: Re: Proposed changes to merge request workflow | > | | > | Sounds good in principal but I object to | > | | > | > Make it clear that it is the contributor's responsibility to | identify | > | reviewers for their merge requests. | > | | > | Asking for reviews is one of the most frustrating parts of | > | contributing patches, even if you know who to ask! So I think the | > | maintainer's should be responsible for finding suitable and willing | > | reviewers. | > | | > | Cheers, | > | | > | Matt | > | | > | On Tue, Oct 8, 2019 at 7:17 PM Ben Gamari wrote: | > | > | > | > tl;dr. I would like feedback on a few proposed changes [1] to our | merge | > | > request workflow. | > | > | > | > | > | > Hello everyone, | > | > | > | > Over the past six months I have been monitoring the operation of | our | > | > merge request workflow, which arose rather organically in the wake | of | > | > the initial move to GitLab. While it works reasonably well, there | is | > | > clearly room for improvement: | > | > | > | > * we have no formal way to track the status of in-flight merge | > | > requests (e.g. for authors to mark an MR as ready for review or | > | > reviewers to mark work as ready for merge) | > | > | > | > * merge requests still at times languish without review | > | > | > | > * the backport protocol is somewhat error prone and requires a | great | > | > deal of attention to ensure that patches don't slip through the | > | > cracks | > | > | > | > * there is no technical mechanism to prevent that under-reviewed | > | > patches from being merged (either intentionally or otherwise) | to | > | > `master` | > | > | > | > To address this I propose [1] a few changes to our workflow: | > | > | > | > 1. Define explicit phases of the merge request lifecycle, | > | > systematically identified with labels. This will help to make | it | > | > clear who is responsible for a merge request at every stage of | its | > | > lifecycle. | > | > | > | > 2. Make it clear that it is the contributor's responsibility to | > | > identify reviewers for their merge requests. | > | > | > | > 3. Institute a final pre-merge sanity check to ensure that | > | > patches are adequately reviewed, documented, tested, and have | had | > | > their ticket and MR metadata updated. | > | > | > | > Note that this is merely a proposal; I am actively seeking input | from | > | > the developer community. Do let me know what you think. | > | > | > | > Cheers, | > | > | > | > - Ben | > | > | > | > | > | > [1] | > | | https://nam06.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fgitlab.h | > | askell.org%2Fghc%2Fghc%2Fwikis%2Fproposals%2Fmerge-request- | > | | workflow&data=02%7C01%7Csimonpj%40microsoft.com%7Cd1199fd308b442cf744f | > | | 08d74ca2074b%7C72f988bf86f141af91ab2d7cd011db47%7C1%7C0%7C6370621311033130 | > | | 52&sdata=SxBADAuF%2FvGzduaytetUzIxGr8lC%2BjTX2eCLNEoOCkQ%3D&reserv | > | ed=0 | > | > _______________________________________________ | > | > ghc-devs mailing list | > | > ghc-devs@haskell.org | > | > | > | | https://nam06.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fmail.hask | > | ell.org%2Fcgi-bin%2Fmailman%2Flistinfo%2Fghc- | > | | devs&data=02%7C01%7Csimonpj%40microsoft.com%7Cd1199fd308b442cf744f08d7 | > | | 4ca2074b%7C72f988bf86f141af91ab2d7cd011db47%7C1%7C0%7C637062131103313052&a | > | | mp;sdata=T%2FyLoRH9BTIVPxMzF0%2BAa3c20qCBkhvQrp53FtROz40%3D&reserved=0 | > | _______________________________________________ | > | ghc-devs mailing list | > | ghc-devs@haskell.org | > | | https://nam06.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fmail.hask | > | ell.org%2Fcgi-bin%2Fmailman%2Flistinfo%2Fghc- | > | | devs&data=02%7C01%7Csimonpj%40microsoft.com%7Cd1199fd308b442cf744f08d7 | > | | 4ca2074b%7C72f988bf86f141af91ab2d7cd011db47%7C1%7C0%7C637062131103323047&a | > | | mp;sdata=IwsIP3P6W5qtsLxfePbYOWTXdPLttNMLHWXkuTtVWgI%3D&reserved=0 _______________________________________________ ghc-devs mailing list ghc-devs@haskell.org http://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/ghc-devs

I wonder if it would alleviate the concerns to have a ghc-maintainers mailing list. This is distinct from ghc-devs, in that the maintainers have GHC as their day job. It would explicitly invite email from folks struggling to figure out how to contribute. I don't mean to create more mail for Ben et al, but having an explicit "seek help here" direction is nice. And (at least for me) mailing a list for help feels more comfortable than emailing an individual. Richard

On Nov 8, 2019, at 6:30 PM, Ben Gamari wrote:

Simon Peyton Jones via ghc-devs mailto:ghc-devs@haskell.org> writes:

...

| If the maintainers are not willing to either review or find reviewers | for a new contributors patch | then it doesn't seem to me that a project wants or values new | contributors.

Yes, that would be an unfortunate -- and indeed wrong -- impression to convey. Thanks for highlighting it.

You'd like the maintainers to have an *obligation* to cause someone to produce a good review on every patch. Here's the worst-case scenario: a well-meaning but inexperienced person produces a stream of large, ill-thought-out, and mostly wrong patches. To give a guarantee of high quality reviews of those patches amounts to a blank cheque on the time of volunteers working mostly in their spare time.

Now, of course, that's an extreme scenario. But that's why I'm keen to avoid making it an unconditional obligation that the few maintainers must discharge.

I don’t think there is really a difference of opinion here. Of course we welcome patches; of course everyone will try to help find reviewers if they are lacking!

So how about this - the author nominates reviewers - if he or she finds difficulty in doing so, or the reviewers s/he nominates are unresponsive, then he or she should ask for help - maintainers should make efforts to help

In my mind there has always been a (perhaps too implicit) promise that maintainers are always present in the background and happy to help in finding reviewers if asked (and perhaps even if not, if it seems a contributor is lost).

Perhaps we should make this more explicit?

Cheers,

- Ben

_______________________________________________ ghc-devs mailing list ghc-devs@haskell.org mailto:ghc-devs@haskell.org http://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/ghc-devs http://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/ghc-devs

Matthew Pickering writes:

If the maintainers are not willing to either review or find reviewers for a new contributors patch then it doesn't seem to me that a project wants or values new contributors.

For what it's worth, I am happy to try to find reviewers for a newcomer's patch. However, on the whole it is better for everyone involved if the contributor does it: * the contributor is more involved in the process and, consequently, more invested * the process moves more quickly since the contributor doesn't need to wait for someone else to find reviewers for their work * me and the rest of us at Well-Typed are less of a bottleneck and therefore have more time for improving GHC Of course, even with this policy, if I see a patch languishing then I will try to handle it. In my view all we are doing here is setting the preferred default; .

A maintainer can make a value judgement about a patch that is isn't worth reviewing, but such situations are exceedingly rare. Everyone contributes patches in good faith in order to make the compiler better.

Realistically it's impossible to be a good reviewer without having implemented patches on the code base. If you don't have a good handle for how things work then it's too big to get a feel for just by reading the code. You need to learn how things fit together by getting stuck writing patches.

At least some of the maintainers are paid to maintain GHC and as such, should be expected to perform responsibilities that volunteers are not willing to perform. One of these tasks should be finding reviewers for all patches and making sure contributions do not languish indefinitely.

Apart from this one point the suggested process sounds good but it seems to have stalled in the last month.

Indeed I've been stuck in an endless cycle of pre-release tasks. Hopefully this will end today. Cheers, - Ben