llvm dev - Feb 2013 - [LLVMdev] Question about changes to llvm::Argument::addAttr(AttributeSet AS) API

On Feb 7, 2013, at 2:25 PM, Bill Wendling <wendling at apple.com> wrote:
> On Feb 7, 2013, at 12:14 AM, David Chisnall <David.Chisnall at
cl.cam.ac.uk> wrote:
> 
>> The comment on other VCSs seems irrelevant, but if you are making such
invasive changes that they must be done in multiple passes then either a feature
branch and a merge or a local git clone seem the correct ways of doing them. 
Dumping 3000 lines of changes in the tree in one go is preferable to leaving the
tree in flux for a week.
> 
> Really? I got yelled at by Chris the last time I put several changes in the
tree within a short amount of time. It also obviates the use of the buildbots to
do something like that.
> 
Oh, and the tree wasn't "in flux" in the manner you suggest. It
was stable after each commit. Everything that was temporary was mentioned as
such in the log messages and/or with FIXMEs. At any point in time, you or anyone
else could have asked me what was up (even though I wrote that there would be
sweeping changes well before they happened), and I would have gladly told you
what was stable, what you had to change to make your code work, if you should
wait, etc. Only two people did: the Mips and sanitizer people (and I suggested
that they waited, or gave them workarounds which they could use in the
meantime). I also fixed those projects I could (e.g. dragonegg). No one else
made a sound while I did this.  All of the rest I assumed didn't have
problems or knew how to fix them by looking at the patches I submitted or would
at the very least write to me and ask me how to fix their code. Again, no one
(including you) ever did this.

The only thing that *might* have been missing was a write-up of exactly what the
classes would eventually look like. However, that wouldn't have helped you
during the transition. Now that the transition is over, you can now use the
classes as you will. There may be small changes to them, but they won't be
the same sweeping changes you are complaining about here.

I worked *very* hard to make things as stable as possible as quickly as
possible. I didn't do anything "piecemeal" or
"randomly". What happened happened because I needed things to be as
stable as possible while I was changing something fundamental to LLVM.

And no, I will never "dump" 3000 lines of patches into the tree unless
they were all purely mechanical in nature. I will prefer an incremental approach
to that every time. If I did use git or whatever other vcs, I would have
submitted the patches gradually, thus achieving the same result of modifying the
tree gradually and it being "in flux" for a week.

-bw

Hi Bill,

  Just my 2 cents. How about sent a "HEADS UP" message to the ML 
before you make changes. You can say "Hey, if you're using those
API I am going to change, please wait until I say everything is
stable." I think David can wait until you say the changes are done
and done, please sync with TOT.

  How about that, David?

Regards,
chenwj

-- 
Wei-Ren Chen (陳韋任)
Computer Systems Lab, Institute of Information Science,
Academia Sinica, Taiwan (R.O.C.)
Tel:886-2-2788-3799 #1667
Homepage: http://people.cs.nctu.edu.tw/~chenwj

On Feb 7, 2013, at 6:23 PM, 陳韋任 (Wei-Ren Chen) <chenwj at
iis.sinica.edu.tw> wrote:
> Hi Bill,
> 
>  Just my 2 cents. How about sent a "HEADS UP" message to the ML 
> before you make changes. You can say "Hey, if you're using those
> API I am going to change, please wait until I say everything is
> stable." I think David can wait until you say the changes are done
> and done, please sync with TOT.
Hi 陳韋任,

That's a good idea and I missed doing that. I apologies for the problems my
changes caused. The attribute classes are now stable enough to use. Any changes
to them will be small enough for people to update their code easily.

-bw

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