llvm dev - Jun 2019 - [RFC] Documentation clarification: Phabricator, not the lists is the main entry point for new patches

The current documentation talks about both the Phabricator review, and review
as mail replies on -commits lists. It also talks about submitting
patches to lists,
with the subtext that it may be friendlier for outsiders.

It is true that Phabricator has some entry threshold, larger than
github, or maillists,
so the attempt is not unwarranted. But from what i can tell, 99.9% patches go
via Phabricator. There is a large chance that such a mail-only patch
will simply be
overlooked, ignored, or the very first reply will be "Please post the patch
to
Phabricator".

Both of these cases i would call counter-welcoming.
I don't think that is what we want?

I propose to fix the docs to specify that all new patches should go
via Phabricator, not lists:
https://reviews.llvm.org/D63488

Roman.

I don't think I've ever looked at llvm-commits for patches that need
reviewing except for when I was looking to actively get involved in
reviewing an area I wasn't already subscribed to by default. Certainly, if
somebody posted a patch on llvm-commits to one of the binutils like
llvm-readelf or llvm-objcopy, I'd be interested in it, but probably
wouldn't see it nowadays, as I have too great a workload to filter through
the mailing lists, whereas I can setup Herald rules to get myself
auto-subscribed/added as a reviewer to relevant patches on Phabricator.

Registering isn't a complicated process, compared to developing a patch in
most cases anyway.

That's a long way of saying +1.

On Wed, 19 Jun 2019 at 15:30, Roman Lebedev via llvm-dev <
llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org> wrote:
> The current documentation talks about both the Phabricator review, and
> review
> as mail replies on -commits lists. It also talks about submitting
> patches to lists,
> with the subtext that it may be friendlier for outsiders.
>
> It is true that Phabricator has some entry threshold, larger than
> github, or maillists,
> so the attempt is not unwarranted. But from what i can tell, 99.9% patches
> go
> via Phabricator. There is a large chance that such a mail-only patch
> will simply be
> overlooked, ignored, or the very first reply will be "Please post the
> patch to
> Phabricator".
>
> Both of these cases i would call counter-welcoming.
> I don't think that is what we want?
>
> I propose to fix the docs to specify that all new patches should go
> via Phabricator, not lists:
> https://reviews.llvm.org/D63488
>
> Roman.
> _______________________________________________
> LLVM Developers mailing list
> llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org
> https://lists.llvm.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/llvm-dev
>
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(Resend with the list re-added)

From: Robinson, Paul
Sent: Wednesday, June 19, 2019 11:49 AM
To: 'jh7370.2008 at my.bristol.ac.uk'; Roman Lebedev
Subject: RE: [llvm-dev] [RFC] Documentation clarification: Phabricator, not the
lists is the main entry point for new patches

Conversely, I always scan the mailing list, because I am incapable of navigating
the Phabricator UI to find the relevant and interesting reviews.  (People have
tried to help me in the past.  Maybe it's residual scarring from back when
Phab was actively user-hostile; I admit that's better now.  The
"help" remains spectacularly un-helpful, last I looked.)

There was talk in the past about connecting Phab up to GitHub somehow so any
GitHub user could authenticate to Phab with no real effort, and as we're
imminently moving to GitHub that seems like a really good idea.  With that in
place, the registration step effectively goes away, and I would have no further
objection on those grounds.
--paulr

From: llvm-dev [mailto:llvm-dev-bounces at lists.llvm.org] On Behalf Of James
Henderson via llvm-dev
Sent: Wednesday, June 19, 2019 10:51 AM
To: Roman Lebedev
Cc: llvm-dev
Subject: Re: [llvm-dev] [RFC] Documentation clarification: Phabricator, not the
lists is the main entry point for new patches

I don't think I've ever looked at llvm-commits for patches that need
reviewing except for when I was looking to actively get involved in reviewing an
area I wasn't already subscribed to by default. Certainly, if somebody
posted a patch on llvm-commits to one of the binutils like llvm-readelf or
llvm-objcopy, I'd be interested in it, but probably wouldn't see it
nowadays, as I have too great a workload to filter through the mailing lists,
whereas I can setup Herald rules to get myself auto-subscribed/added as a
reviewer to relevant patches on Phabricator.

Registering isn't a complicated process, compared to developing a patch in
most cases anyway.

That's a long way of saying +1.

On Wed, 19 Jun 2019 at 15:30, Roman Lebedev via llvm-dev <llvm-dev at
lists.llvm.org<mailto:llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org>> wrote:
The current documentation talks about both the Phabricator review, and review
as mail replies on -commits lists. It also talks about submitting
patches to lists,
with the subtext that it may be friendlier for outsiders.

It is true that Phabricator has some entry threshold, larger than
github, or maillists,
so the attempt is not unwarranted. But from what i can tell, 99.9% patches go
via Phabricator. There is a large chance that such a mail-only patch
will simply be
overlooked, ignored, or the very first reply will be "Please post the patch
to
Phabricator".

Both of these cases i would call counter-welcoming.
I don't think that is what we want?

I propose to fix the docs to specify that all new patches should go
via Phabricator, not lists:
https://reviews.llvm.org/D63488

Roman.
_______________________________________________
LLVM Developers mailing list
llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org<mailto:llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org>
https://lists.llvm.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/llvm-dev
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I believe the history is that when Phab was initially introduced, we wrote
the documentation this way to make things easy for reviewers who didn't
want to change their workflow. But, I agree with your observations. The
majority of code review seems to happen on Phabricator, and the best way to
get traction on a new patch is to upload it to Phab and add a few reviewers
by name. Regardless of what workflow reviewers would prefer, I think the
documentation should recommend Phabricator over email  to first time
contributors, since, in my experience, it gets better results.

On Wed, Jun 19, 2019 at 7:30 AM Roman Lebedev via llvm-dev <
llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org> wrote:
> The current documentation talks about both the Phabricator review, and
> review
> as mail replies on -commits lists. It also talks about submitting
> patches to lists,
> with the subtext that it may be friendlier for outsiders.
>
> It is true that Phabricator has some entry threshold, larger than
> github, or maillists,
> so the attempt is not unwarranted. But from what i can tell, 99.9% patches
> go
> via Phabricator. There is a large chance that such a mail-only patch
> will simply be
> overlooked, ignored, or the very first reply will be "Please post the
> patch to
> Phabricator".
>
> Both of these cases i would call counter-welcoming.
> I don't think that is what we want?
>
> I propose to fix the docs to specify that all new patches should go
> via Phabricator, not lists:
> https://reviews.llvm.org/D63488
>
> Roman.
> _______________________________________________
> LLVM Developers mailing list
> llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org
> https://lists.llvm.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/llvm-dev
>
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On 6/19/19 12:50 PM, Reid Kleckner via llvm-dev wrote:
I believe the history is that when Phab was initially introduced, we wrote the
documentation this way to make things easy for reviewers who didn't want to
change their workflow. But, I agree with your observations. The majority of code
review seems to happen on Phabricator, and the best way to get traction on a new
patch is to upload it to Phab and add a few reviewers by name. Regardless of
what workflow reviewers would prefer, I think the documentation should recommend
Phabricator over email  to first time contributors, since, in my experience, it
gets better results.


+1

 -Hal


On Wed, Jun 19, 2019 at 7:30 AM Roman Lebedev via llvm-dev <llvm-dev at
lists.llvm.org<mailto:llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org>> wrote:
The current documentation talks about both the Phabricator review, and review
as mail replies on -commits lists. It also talks about submitting
patches to lists,
with the subtext that it may be friendlier for outsiders.

It is true that Phabricator has some entry threshold, larger than
github, or maillists,
so the attempt is not unwarranted. But from what i can tell, 99.9% patches go
via Phabricator. There is a large chance that such a mail-only patch
will simply be
overlooked, ignored, or the very first reply will be "Please post the patch
to
Phabricator".

Both of these cases i would call counter-welcoming.
I don't think that is what we want?

I propose to fix the docs to specify that all new patches should go
via Phabricator, not lists:
https://reviews.llvm.org/D63488

Roman.
_______________________________________________
LLVM Developers mailing list
llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org<mailto:llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org>
https://lists.llvm.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/llvm-dev



_______________________________________________
LLVM Developers mailing list
llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org<mailto:llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org>
https://lists.llvm.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/llvm-dev


--
Hal Finkel
Lead, Compiler Technology and Programming Languages
Leadership Computing Facility
Argonne National Laboratory
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+1 for clarity as it is friendlier for outsiders

________________________________________
From: llvm-dev <llvm-dev-bounces at lists.llvm.org> on behalf of Roman
Lebedev via llvm-dev <llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org>
Sent: Wednesday, June 19, 2019 09:29
To: llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org
Subject: [llvm-dev] [RFC] Documentation clarification: Phabricator, not the
lists is the main entry point for new patches

The current documentation talks about both the Phabricator review, and review
as mail replies on -commits lists. It also talks about submitting
patches to lists,
with the subtext that it may be friendlier for outsiders.

It is true that Phabricator has some entry threshold, larger than
github, or maillists,
so the attempt is not unwarranted. But from what i can tell, 99.9% patches go
via Phabricator. There is a large chance that such a mail-only patch
will simply be
overlooked, ignored, or the very first reply will be "Please post the patch
to
Phabricator".

Both of these cases i would call counter-welcoming.
I don't think that is what we want?

I propose to fix the docs to specify that all new patches should go
via Phabricator, not lists:
https://reviews.llvm.org/D63488

Roman.
_______________________________________________
LLVM Developers mailing list
llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org
https://lists.llvm.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/llvm-dev