[MERGE] Create a new hook Branch.open. (Robert Collins)

[John Arbash Meinel]

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Robert Collins wrote:
> On Fri, 2008-09-05 at 00:04 -0500, John Arbash Meinel wrote:
> 
> 
>> I can agree that this particular instance did not. However, if we
>> generally actually *encourage* feature freezes during FF week, that
>> helps focus people to actually finish the things that they started, and
>> get some time on the bug tracker.
> 
> I think FF is too late to be starting to look at the bug tracker. bug
> management is an ongoing process, not one that spotty day-or-week
> activities do much for.

Sure, though focusing attention to it by saying "can you guys look at this" is
also helpful.


...

>> These are things that at least one person has approved, and often more
>> than one. That is a sign that we are doing a lot of work that isn't
>> getting merged. If it needs to be rejected/resubmitted fine. But it is
>> sitting not getting reviews, or being approved and not getting merged.
>> I've certainly been asking people to focus on reviewing (and I've gotten
>> "My Pending" down to only 5 items).
> 
> So, we have 29 things open. Given 7-8 'core' devs, thats under 4 things
> in flight each - but its actually spread out over a fair number of other
> people. I don't think thats bad at all.
> 
> What I think is undesirable is the length of the tail - things sitting
> around for ages.
> 

I think we are exhibiting both problems. We have patches submitted that
haven't had a definitive answer on them for far too long. (One of them since
*February*.) And quite a few patches that have been sitting since July. (About
2 months now.) Especially since at least some of them only need a second reviewer.

I certainly feel like something has been off for a while. We aren't getting
decisive actions on changes. We tend to get "how about you change this" but
then the tweaks are enough of a hassle that the implementer decides to just
let it sit.

...

> I think you're being very clear. But, its coming across as nagging and
> badgering. I know Aaron has commented on it, and now, so am I. When I
> was doing releases I really felt it was about just making sure that we
> got a release out the door, without regressions - the rest is business
> as normal, as we try to keep trunk unbroken and up to date with docs
> etc. There should be anything more to the release, if there is our basic
> process is broken and we should be working on that.
> 
> -Rob

I don't mean to speak for Aaron, but I think his specific complaint was that I
repeatedly asked for a review. I will admit that I was trying to steer
something for bzr 1.7, and that seems to have failed in several ways. A couple
of ideas took hold, but in general the people I was trying to reach ignored me.

I *do* feel like our basic process isn't functioning as smoothly and
efficiently as it should, and I was trying to address some of that as RM.
Looking at the bug tracker shows that we aren't responding to user feedback
terribly efficiently, and looking at the review queue shows we aren't
responding to developers efficiently.

I certainly tried to step up, and do reviews and triage bugs. But our review
process requires someone else to do so as well.

John
=:->
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