Patch Pilot report

[Andrew Bennetts]

Robert Collins wrote:
> On Mon, 2009-11-30 at 15:12 +1100, Martin Pool wrote:
> > 
> > I think, unless and until Launchpad gets a concept of 'responsible
> > person' for a review
> > <https://bugs.edge.launchpad.net/launchpad-code/+bug/488540>, it
> > doesn't make sense for pilots to retain ownership of a patch once
> > their week ends.  So I'm going to look at all open reviews, and then
> > from next Monday not do any piloting.  Obviously if people have a
> > personal interest in a particular patch they can keep looking at it. 
> 
> I disagree with this quite strongly; the number of patches to pilot is
> pretty small - within a week its very tolerable - and handoffs are where
> you get friction such as differences of opinion causing unnecessary
> rework.
> 
> Its not hard for a pilot to have a tomboy note open with the urls of
> things they haven't guided through to 'in' or 'you need to do more
> work'.

There are two separate goals being aimed for here, both important:

 1) make sure that new patches coming in are helped along in a timely fashion
 2) clearing out our backlog of patches, some of which have been lingering for
    months

I agree with Martin's concern that a pilot that tries to clear the backlog would
be overly burdened if they remained responsible for that backlog after their
week in the pilot's seat.  I also think Robert makes a good point that handoffs
are costly and should be minimised.

So perhaps the thing to do is treat these separately.  For 1), do as Robert
says: the pilot on duty when the patch arrives will keep piloting that patch
until it's finished (landed or rejected).  For 2), pilots should also try to
reduce the backlog, but no ongoing commitment is required for these.

Thoughts?

-Andrew.