From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: from simark.ca (simark.ca [158.69.221.121]) by sourceware.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id CF878385415C for ; Mon, 31 Oct 2022 13:17:12 +0000 (GMT) DMARC-Filter: OpenDMARC Filter v1.4.1 sourceware.org CF878385415C Authentication-Results: sourceware.org; dmarc=pass (p=none dis=none) header.from=simark.ca Authentication-Results: sourceware.org; spf=pass smtp.mailfrom=simark.ca Received: from [10.0.0.11] (unknown [217.28.27.60]) (using TLSv1.3 with cipher TLS_AES_128_GCM_SHA256 (128/128 bits) key-exchange X25519 server-signature RSA-PSS (2048 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by simark.ca (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id 176281E0CB; Mon, 31 Oct 2022 09:17:11 -0400 (EDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/simple; d=simark.ca; s=mail; t=1667222232; bh=MjlFz2Ii/ug/Tp1NY7H/u0fumt6yEQXqpBl+9fTg5pQ=; h=Date:Subject:To:Cc:References:From:In-Reply-To:From; b=R473nEN79StuBIkEobnueIrCgYl2TQZjRv+v8P8mQ2OgclkgWUJg3nMajKNDy9C/F d7ZHDKJpdPhw5CHOuaRa6O425R2HHVMN+H0X889tfSxjffHIxaiNEBPm6Yr+TGALZU IcLCm0LMHpYUMuCFuTKXmRcX/QkXk09rL6mwq24A= Message-ID: <5924814b-2e53-da09-6125-48ac5a5296e7@simark.ca> Date: Mon, 31 Oct 2022 09:17:11 -0400 MIME-Version: 1.0 User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:102.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/102.4.0 Subject: Re: Any concrete plans after the GDB BoF? Content-Language: en-US To: Luis Machado , "gdb@sourceware.org" , John Baldwin Cc: Mark Wielaard References: <83485199-965e-7ff5-1dc8-d027b74b56f7@arm.com> From: Simon Marchi In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Spam-Status: No, score=-5.2 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,DKIM_SIGNED,DKIM_VALID,DKIM_VALID_AU,DKIM_VALID_EF,NICE_REPLY_A,SPF_HELO_PASS,SPF_PASS,TXREP autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.6 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.6 (2021-04-09) on server2.sourceware.org List-Id: On 10/31/22 05:28, Luis Machado wrote: > Hi Simon, > > On 10/28/22 17:16, Simon Marchi wrote: >> On 2022-10-27 06 h 47, Luis Machado via Gdb wrote: >>> Hi, >>> >>> Having suggested a few topics for the GDB BoF (I noticed they were discussed, to some extent), are there >>> any concrete plans from the GDB global maintainers (leadership? I don't know how to call it) to address >>> some of those concerns? >>> >>> Simon was kind enough to cleanup the patchworks instance, though that is not yet fully integrated into >>> something we can easily use to do tests/CI. I see the number of unreviewed patches is growing again. >>> >>> For example, it is not easy to pick a patch to review. You need to locate the entry in your inbox so you >>> can reply to it. >> >> I do not know of a way to trigger CI tests from Patchwork, that would >> perhaps be a question for Mark (added in CC). >> >> On a personal note, coming back from the Cauldron, I set myself a goal >> to do more reviews as part of my daily work.  I'm trying to do around 1 >> hour a day of upstream reviews, and to choose what to review, I use >> patchwork, sorting patches by oldest date.  I check if the patch I'm >> looking at has already been reviewed, merged, or superseded by a new >> version, and if so I update its status.  Rinse and repeat until I find a >> patch that needs reviewing.  Otherwise, just looking at my inbox's >> gdb-patches folder with thousands of unread messages, I don't know what >> to start with.  Just by myself, I certainly won't get through the whole >> list of patches pending review, but I think it is a somewhat fair >> algorithm.  So in that regard, patchwork is useful for me. >> >> I wanted to send an announcement on the list to say "hey, patchwork has >> been cleaned, let's use it!", but I have been procrastinating since I >> came back. > > I think those of us usually chatting on IRC are aware that you restarted it, so thanks for doing that. > > With that said, John Baldwin exposed some valid points. I also find the Patchwork workflow and interface odd and hard > to work with. I can't simply pick up a random patch and easily review it like I did with Gerrit, for example. I need to go > out of my way to find it there, look for the mailing list entry etc. > > I feel this goes a bit against enabling non-maintainers to do code reviews. The current workflow, though it works nicely > for some, is quite limited and very prone to letting patches be forgotten at the end of the list. There are better ways to > get this done these days. > > The PING mechanism, for example, is a burden. It is more manual work that you need to remember to do. On the other hand, if patches are > archived in a good way in some system, it is just a matter of someone spotting it in a list and reviewing it. > > For instance, someone may have 5 minutes to spare. This person might go and look for a smaller patch to review, make comments inline > and go off to do something else. > > In summary, even though glibc uses patchworks, it might not be the case it is the best tool for the GDB community. We seem > to be short on reviewers (maintainers and non-maintainers). Enabling more non-maintainers to do reviews seems like a positive > move towards a more efficient development process upstream. > > Some people admittedly don't like gerrit, but the tool has a lot of benefits, plus it integrates very nicely with Jenkins. And we need > to have continuous testing back for GDB development, otherwise we risk having targets getting silently broken. It is reasonable to say one > can't guarantee things won't break based solely on code reviews. I agree with all you said. However, there wasn't a consensus when we tried to move to Gerrit a few years ago, not sure why there would be one now. >>> On formatting, have we considered the benefit of using clang-format for GDB, therefore potentially saving lots of time >>> in reviews not having to worry about formatting? >> >> This often comes up, I am all for it.  We need someone to write up a >> proposal of how this would work (a bit like Bruno did for the >> attribution tags).  I might get to it, but I don't promise anything. > > I can do it. I know some of us tried it already. Tom Tromey seems to have done it as well. > > I think this is another step towards getting the contribution burden off of contributors. Formatting should not be > something one needs to spend time with. One space x two spaces, 80 columns x 100 columns are certainly not as important > as code that does what needs to be done and improves GDB overall. > > Also, there are lots of different code styles out there. It is not unusual to have GDB contributors doing other work on > a project with different formatting standards. Having to remember formatting nits is not very pleasant nor efficient it seems. I agree with all you said. There is always some resistance related to how clang-format handles this or that case. In my opinion, that's minor compared to the benefit of using it. My opinion would be: make the clang-format config that is closest to our style today, make a big re-format, and carry on. If there are some things that clang-format doesn't do as we like, then we have an incentive to push to fix it. I say "clang-format" here because it is the only tool I know of that makes a reasonably good job at formatting C++ code. If you know others, please mention them. Simon