Re: commit fests

Kevin Grittner wrote:
> Other posts have suggested that "review fests" might be helpful in
> this period.  Again, it sounds to me, from other posts on this
> thread, as though the primary risk is that people working on the
> release could see something they couldn't resist getting drawn into
> -- taking them off-task and delaying the release.  The obvious
> solution to that would be to create a pgsql-journeyman-peer-review
> list for review fests during the release window.

Be careful, you're wandering quickly down the classic path by which 
you'll find yourself in charge of doing some work here.

I think it's completely reasonable to say that someone could organize 
pgsql-rrreviewers (as an initial working area, maybe another list 
eventually) for periodic ReviewFest during periods where those patches 
won't be considered for commit, such as beta. Now that most patch 
submitters have gotten used to doing a matching bit of peer review, the 
pool of people to do the reviews is there without having to pull anyone 
else into that. I could even see the rrreviewers list or another one 
split out of it grow into a somewhat gentler place for people to ask for 
help with their patch development too--just ban all the grumpy people 
from there (I'll unsubscribe myself). The important thing is that 
everyone would need to careful to respect not letting that spill over 
onto this list during the periods there is no official CommitFest going 
on, or there will be a net increase in said grumpy people.

Looking at stats here for the recent CFs, about 40% of patches submitted 
are returned with feedback (or rejected) rather than being committed 
anyway. And I'm estimating that >80% of patches only reach comittable 
after a round of review+corrections first. Getting a lot of that work 
out of the way outside of the regular CF seems a worthwhile goal.

Starting the first CommitFest of the next version (normally a quite 
painful one) with a set of patches already marked "Ready for Committer" 
or pruned out with feedback already, all because they've been through a 
round or two of initial review, would be a nice improvement. Just drop a 
summary of what's been done onto pgsql-hackers once the CF opens again 
for the ones still in the running and off you go. The existing CF app 
could be used to track the early review work too, so someone who wasn't 
on pgsql-rrreviewers could dig into the archives to catch up in a few 
minutes by following the message ID links. I do that all the time for 
patches I had previously been ignoring and deleting out of my mailbox.

-- 
Greg Smith    2ndQuadrant   Baltimore, MD
PostgreSQL Training, Services and Support
greg@2ndQuadrant.com  www.2ndQuadrant.com