[Caml-list] Doing compiler patch review with a dedicated mailing-list

[Adrien Nader <adrien@notk.org>]

Hi,

(and sorry for the mail sent a few minutes ago :) )

I'd like to know what people think about having a mailing-list for
reviews and tests of patches to the compiler and tools around it.

The idea is to do something similar to the kernel mailing-list. I mostly
like mantis and it is possible to attach files but it becomes fairly
unreadable after a while. The audience is also mostly limited to people
who are subscribed to the bug report. I hope this reduces the work and
burden of reviewers and especially commiters.

The goal is not to replace patches on mantis and you shouldn't believe
this has been blessed by the core development team (nor mentionned to
them actually). Instead, I hope this helps do quicker (and smaller?)
iteration of patches.

One example where I believe this would be useful is for the
cross-compilation patches I've started getting upstreamed around one
year ago. There are still many patchs which touch many files and
definitely need tests on platforms I don't usually run.

Another case is for patches which touch bits of the compiler almost
no-one is familiar with; I think this could help get more input.

Rules would be similar to http://linux.yyz.us/patch-format.html but less
strict (that is also mostly something to begin with).
In addition, there should be no specific reviewer or set of reviewers
for a given component; it is also known, acknowledged and perfectly fine
that the available time of reviewers varies. In practice this means you
should not refrain from commenting on a patch because someone else
usually handles a given topic.

Of course, this requires two things: a bit of infrastructure (I hear
it's much easier to create mailing-lists on ocaml.org than on inria's
servers), and people (i.e. you). Anyone interested and willing to
participate?

-- 
Adrien Nader