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

[Simon Cruanes <simon.cruanes.2007@m4x.org>]

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Le Sat, 11 Jan 2014, Adrien Nader a écrit :
> 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?

The idea is nice. I don't know the compiler's internals and would
certainly be interested in being familiar with them. Is a new mailing
list necessary - do you envision massive traffic on the list - or could
the current ocaml list, which is usually quite quiet, be used for
compiler discussions?

The parallel with the recent suggestion to host wikis on ocaml.org to
centralize information about how to do parallelism (or other
similar topics regarding the high-level use of OCaml) may be interesting.
Would a small-ish wiki about the compiler and compiler's hacking be
useful? Can a mailing-list play the same role as a wiki?

Cheers,

-- 
Simon

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