Re: Finding Clean-up Tasks

[Jaehee Park <jhpark1013@gmail.com>]

On Thu, Mar 31, 2022 at 11:38:05AM -0700, Alison Schofield wrote:
> In Linux Kernel Community we know that it takes a bit of time
> and effort to get traction on the cleanup patches.
> 
> Please ask for support on this list or irc.
> 
> Here are some notes from me. Please chime in with your current
> experiences. It helps other applicants and helps us improve
> the program.
> 
> Snowballing:
> ------------
> I can see on this list that a few folks already have patches
> accepted that are 'snowballing'. This is when a reviewer says
> 'Thanks - and how about fixing this <insert other thing> too?!'
> This is great. One patch, spawns more improvements.
> 
> Finding the first patch:
> ------------------------
> It's fine to submit patches for checkpatch "CHECK" reports.
> Get these by using the --strict option to checkpatch.
> 
> There seem to be plenty of checkpatch cleanups in staging/drivers,
> and TODO files w beginner level suggestions. I personaly haven't
> run sparse, smatch, or coccicheck. 
> 
> Another method for finding cleanups is *this* list. Scroll
> the list of PATCH Subject lines, some will catch your eye as
> not looking like a checkpatch patch. Look at it. See what they
> did, how they found it. Sometimes a cocci script is included
> in the patch body, so you can just grab that and run.
> 
> Confidence to send the patch:
> -----------------------------
> Go ahead and search on this mailing list for the checkpatch
> string. You should find many examples that match what you
> are about to do. See what worked well, what needed rework.
> 
> If you have a patch AND a question, you can send the patch
> and put your question below the scissors line. For example,
> you might see multiple instances of something but are not sure
> the patch will be well-received. Fix one instance - and below
> the scissor line ask you question: "There are 10 more of these
> in this file, just want to sanity check that my approach here
> is wanted."  (If I were doing cleanup today, I'd use this tactic
> for drivers/staging/iio checkpatch ERROR about octals.)
> 

Thank you for advice! I had a question about where to put the questions
in the patch. When you say scissor line, are we putting dashed lined
somewhere in the patch and writing our questions? Or did you mean we
should reply to our patch?   

> Just for fun, try this on this list:
> ------------------------------------
> - Search for v2, then search for v14. (You can search all the
> way in-between them also). Point is, we revision patches a lot!
> And, it's not unique to the Outreachy list. Go to any kernel.org
> list if you are feeling glum about getting to v5,6,or 7.
> 
> Here's the first patch I ever posted to this list:
> --------------------------------------------------
> https://lore.kernel.org/outreachy/20151005183935.GA3350@Ubuntu-D830/#t 
> 
> Reach out if you get stuck or need some camaraderie,
> Alison
>