Re: Gerrit alternatives

[Stewart Smith <stewart@linux.vnet.ibm.com>]

Andrew Geissler <geissonator@gmail.com> writes:
> On Tue, Dec 19, 2017 at 7:26 PM, Dave Cobbley
> <david.j.cobbley@linux.intel.com> wrote:
>> Hey all,
>>
>> I am curious to see peoples input on using github as a code review mechanism
>> over gerrit. I see github/openbmc is already used quite well for sprint
>> planning and issue tracking, I feel like it would make a lot of sense to use
>> it for doing code reviews. As far as I understand it has a mechanism to
>> reproduce a similar paradigm to what we currently use today - as far as
>> Code-Review, Ok-To-Test, and Verified.
>>
>> I can see github has made several improvements over the last few years that
>> make it much more use-able to teams like us:
>>
>> - The ability to have approved maintainers for each specific repository with
>> https://github.com/blog/2392-introducing-code-owners
>>
>> - It has the ability to do a rebase-merge, keeping the git tree nice and
>> tidy.
>>
>> - A strong API to tie in additional tools that we may need.
>>
>>
>> Additionally, it will reduce the point of failure from also hosting gerrit.
>>
>> What are peoples thoughts on using this?
>
> As the guy who ended up having to maintain the current gerrit server,
> I'm all for an alternative :)
>
> But my problem is I really like gerrit.  github has def made some
> improvements to the review process though.  I see it has per-line
> comment ability now.
>
> I have a pull request out here for a non-gerrit openbmc repo if
> someone wants to look around -
> https://github.com/openbmc/openbmc-tools/pull/5
>
> One thing I really like is how gerrit allows you to iterate over a
> commit.  Someone makes some comments, you respond, upload a new patch
> set.  My understanding with github is you basically just keep adding
> on new commits in a pull request to address comments.  A feature I use
> all the time in gerrit is to look at the diff between a patch set I
> last reviewed and the latest one.  Also, I don't see an obvious
> mechanism in github to provide the different score levels
> (-2,-1,+1,+2)?  The gerrit dashboard is also really nice, providing me
> a nice easy way to see what's on my review list and what the current
> size and scores of those reviews are (for all repos in openbmc).

Basically all those features is why I like review via email and
patchwork. You can review/comment as much as you like, anywhere, easily,
even offline. As a maintiner, patchwork is invaluable, and passes the
"somebody else maintains it" test, while still actually being open.

> We also base a lot of our current CI infrastructure off of gerrit
> events.  I think most of it can be switched over to using github, but
> it's not inconsequential.

Some of the CI integration in patchwork needs a bit of work though. We need to bribe
the grads with something in order to get snowpatch fixed up :)

-- 
Stewart Smith
OPAL Architect, IBM.