Re: [Qemu-devel] Fwd: Proposal: Improving patch tracking and review using Rietveld

[Anthony Liguori <aliguori@linux.vnet.ibm.com>]

On 01/27/2011 01:55 AM, Paolo Bonzini wrote:
> Forwarding this from the GCC mailing list.  Since patchwork isn't more 
> than a mail archive the way it's implemented in QEMU, this may be a 
> more interesting possibility.

Patchwork is a nice tool but I found a few issues with it that really 
deterred me from using it:

1) it's all or nothing in terms of whether maintainers use it.  if 
everyone isn't on top of keeping it clean, you end up with a terrible 
backlog

2) it doesn't understand patches series.  A 20 patch series gets applied 
all at once, yet you have to update status for each patch.  That's annoying.

3) it doesn't understand new revisions of the same patch/series.  This 
is really a deal breaker.  Having to go and update the status 
particularly when you have patch series that see multiple revs in 24 
hours creates an awful lot of work

> Paolo
>
>> At Google we use a code review tool which was open sourced a couple of
>> years ago: Rietveld
>> (http://code.google.com/appengine/articles/rietveld.html).
>>
>> The best way of thinking about it is "bugzilla for patches".  The
>> system creates an entry for every patch submitted, provides a web tool
>> for manipulating the patch (comments, different views of the diff,
>> highlighting, etc) and it also has an email gateway.
>>
>> We have discussed patch tracking mechanisms in the past, and none so
>> far has taken hold.  The reason why I like Rietveld is that it doesn't
>> really matter whether we all switch to using it at once:
>>
>> 1- Rietveld always send the patch sent to it to gcc-patches@ (provided
>> the submitter added gcc-patches to the CC list).
>> 2- The whole trail of discussion on the patch also get sent to
>> gcc-patches and everyone else is CC'd in it.
>> 3- Reviewers do not need to use the web tool to reply to the patch.
>> One can simply respond to the e-mail, and it will get added to the
>> patch discussion trail.
>>
>> So, for people who do not want to use the tool, Rietveld will not get
>> in the way.  They can simply respond to the patch as usual, and as
>> long as they keep the rietveld email address in the CC list, the patch
>> trail will be updated automatically.
>>
>> At Google we will start using Rietveld to send patches.  The only
>> difference folks will notice is that Rietveld-generated email has some
>> extra text.
>>
>> I have created a wiki page that explains the basics of using Rietveld
>> (thanks Jeffrey for the instructions):
>> http://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/rietveld

Interesting.  This seems to have nice characteristics compared to 
patchworks.

Regards,

Anthony Liguori

>> Once again, I'd like to underscore the fact that if a patch submitter
>> chooses to use Rietveld for tracking their patches, this should not
>> affect in any way the traditional mail-based review.  All I ask is
>> that reviewers maintain the CC and Subject line intact in order to not
>> confuse the tool.
>>
>> Jeffrey, would you mind looking over the instructions I've written to
>> make sure they're correct?
>>
>> Richard, this is the tool I mentioned in today's chat.
>>
>>
>> Thanks.  Diego.
>
>