A small patch case study, -file-list-exec-source-files

Bob Rossi
2004-03-23T13:09:10Z

Hi All,

It has taken about 1 month to get a 500 line patch reviewed.
And the review process is not over yet.

Personally, I think we should use this patch as a case study to prove
the inherent problems that GDB has. It is obvious to me that GDB is
almost a dead project when it comes to receiving patches from the outside
world.

Here is the ridiculous time table seen for this trivial patch.

02-24: Posted
02-25
02-26: Andrew responded, passed buck to Elena, should have To:ed Elena :-(
02-27: Question about when response would be
02-28: <weekend>
02-29: <weekend>
03-01: Above post
03-01: <seven days>
03-02: I acknowledged the response.
03-03: Eli Zaretskii thinks waiting a week to ping on a patch isn't bad.
( I happen to think it is bad )
03-05: Patch initially reviewed by Elana Zannoni ( great job too )
03-05: Jason Molenda made some useful comments ( thanks Jason )
03-06: I respond the next day to Elena's questions, ready to move forward.
(no response)
03-11: I respond a week later.
(no response)
03-23: I write an Email to gdb-heads, hoping to show that there is a
real problem in the GDB community.

Now, I refuse to keep sending in an Email every week to get my patch
resolved. That gives me the impression that GDB is not competent in
receiving patches and processing them. I don't really blame this on
anyone in particular, but I blame the problem on everyone. I see that
there is an effort in the correct direction to change this, but
what could we do to fix this particular case, since this would basically
be fixing "the small patch" case.

Does GDB look at patches in a

FIFO order?
Smallest Job First order?
The developer who wines and complains the most about their patch order?

I hope I have not offended anyone here, since honestly, each of the GDB
people I have talked to has done a great job helping me out. It's just the
system on a whole that seems to be lacking.

Thanks,
Bob Rossi