The abbreviation in []

The abbreviation in []

[Sean Chen]

Hi,

I apologize if this question was answered. I tried to search it but I
am still not sure.

I don't know some abbreviations in the title, like [RFA] (Request for
Approval?), [RFC[ (Request for Comment?), [OB] (Obvious?), etc. Is
there a list about these abbreviations? Thanks in advance.

-- 
Best Regards,
Sean Chen

Re: The abbreviation in []

[Joel Brobecker]

> I don't know some abbreviations in the title, like [RFA] (Request for
> Approval?), [RFC[ (Request for Comment?), [OB] (Obvious?), etc. Is
> there a list about these abbreviations? Thanks in advance.

I don't know of any such list, but you got the above right :).

Other abbreviations used are "PATCH" or "commit" to mean that
someone just applied a patch - in other word, they are not requesting
approval, just keeping everyone informed that a patch was just applied
and why.  In the past, some of the maintainers have found that PATCH
is ambiguous, and occasional contributors confused it with RFA, and
thus suggested "commit" instead. Tom Tromey also started using "FYI"
as a tag for patch-just-committed.

All in all, it's nothing really critical. It does not matter if
you deviate a bit from the convention ;-)

-- 
Joel

Re: The abbreviation in []

[Sean Chen]

> Other abbreviations used are "PATCH" or "commit" to mean that
> someone just applied a patch - in other word, they are not requesting
> approval, just keeping everyone informed that a patch was just applied
> and why.  In the past, some of the maintainers have found that PATCH
> is ambiguous, and occasional contributors confused it with RFA, and
> thus suggested "commit" instead. Tom Tromey also started using "FYI"
> as a tag for patch-just-committed.

Thanks. Now I understand. So if the contributor is authorized and
confident of the patch, he will use [PATCH], [COMMIT], [OB] OR [FYI],
and then check-in his patch. Otherwise, [RFA] or [RFC] is used
instead. Correct?

Is there a FAQ for this mailing list? If so, it will save our time in
the future, and the newer can join the discussion much more easily.

-- 
Best Regards,
Sean Chen

Re: The abbreviation in []

[Joel Brobecker]

> Thanks. Now I understand. So if the contributor is authorized and
> confident of the patch, he will use [PATCH], [COMMIT], [OB] OR [FYI],
> and then check-in his patch. Otherwise, [RFA] or [RFC] is used
> instead. Correct?

Yes. Please have a look at the gdb/MAINTAINERS files which describes
rights of responsibilties of contributors and maintainers.

> Is there a FAQ for this mailing list? If so, it will save our time in
> the future, and the newer can join the discussion much more easily.

It's all explained in CONTRIBUTING and MAINTAINERS. When I first
started contributing, that's all I read, and I don't remember having
many issues.  I think we have FAQ for GDB itself, not about the
mailing-list.

-- 
Joel

Re: The abbreviation in []

[Sean Chen]

> It's all explained in CONTRIBUTING and MAINTAINERS. When I first
> started contributing, that's all I read, and I don't remember having
> many issues.  I think we have FAQ for GDB itself, not about the
> mailing-list.

You are right that CONTRIBUTE and MAINTAINERS have already included
much information. However, they don't include some trivial questions
like abbreviation or posting style (top-posting / bottom-posting). :)
Anyway, this is not a block issue and we can guess and learn it by
reading the threads.

Thanks again.

-- 
Best Regards,
Sean Chen

Re: The abbreviation in []

[Joel Brobecker]

> You are right that CONTRIBUTE and MAINTAINERS have already included
> much information. However, they don't include some trivial questions
> like abbreviation or posting style (top-posting / bottom-posting). :)
> Anyway, this is not a block issue and we can guess and learn it by
> reading the threads.

Perhaps, if you have some time, you could help us improve the situation?
Some of us have been hacking on GDB for long enough that we don't
realize that these sorts of questions are not obvious, so your
feedback is important.

I had a look at the GDB website, and the "contribute" page
(http://www.sourceware.org/gdb/contribute/, click on "contributing"
at the top of the main web page) has a short text pointing to
the CONTRIBUTE file. If you are willing to send patches to this file,
I'm sure Eli and/or I are willing to review them (Eli is our documentation
maintainer).

-- 
Joel

Re: The abbreviation in []

[Sean Chen]

> Perhaps, if you have some time, you could help us improve the situation?
> Some of us have been hacking on GDB for long enough that we don't
> realize that these sorts of questions are not obvious, so your
> feedback is important.
>
> I had a look at the GDB website, and the "contribute" page
> (http://www.sourceware.org/gdb/contribute/, click on "contributing"
> at the top of the main web page) has a short text pointing to
> the CONTRIBUTE file. If you are willing to send patches to this file,
> I'm sure Eli and/or I are willing to review them (Eli is our documentation
> maintainer).

I am glad to share my impression.

I just have a concern here. Do you think gdb/CONTRIBUTE is too formal
to include these abbreviations? If not, I am OK to prepare it and log
my impression in the future as well.

-- 
Best Regards,
Sean Chen

Re: The abbreviation in []

[Joel Brobecker]

> I just have a concern here. Do you think gdb/CONTRIBUTE is too formal
> to include these abbreviations? If not, I am OK to prepare it and log
> my impression in the future as well.

IMO, I think it will be fine (Supplemental information for GDB:).

-- 
Joel

Re: The abbreviation in []

[Sean Chen]

> IMO, I think it will be fine (Supplemental information for GDB:).

OK. I will prepare it.

Just now, I noticed another style like [RFA/commit] (written by you).
What does it mean?
http://sourceware.org/ml/gdb-patches/2009-12/msg00459.html

-- 
Best Regards,
Sean Chen

Re: The abbreviation in []

[Joel Brobecker]

> Just now, I noticed another style like [RFA/commit] (written by you).
> What does it mean?
> http://sourceware.org/ml/gdb-patches/2009-12/msg00459.html

This is used often by the maintainers when they are about to commit
a patch, but would appreciate some feedback on it. We use this protocol
as an intermediate approach between the situation where we are checking in
a patch because we're sufficient confident about the patch, and the
situation where we're asking for approval because we're touching an area
that we don't know enough to commit without review.

It can be a useful approach because we know that a lot of patches are
hard to review for most maintainers, so feedback cannot always be
obtained. So we leave the patch out for a while, hoping for comment,
eventually committing it even if the email generated no comment.

As I said, this is used by the maintainers, so I don't know if it's
really all that useful to explain in the CONTRIBUTING file... By the
time someone gets promoted to maintainer, they should have picked up
this sort of idiosyncratic usage in our mailing list!

-- 
Joel

Re: The abbreviation in []

[Sean Chen]

> As I said, this is used by the maintainers, so I don't know if it's
> really all that useful to explain in the CONTRIBUTING file... By the
> time someone gets promoted to maintainer, they should have picked up
> this sort of idiosyncratic usage in our mailing list!

Thanks for your explanation.

I understand your concern. This is also an intermediate situation
between adding it to CONTRIBUTING file or not. :) If add, CONTRIBUTING
file will grow. Otherwise, new contributors have to guess it. I think
a FAQ thread in the mailing list is also OK. If so, new contributors
will search title “FAQ” in the mailing list to get the information.

From now on, we can search “rfa rfc commit patch ob” to get the
current thread. :)

-- 
Best Regards,
Sean Chen

Re: The abbreviation in []

[Hui Zhu]

I think maybe you can add a contributors FAQ to WIKI.

Thanks,
Hui

On Wed, Jan 6, 2010 at 17:01, Sean Chen <sean.chen1234@gmail.com> wrote:
>> As I said, this is used by the maintainers, so I don't know if it's
>> really all that useful to explain in the CONTRIBUTING file... By the
>> time someone gets promoted to maintainer, they should have picked up
>> this sort of idiosyncratic usage in our mailing list!
>
> Thanks for your explanation.
>
> I understand your concern. This is also an intermediate situation
> between adding it to CONTRIBUTING file or not. :) If add, CONTRIBUTING
> file will grow. Otherwise, new contributors have to guess it. I think
> a FAQ thread in the mailing list is also OK. If so, new contributors
> will search title “FAQ” in the mailing list to get the information.
>
> From now on, we can search “rfa rfc commit patch ob” to get the
> current thread. :)
>
> --
> Best Regards,
> Sean Chen
>