From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 15448 invoked by alias); 24 Mar 2004 06:16:15 -0000 Mailing-List: contact gdb-patches-help@sources.redhat.com; run by ezmlm Precedence: bulk List-Subscribe: List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: , Sender: gdb-patches-owner@sources.redhat.com Received: (qmail 15441 invoked from network); 24 Mar 2004 06:16:14 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO monty-python.gnu.org) (199.232.76.173) by sources.redhat.com with SMTP; 24 Mar 2004 06:16:14 -0000 Received: from [207.232.27.5] (helo=WST0054) by monty-python.gnu.org with asmtp (Exim 4.30) id 1B61eT-0001Dc-Ih; Wed, 24 Mar 2004 01:14:09 -0500 Date: Wed, 24 Mar 2004 06:16:00 -0000 Message-Id: From: Eli Zaretskii To: Andrew Cagney CC: carlton@kealia.com, bob@brasko.net,gdb-patches@sources.redhat.com,gdbheads@gnu.org In-reply-to: <4060ACC8.10209@gnu.org> (message from Andrew Cagney on Tue, 23 Mar 2004 16:31:52 -0500) Subject: Re: Feb's patch resolution rate Reply-to: Eli Zaretskii References: <20040225040059.GB19094@white> <16456.65451.461753.66554@localhost.redhat.com> <20040306155700.GA9439@white> <20040311132508.GA2504@white> <20040323130900.GA17339@white> <4060A523.6010801@gnu.org> <4060ACC8.10209@gnu.org> X-SW-Source: 2004-03/txt/msg00551.txt.bz2 > Date: Tue, 23 Mar 2004 16:31:52 -0500 > From: Andrew Cagney > > >>> - typical (median) review time is 1 day > > > > > >>> - average review time is ~2.5 days > > > > > > I assume these only count the resolved patches? Because: > > Obviously, hence the ~. The median, however, would not change. Careful here: statistics are sometimes worse than a lie ;-) Seriously, though: about my only comment to the figures that you presented is that it is IMHO wrong in this case to use estimators, such as the median, that are resistant to outliers. That's because no one, to the best of my knowledge, is claiming that GDB development is dysfunctional. As long as GDB maintenance as a whole works fairly well, the average figures of any reasonable performance estimator will be good. IMHO, it is the (relatively rare) exceptions from the rule that bothered and continue to bother those among us who came up with suggestions to modify the existing practices. And it is precisely those exceptions that the median and its ilk give a zero weight. In other words, to quantify the validity of complaints about the current maintenance procedures, one needs to analyze and study the outliers, those cases that are in the tails of the distribution, not the average figures that are bound to be good by any measure, as GDB is, by and large, a successful project. These discussions grew from uneasy feelings, to put it mildly, shared by several active maintainers. As any good psychologist will tell you, people are not using averages or medians when forming their feelings, their reaction to outliers is acute and disproportional to the actual percentiles. If we want to solve these kinds of problems, I think we need to summon techniques that closely follow these human tendencies. That said, I think it's a Good Thing that you posted those figures: they allow us put the issue in perspective. We just need to augment the average figures with similarly quantitative analysis of the cases where patch review took an exceptionally long time. (Any takers? ;-)