Re: Updated Sourceware infrastructure plans

Simon Marchi via Gdb
2024-05-02T14:28:09Z

On 5/2/24 2:47 AM, Richard Biener via Overseers wrote:> We'd only know for sure if we try. But then I'm almost 100% sure that
> having to click in a GUI is slower than 'nrOK^X' in the text-mode mail UA
> I am using for "quick" patch review. It might be comparable to the
> review parts I do in the gmail UI or when I have to download attachments
> and cut&paste parts into the reply. It might be also more convenient
> for "queued" for review patches which just end up in New state in either
> inbox.

Speaking of my Gerrit experience. I don't think that it will ever be
quite as fast and responsive as whatever terminal application you're
using (because web app vs highly optimized native app). But the time
saved in patch management, tracking down stuff, diffing patch versions,
ease of downloading patches locally to try them you, CI integration,
more than make up for it in terms of productivity, in my case.

The particular case you describe is just one click in Gerrit. The
current version of Gerrit has a "Code review +2" button on the top
right, which is equivalent to an "OK" without further comments:

https://i.imgur.com/UEz5xmM.png

So, pretty quick too.

If you want to add a general comment on the patch (a comment not bound
to a specific line), typing `a` anywhere within a patch review brings
you to the place where you can do that, and you can do `shift + enter`
to post. In general, I think that Gerrit has a pretty good set of
keyboard shortcuts to do most common operations:

https://i.imgur.com/RrREsTt.png

Not sure that you mean with the gmail UI and cut & paste part. I don't
think you'd ever need to do something like that with Gerrit or similar
review system. To put a comment on a line, you click on that line and
type in the box.

> But then would using gitlab or any similar service enforce the use of
> pull requests / forks for each change done or can I just continue to
> post patches and push them from the command-line for changes I
> can approve myself?

Like Ian said, with Gerrit, you can configure a repo such that you're
still able to git push directly. If a patch review exists with the same
Change-Id (noted as a git trailer in each commit) as a commit that gets
directly pushed, that patch review gets automatically closed (marked as
"Merged"). So you, as a maintainer with the proper rights, could for
instance download a patch review I uploaded, fix some nits and git push
directly. Gerrit will mark my patch review as Merged and the final
version of the patch review will reflect whatever you pushed.

Let's say you spot a typo in the code and want to push a trivial patch,
you don't need to create a patch review on Gerrit, you just push
directly (if the repo is configured to allow it). On the other hand,
creating a patch review on Gerrit is not a big overhead, it's basically
one "git push" to a magic remote. It prints you the URL, you can click
on it, and you're there.

Simon