Thanks to Documentation/SubmittingPatches we have gathered in one place information and checklist on how to write good patches that have chance to be accepted. Thanks to Documentation/CodingGuidelines we have gathered in one place guidelines to keep to the code (with the most important one "imitate the existing code" ;-)). (And thanks to todo:MaintNotes we know how maintainer works...). What I'd like to have is Documentation/ReviewingPatches to help with (at least technical side of) reviewing patches, which is very important but a hard work, c.f. http://www.kroah.com/log/linux/ols_2006_keynote.html A few questions that it would be nice to have answered in proposed future document: * who can add 'Acked-by:', and when it could be added * when one can (and should) add 'Tested-by:'. * when to resend patches, how long to wait for review, and when to send reminder (ping or resend, and when use which). There is for example question whether (or when) to quote whole patch; I think that for shorter patches it is better to quote them verbatim wholesame, even if you refer only to parts of it, or only have comments to the commit message. But for longer patches I think it makes sense to quote selectively only the parts you are commenting on. What about patch series? In my opinion if patch series has cover letter, and doesn't use chained replies (i.e. all patches are replies to cover letter), it leads to much more readable review discussion, but this might be just me. Should one (if applicable) reply to cover letter first with the impressions on the patch series as whole? In my last review I have put summary of status for each patch in series as reply to cover letter, in the shortlog for series (a summary of comments). I think it is a good idea, and helps maintainer who doesn't have then to read individual responses (subthreads) carefully... so I guess it should be in Documentation/ReviewingPatches to make this practice more widespread. The other side is advice for patch authors how to respond to reviewers comments... and warn them that they might be grumpy. To give guidelines how to decide when reviewer is putting a request, giving an alternate solution (perhaps better, perhaps worse), and when he/she have doubts... or just makes idle discussion. But perhaps such document (Documentation/ReviewingPatches) is not needed? Reviewers should know the code in question well, so they perhaps all are long-time contributors, and know all those rules by heart... -- Jakub Narebski Poland -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe git" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
