openstack team mailing list archive

[Andy Smith <andyster@xxxxxxxxx>]

I have some anecdotal evidence to add to this from my time at Google:

(1) At Google in all reality you spent at least 2 days a week pretty much
only participating in code review and mailing list responses. This is due to
a couple things, but mostly because code review is taken extremely
seriously, the reviewer of the code has as much responsibility for what
lands as the person writing the code, their name (or names) go in change
commit. If that code creates a problem it is up to all people involved in
that process to quickly come up with a resolution.

That responsibility leads to some other great things:
 * Lessening of self-defensiveness / personal investment in code: the code
is not yours, it is multiple people's.
 * You also always have at least one "buddy" who can back up the decisions
that were made, if you are not around to argue a point that person probably
can, and no attacks can ever be leveled at you personally.

(2) At Google you generally have to give explicit targets for who should be
your code reviewer. This prevents some tragedy of the commons behaviors
(when there is nobody assigned everybody expects somebody else to do it).

This also leads to people who are defacto (or explicit) leaders for certain
sections of code. For example, when fixing a bug on a section of code you
are not usually working in it is common to ask around on IRC (or just the
office) to find out who knows most about that area and should do the review.

(3) At Google one of the first things that new developers do is read through
a couple nicely written documents on how to conduct code reviews, what your
responsibilities are when doing code review, and some ways to make sure your
tone comes off constructively.

This keeps everybody on most of the same page and helps acclimatize people
to social interaction related to coding.

-----

I think adopting these behaviors would be in our best interest as a project,
if that sounds good I am willing to take the time to generate the initial
draft of the document and get the appropriate configurations / code updated
to support tracking reviewers and requiring explicit reviewers.

--andy

On Thu, Feb 17, 2011 at 11:13 AM, Soren Hansen <soren@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> 2011/2/17 Jay Pipes <jaypipes@xxxxxxxxx>:
> > Also, good point to keep in mind: Membership to nova-core isn't a
> > privilege or even any fun. It's a responsibility and a duty to your
> > fellow contributors :)
>
> The first draft of my e-mail said something about it being a chore,
> but I decided to edit that out to not demotivate people from joining
> :)
>
> --
> Soren Hansen
> Ubuntu Developer    http://www.ubuntu.com/
> OpenStack Developer http://www.openstack.org/
>
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