[openstack-dev] Please stop reviewing code while asking questions

Jay Pipes jaypipes at gmail.com
Fri Apr 24 16:37:15 UTC 2015


On 04/24/2015 09:27 AM, Brant Knudson wrote:
> On Fri, Apr 24, 2015 at 3:14 AM, Julien Danjou <julien at danjou.info
> <mailto:julien at danjou.info>> wrote:
>
>     Hi there,
>
>     This is now happening weekly to me now, probably because I write too
>     many patches touching almost all OpenStack projects once a cycle, and
>     I'm really tired of that behavior, so PLEASE:
>
>        *Stop sending Code-Review-1 when asking a question in a patch*
>
>     _Sometimes_ there are good reasons to set -1 even when asking a
>     question. For example, when the question is a hint sent to the patch
>     author so that (s)he improves is commit message, a code comment or a
>     piece of code.
>
>     But most of the time, if you ask a question because there's something
>     YOU DO NOT KNOW OR UNDERSTAND, do not put a score to a patchset. You
>     don't know the answer, so you have absolutely no right to evaluate a
>     patchset with -1. Just don't set a score, it's OK, and wait for the
>     answer before deciding if the patch is worth [-1..+2].
>
>
> If other developers can't understand your code then the code should be
> changed to be clearer. There's no reason for OpenStack code to be so
> complex that a developer can't understand it. Having code that
> developers don't understand leads to bugs and sometimes security
> vulnerabilties that affect our users.

This is absolutely correct, IMHO, and the reason why I always encourage 
people to ask questions about things that are unclear and point out that 
a code comment explaining the particular piece of code would be a 
welcome thing.

Now, whether or not a -1 is warranted ... meh, usually not, but if the 
code really is too difficult to decipher or the comments are 
indecipherable, sometimes a -1 is appropriate.

Best,
-jay




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