Re: a suggestion about patch "ping"-s

[Doug Evans <dje at google dot com>]

Joel Brobecker writes:
 > Hello,
 >
 > First of all, please continue to ping the GDB maintainers when
 > patches go unreviewed. We try to do our best, but as a volunteer-based
 > project, lots of patches unfortunately wait a bit before review.
 > As a reminder, the generally accepted ping frequency is 2 weeks after
 > first submission, and every week thereafter. Some have even accepted
 > the first ping after a week.
 >
 > The real suggestion I would like to make, when sending a ping, is
 > that people reply to the original email, with the patch being quoted
 > in the reply, rather than sending a completely separate email
 > with URLs to the patches. The latter may sound like a good idea,
 > since it allows to send a nice and compact email. But what it
 > does is also make the ping itself a new email thread, unrelated to
 > the emailing submitting the patch. As a result, there are two email
 > threads where a review can happen.
 >
 > For instance, one maintainer could see the ping first, and therefore
 > send a review by finding and then replying to the original thread.
 > But then, a second reviewer might not notice the review, and therefore
 > review again.
 >
 > Another example happened to me, today. I try to keep gdb-patches
 > emails in a mailbox until I either review them, or see someone else
 > do the review. Then comes a new email, un-connected to the original
 > email, with URLs of 3 patches. I had to do a little bit of research
 > to figure out whether they had already been reviewed or not.
 >
 > IMO, just replying to the original email with "PING" clearly shown
 > in the subject's reply will help us save a bit of time, and we can
 > then in turn invest that time is reviewing more submissions.
 >
 > Thank you!
 > --
 > Joel

+1