~bzr-pqm/bzr/bzr.dev

Reviewing proposed changes to Bazaar

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All non-trivial code changes coming in to Bazaar are reviewed by someone else.

Anyone is welcome to review any patch.  You don't need to have a full 

understanding of the codebase to find problems in the code, the documentation,

or the concept of the patch.

Normally changes by core contributors are reviewed by one other core

developer, and changes from other people are reviewed by two core

developers.  Use intelligent discretion about whether the patch is trivial.

No one likes their merge requests sitting in a queue going nowhere: this 

is pure waste.  We prioritize reviewing existing proposals.  

Canonical dedicates some staff time to providing prompt helpful reviews.  

(See <http://wiki.bazaar.canonical.com/PatchPilot/>.)

From late 2009 on, we do all our code reviews through Launchpad's 

merge proposal interface.

Reviewing proposed changes

==========================

There are three main requirements for code to get in:

* Doesn't reduce test coverage: if it adds new methods or commands,

  there should be tests for them.  There is a good test framework

  and plenty of examples to crib from, but if you are having trouble

  working out how to test something feel free to post a draft patch

  and ask for help.

* Doesn't reduce design clarity, such as by entangling objects

  we're trying to separate.  This is mostly something the more

  experienced reviewers need to help check.

* Improves bugs, features, speed, or code simplicity.

Code that goes in should not degrade any of these aspects.  Patches are

welcome that only cleanup the code without changing the external

behaviour.  The core developers take care to keep the code quality high

and understandable while recognising that perfect is sometimes the enemy

of good.

It is easy for reviews to make people notice other things which should be

fixed but those things should not hold up the original fix being accepted.

New things can easily be recorded in the bug tracker instead.

It's normally much easier to review several smaller patches than one large

one.  You might want to use ``bzr-loom`` to maintain threads of related

work, or submit a preparatory patch that will make your "real" change

easier.

Checklist for reviewers

=======================

* Do you understand what the code's doing and why?

* Will it perform reasonably for large inputs, both in memory size and

  run time?  Are there some scenarios where performance should be

  measured?

* Is it tested, and are the tests at the right level?  Are there both

  blackbox (command-line level) and API-oriented tests?

* If this change will be visible to end users or API users, is it

  appropriately documented in NEWS and/or in whats-new ?

* Does it meet the `coding standards <code-style.html>`_?

* If it changes the user-visible behaviour, does it update the help

  strings and user documentation?

* If it adds a new major concept or standard practice, does it update the

  developer documentation?

* (your ideas here...)

Reviews on Launchpad

====================

Anyone can propose or comment on a merge proposal just by creating a

Launchpad account.

From <https://code.launchpad.net/bzr/+activereviews> you can see all

currently active reviews, and choose one to comment on.  This page also

shows proposals that are now approved and should be merged by someone with

PQM access.

<https://help.launchpad.net/Code/Review> explains the various merge proposal

states.  Note that we don't use state *Approved* until the patch is completely

ready to merge.

Landing approved changes

========================

Once a merge proposal is approved and finished, it's sent to PQM (the patch

queue manager) which will automatically test and integrate it.  The recommended

way to start this off is by running the ``feed-pqm`` script from 

<https://launchpad.net/hydrazine/>.