[Users] [GSOC][Gerrit] add potential reviewers - questions

Wed Mar 12 09:01:21 UTC 2014

On Wed 12 Mar 2014 08:16:02 AM CET, Itamar Heim wrote:
> On 03/11/2014 10:08 PM, Maor Lipchuk wrote:
>> On 03/11/2014 05:20 PM, Itamar Heim wrote:
>>> On 03/11/2014 05:14 PM, Eyal Edri wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> ----- Original Message -----
>>>>> From: "Itamar Heim" <iheim at redhat.com>
>>>>> To: "Eyal Edri" <eedri at redhat.com>, "Tomasz Kołek"
>>>>> <tomasz-kolek at o2.pl>, users at ovirt.org, "infra" <infra at ovirt.org>
>>>>> Sent: Tuesday, March 11, 2014 5:10:54 PM
>>>>> Subject: Re: [Users] [GSOC][Gerrit] add potential reviewers - questions
>>>>>
>>>>> On 03/11/2014 05:06 PM, Ewoud Kohl van Wijngaarden wrote:
>>>>>> On Tue, Mar 11, 2014 at 10:37:22AM -0400, Eyal Edri wrote:
>>>>>>>> Tomasz Kołek wrote:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> I've got a few questions about project description.
>>>>>>>> Please tell me if my problem's understanding is good or not.
>>>>>>>> We need to add a few flags/methods to git review module. This flags
>>>>>>>> should
>>>>>>>> allow to add potential reviewers in gerrit.
>>>>>>>> So:
>>>>>>>> Let's assume that we've got special flags for this operations. What's
>>>>>>>> next?
>>>>>>>> 1. In gerrit system we need to add special place for potential
>>>>>>>> reviewers?
>>>>>>>> 2. Potential reviewers should agree that they want to review?
>>>>>>>> 3. We can have more than one accepted reviewer?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I'm not sure i understood exactly what you mean by 'potential
>>>>>>> reviewers'.  do want gerrit (hook?) to automatically add reviewers to
>>>>>>> a patch according to the code sent?  so in fact you'll have a place
>>>>>>> somewhere for mapping code & specific developers?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I really like this idea. Gerrit currently requires new users to know
>>>>>> who
>>>>>> to add as reviewers, IMHO impeding new contributors.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> One relative simple solution would be to look at who recently touched
>>>>>> the files that are being modified and add them as reviewers. This
>>>>>> can be
>>>>>> done by looking at the git log for a file. Some pseudo python code
>>>>>> solution:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> reviewers = set()
>>>>>>
>>>>>> for modified_file in commit.files:
>>>>>>        reviewers += set(commit.author for commit in
>>>>>> git.log(modified_file))
>>>>>>
>>>>>> return reviewers
>>>>>>
>>>>>> This gives a system that those who touche a file, become the maintainer
>>>>>> for that file. A more complex solution could improve on that and limit
>>>>>> the reviewers added per patch. One can think of limiting to only
>>>>>> contributions in the last X months, weigh contributions so common
>>>>>> committers are prefered. It could also combine several methods.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> For example to limit to the 5 authors who touched the most files:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> reviewers = collections.Counter()  # New in python 2.7
>>>>>>
>>>>>> for modified_file in commit.files:
>>>>>>        reviewers += collections.Counter(commit.author for commit in
>>>>>>        git.log(modified_file))
>>>>>>
>>>>>> return [author for author, count in reviewers.most_common(5)]
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Since Counter also accepts a dictionary, one could also weigh the
>>>>>> touched lines per file. Downside there is big whitespace/formatting
>>>>>> patches can skew the line count.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> In short, I think an entire thesis could be written on the optimal way
>>>>>> to determine reviewers but a simple algorithm could do to show the
>>>>>> method works.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Does this help?
>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>> Users mailing list
>>>>>> Users at ovirt.org
>>>>>> http://lists.ovirt.org/mailman/listinfo/users
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> I think if we do this, we want to make sure we cover per file who is
>>>>> required to +2 it before we consider it acked.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> won't it require maintaining static lists of people per
>>>> file/path/project?
>>>>
>>>
>>> yes, but considering our project layout, i don't see an alternative.
>>> (some of the layout could be improved to be path based, rather than file
>>> based)
>> I think it could be done automatically by analysing the file and see who
>> mostly changed it recently, since the "owner" of the file might be
>> dynamic, who ever changed most of it few days ago might be more familiar
>> with it today
>>
>> IMO the algorithm of adding the reviewers should be flexible.
>> For example, using a folder which will contain files, where each file
>> implement an algorithm to add the reviewers.
>>
>> for instance we can have two files:
>> 1. Add a reviewers by blame - the contributor which changed recently the
>> code lines
>> 2. Add a reviewers by file - the contributor who changed most of the
>> file recently.
>>
>> Each file will implement the functional operation and will output the
>> reviewers emails.
>>
>> The user can then add a new algorithm or change it to be more specific
>> to its project.
>> for example the user can add also the maintainers which acked the patch
>> that was blamed.
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Users mailing list
>>> Users at ovirt.org
>>> http://lists.ovirt.org/mailman/listinfo/users
>>
>
> this shouldn't be automatic. we need to clearly define ownership. we can't do
> this per repo for the engine/vdsm. we can do this per repo for the other
> repo's probably (though solving the folder/file approach would cover the
> simpler repos as a private case).
>
> yes, it will require some work, maybe some moving around of files to make this
> easier by folders (topics) which should be relevant anyway.

I think it would easier to maintain if we just have one file at the 
root, instead of having the ownership information distributed 
throughout the files/directories. That way you'll know where to look at 
to check/modify the ownership as opposed to having to walk all the 
files and upper directories.

Also, adding all that ownership logic to gerrit might not be easy, as 
it's not meant to go checking the source of the repositories looking 
for configuration. We might want to take a look (again) to zuul, the 
tool that openstack uses as gateway to trigger jenkins jobs and merge 
patches.

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--
David Caro

Red Hat S.L.
Continuous Integration Engineer - EMEA ENG Virtualization R&D

Email: dcaro at redhat.com
Web: www.redhat.com
RHT Global #: 82-62605

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