[ocaml-platform] [ANN] Experiment: OCaml patch review on github.com/ocaml/ocaml

[Anil Madhavapeddy]

As a followup to this, I've written a script that syncs all the
open pull requests against the compiler as OPAM compiler switches.
This is now running live on the central OPAM respository.

For instance, if you now `opam update` and look at your switches:

$ opam switch --all
--     -- 4.02.0dev+pr10              Add String.{split,rsplit}
--     -- 4.02.0dev+pr13              Add String.{cut,rcut}.
--     -- 4.02.0dev+pr14              Add absolute directory names to bytecode format for ocamldebug to use
--     -- 4.02.0dev+pr15              replace String.blit by String.unsafe_blit
--     -- 4.02.0dev+pr17              Cmm arithmetic optimisations
--     -- 4.02.0dev+pr18              Patch for issue 5584
--     -- 4.02.0dev+pr2               Parse -.x**2. (unary -.) as -.(x**2.).  Fix PR#3414
--     -- 4.02.0dev+pr20              OCamlbuild: Fix the check of ocamlfind
--     -- 4.02.0dev+pr3               Extend record punning to allow destructuring.
--     -- 4.02.0dev+pr4               Fix for PR#4832 (Filling bigarrays may block out runtime)
--     -- 4.02.0dev+pr6               Warn user when a type variable in a type constraint has been instantiated.
--     -- 4.02.0dev+pr7               Extend ocamllex with actions before refilling
--     -- 4.02.0dev+pr8               Adds a .gitignore to ignore all generated files during `make world.opt'
--     -- 4.02.0dev+pr9               FreeBSD 10 uses clang by default, with gcc not available by default
--     -- 4.02.0dev+trunk             latest trunk snapshot

Each switch corresponds to the current development trunk, with the
diff in the PR applied.  If the patch is sane, you can proceed to
install OPAM packages in the experimental tree as usual without
affecting your day-to-day compiler switch.

Hope this is useful!  More details at:
http://anil.recoil.org/2014/03/25/ocaml-github-and-opam.html

It's set to run daily at the moment, and switches will be deleted once
the corresponding pull request is closed.

cheers,
Anil

On 30 Jan 2014, at 11:34, Gabriel Scherer <gabriel.scherer at gmail.com> wrote:

> TL;DR: During the six next months, we will follow pull requests (PR)
> posted on the github mirror of the OCaml distribution, as an
> alternative to the mantis bugtracker. This experiment hopes to attract
> more people to participate in the extremely helpful and surprisingly
> rewarding activity of patch reviews.
> 
> 
> Dear OCaml community,
> 
> I think we need more people ready to review patches proposed for
> inclusion in the OCaml compiler/distribution; lack of reviews is
> currently one of the bottleneck in the development process -- among
> others, such as the sheer difficulty to reach consensus on any change
> to the language itself. Doing patch reviews is helpful, extremely
> interesting, and an excellent way to get to know more about small
> parts of the compiler.
> 
> There was a resurgence of discussions on caml-list (Yotam Barnoy's
> [moving to github] and Adrien Nader's thoughtful proposal of
> a [mailing-list for patch review]). Amir Chaudhry launched a poll to
> record decreasing order of preference, and the [results] are
> clear-cut: people hate Mantis' guts, and would rather use anything
> else.
> 
> [moving to github]: http://alan.petitepomme.net/cwn/2013.12.24.html#5
> [mailing-list for patch review]:
> https://sympa.inria.fr/sympa/arc/caml-list/2014-01/msg00055.html
> [results]: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1QWhqJRv1yPvdi6E3AiqbvUwlqGorV_Wbk7h_JYuDUiQ/viewanalytics
> 
> I declare open the following experiment: for six months, starting
> today upto late July, patches proposed for the OCaml distribution may
> be submitted as a pull request (PR) on the [main github mirror], and
> we warmly encourage anyone to review the proposed patches, and make
> any comments they feel can help. Anything that can help improve the
> contribution, or discuss potential issues (backward compatibility,
> future-proofiness of the change, alternative designs...) will speed up
> the time between a patch proposal and a clear decision to integrate it
> or not.
> 
> [main github mirror]: https://github.com/ocaml/ocaml/
> 
> In six months, we will reconsider, the default choice being to stop
> using github and revert to a mantis-only workflow. In the meantime,
> I will mirror the github PRs on the mantis side, so that contributors
> that do not wish to use the github interface can continue working as
> before. Patches and reviews are of course still welcome on mantis.
> 
> Note that github will *not* be used for issue tracking, only for patch
> reviews. If you want to submit a patch against a bug discussed in
> Mantis, or want to re-submit a patch already in Mantis (in the wild
> hope of more eyeballs), feel free to send a github PR and link to it
> from the bugtracker. Finally, the github mirror remains *read-only*:
> if patches are accepted, the PR will be closed but will be committed
> to the SVN first, and synced in git as usual.
> 
> We're just trying things to see if it works better. I hope it does. In
> any case, thanks in advance for your participation -- whichever tool
> you use. Happy hacking!
> 
> .
> 
> PS: If you want to get notified for all Pull Requests sent, you
> (need a github account and) can click on the "Watch" button in the top
> right of http://github.com/ocaml/ocaml to register for
> notifications. In the [notification settings] page of your account,
> you can set up notifications to get send by email and/or to the
> (mostly useless) github notification web interface.
> 
> [notification settings](https://github.com/settings/notifications)
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