RM responsibility

[Ian Clatworthy]

Kent Gibson wrote:
> 
> 
> Aaron Bentley wrote:

>> Unfortunately, I have found that they do.  In this past release
>> cycle, I have had several patches go un-reviewed until warned that
>> I would bypass the review process and submit unreviewed patches.
> 
> I agree.  If it were an ideal world things would just hum along on
> their own without the need of someone providing oversight.
> So far Bazaar has done pretty well, but since the London sprint you
> cores seem to have been focussed on the performance drive at the
> exclusion of more mundane things like reviewing code from non-cores.
> (Reviewing a core's code has a different dynamic since you get
> something out of it - that core is more likely to review your code in
> return.)

Hmm, this time around, I think cores reviewing cores has been equally
bad as cores reviewing non-cores. :-( Reviews for non-cores might seem
worse but that's probably just a reflection that we ask for 2 reviews
there instead of 1.

>> Reviewing isn't really related to releasing.  It should always be
>> done promptly, because a patch may go through several cycles before
>> merge.

Agreed. I tied them together because I wanted to use the Release to
encourage everyone to get the review queue back under control. The queue
 has dropped from around 30 to around 15 so that is roughly what I hoped
for, bar the merge of Aaron's work.

> I think the cores should be answerable to the RM, at least wrt
> scheduling their input to the release.  That is one of the
> responsibilities of being a core, IMHO.

It's fair to say that the performance roadmap work is impacting day to
day stuff. Robert and Martin are driving the roadmap and doing a great
job on that. It's causing short term pain and frustration but it's the
right thing for the product. It's worth stressing that the roadmap might
be labelled a "performance" one but it's more than that: it's about
restructuring the code so we can do some truly exciting new features as
well. The benefits aren't immediate yet while the pain probably is, but
we really, really need this work to happen IMO.

My role as Release Manager is to keep everything else ticking along and
to look for opportunities to pluck the performance low hanging fruit
into incremental wins. I'm thrilled with the stuff Aaron is putting up
for review. I'm disappointed it's missing the release windows and I know
he is as well. One answer is for me to get better at reviews, of course.
Until then, I'm encouraging others, while trying not to overly impact
the performance work. I may not be king for the month but I'm making the
most of my week of power. :-) :-)

Ian C.