Re: [Xen-devel] [xen 4.6 retrospective] Possible solution together with the comments will be helpful

[George Dunlap <George.Dunlap@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, Aug 31, 2015 at 9:33 AM, Jan Beulich <JBeulich@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>>> On 31.08.15 at 10:24, <feng.wu@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> = Issue / Observation =
>> Sometimes the review comments are quite open, it doesn't contain a possible
>> solution or a clear direction,
>> so it is not clear for the contributor on how to effectively address them.
>> At least, in Linux kernel and KVM side, if the maintainers have
>> objection to the implementation of the patches, they will give a possible
>> solution or a direction which is very
>> helpful for the contributor to address the comments. Hence this will make
>> the review discussion more effective and productive and save both reviewer
>> and developer's time.
>>
>> = Possible Solution / Improvement =
>> Try to give some possible solutions with the comments, especially for some
>> big changes which affect a lot
>> to the whole patch-set.
>
> I think when a solution can be thought of in the context of reviewing,
> it is being given. I believe I know which case you allude to here, and
> I'm afraid it's not always reasonable for the reviewer(s) to do the
> contributor's work of finding a solution when none is obvious.

It's not necessarily the *reviewer's* job to suggest an alternate
implementation; but it is the *maintainer's* job, as architect and
caretaker of a subsystem, to try to figure out how new features can be
incorporated into the code.

If there's not an obvious immediate solution, then the maintainer
should at very least say something like, "I'm not happy with this way
of doing things.  I can't immediately think of an alternative -- let
me give it some thought and come back to it."

I've been on the receiving side of a relationship where modus operandi
was "I'm not happy with this, but I'm not going to tell you what I
want instead, you figure it out", and I can tell you that the "How
about this?" game is not at all a fun game to play.

 -George

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