Re: Upstreaming Reviewed-by to git.git

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Mar 30, 2021, 00:43 UTC
Message-ID: <xmqqczvhfp44.fsf@gitster.g>
In-Reply-To: <xmqqr1jxisee.fsf@gitster.g>

Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> writes:

> In any case, reading others' patch, together with the original
> version before the patch changed, is a great opportunity to learn
> the codebase and how the project work in general.  It is highly
> recommended.

Addendum. The above makes it sound as if I am encouraging new people to only read to learn silently, but that is not what I meant.

Reading and then expressing what you read in the patch in your own words is a good way for you to learn the system. And it is also a good way for the patch author to ensure what was written in the patch is understandable. For somebody who is totally new to the codebase, any patch that is more complex than the most trivial might not be hard to understand and that is not a patch author's fault, but once contributors have learned the codebase enough, even before they have their own changes to our codebase, a new patch should be written in such a way to understandable by them without getting misunderstood. So a mere "this looks good to me" by new people may not add much value to the discussion, but thinking aloud in more detail, expressing why they think the patch is good, e.g. "I think this change tries to do X by doing Y. If I were doing so, I might do so by Z, but I think Y would be a better approach than that" would help others to see that what is written in the patch was truly understandable (if what the new person said was to the point) or misleading (otherwise).

Thanks.