Re: [PATCH 0/4] update MyFirstContribution with current code base

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: May 16, 2025, 16:11 UTC
Message-ID: <xmqqmsbcwn6t.fsf@gitster.g>
In-Reply-To: <CA+rGoLf7jf5r3C2mN7X84HNrWqsA9mMueEkCowm7Ftsgcd5EbQ@mail.gmail.com>

JAYATHEERTH K <jayatheerthkulkarni2005@gmail.com> writes:

Show 27 quoted lines

> On Fri, May 16, 2025 at 4:09 AM Emily Shaffer <nasamuffin@google.com> wrote:
>
>> Mostly I lurk these days :) I do still keep an eye on the list. Will
>> happily take a look at your series tomorrow, I'm out of time for
>> today. But per what I mention below, if you don't hear from me, please
>> don't feel blocked by the review, as I think the MyFirstContribution
>> doc is comfortably maintained by the whole project by now.
>>
>
> Understood!! thanks for letting me know
>
>> > So for now I will cc Philippe
>>
>> For what it's worth, I don't think it is harmful to CC people even if
>> they will be inactive. CCing someone is not necessarily the same thing
>> as saying that person needs to approve your code change, right? So I
>> don't see the harm in CCing with low expectations - in fact, in my
>> case it would help make the email stand out, so you'd be more likely
>> to get a review from me (I missed this thread going by initially).
>>
>>
>
> Oh, ok I will keep that in mind next time.
>
>>  - Emily
>
> Thank you,

Thanks for a pleasant conversation; others can also learn from this exchange, hopefully. In Documentation/SubmittingPatches we have "Choosing your reviewers" section lacks anything more concrete than "who are involved in the area you are touching", and those who use common sense may say, just like you did, "ah, most of the text I am replacing was written N years ago by person X, whom I no longer see on the list very often" and decide to omit it. Perhaps we would want to enhance the text there somewhat? I dunno.

Since there were discussions on contrib/contacts recently (a few of the participants there added to CC), I tried it and unfortunately I was not very impressed by its output [*].

After applying the four patches on top of 'master', you'd run the tool like so:

    $ contrib/contacts/git-contacts master..
    Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com>
    Jacob Stopak <jacob@initialcommit.io>
    Jeff King <peff@peff.net>
    Jean-Noël Avila <jn.avila@free.fr>
    Emily Shaffer <nasamuffin@google.com>
    Atharva Raykar <raykar.ath@gmail.com>
    Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
    Todd Zullinger <tmz@pobox.com>
    Kyle Lippincott <spectral@google.com>

The tool gave output in a different order every time it was run. It wasn't obvious what the ordering meant.

By looking at its source, I can tell that the names and addresses are collected from trailers like reported-by, which are counted with the same importance as the authorship, that the reason why the output is different each time it is run is due to use of keys %hash in a Perl script, etc., but counting sign-off would mean that I'd be summoned for each and every change related in this project, which would not be very productive use of everybody's time.

And it of course is not clear who are still active in the recent past and why the name was in the list (it would not be as productive to ask for a review from somebody who was listed for reporting many problems in the area affected by the proposed patch than those who wrote the original) from this output. There may want an "explain" mode that lets you feed a patch and get observations like:

    The majority of lines you are touching haven't changed much
    since person X wrote commit W 5 years ago, and the text turned
    into current shape with contributions by person Y and Z.  Here
    are the URLs into the lore archive for the discussion that you
    can see how X, Y, and Z participated in the original before you
    touched.  You may also want to look at commit V and U as well.

    Last time we saw person X, Y, and Z on the list were ..., here
    are the URLs into the lore archive.
    
Perhaps some AI minded folks can write such a service for us ;-)?

[Footnote]

 * I didn't try other alternatives which I didn't have, and the
   other thread there was a mention of "git related" with "seems
   like rather more work".

   cf. https://lore.kernel.org/git/aBr9bwNQ1J46NNXI@pks.im/