Phabricator for patches and code review

[Austin Seipp]

I'm fiddling with the access policies a bit, to make it all publicly
viewable. I thought I fixed it, but apparently not...

In the mean time, you can just register an account (with a
username/password, or just use your existing GitHub login!) and
everything will be viewable.

On Fri, Jun 6, 2014 at 1:29 AM, Simon Peyton Jones
<simonpj at microsoft.com> wrote:
> PS I couldn't get past the login box at https://phabricator.haskell.org/D4
>
> | -----Original Message-----
> | From: ghc-devs [mailto:ghc-devs-bounces at haskell.org] On Behalf Of Austin
> | Seipp
> | Sent: 06 June 2014 05:06
> | To: ghc-devs at haskell.org
> | Subject: RFC: Phabricator for patches and code review
> |
> | Hello all,
> |
> | Recently, while doing server maintenance, several of the administrators
> | for Haskell.org set up an instance of Phabricator[1], located at
> | https://phabricator.haskell.org
> |
> | For those who aren't aware, Phabricator (or "Phab") is a suite of tools
> | for software development. Think of it like a polished, semi-private
> | GitHub with a lot of applications and tools for all kinds of needs.
> | We've been using it to do issue tracking for Haskell.org maintenance and
> | like it a lot so far.
> |
> | One very nice aspect of Phabricator though is it has a very nice code
> | review tool, called 'Differential', that is very useful. For people who
> | have used a tool like Review Board, it's similar. Furthermore, it has a
> | very convenient userland tool called 'Arcanist' which makes it easy for
> | newcomers to post a review and get it merged when it's ready all from
> | the command line.
> |
> | I'd like to see if people are interested in using Phab _strictly_ for
> | code review of GHC patches. It is a dedicated tool specifically for
> | this, and I think it works much better than Trac or inline GitHub
> | comments.
> |
> | Also, Phab can also support post-commit reviews. So if I touch something
> | in the runtime system and just push, perhaps Simon or Edward would like
> | to look, and they can be alerted right when I do this, and then yell if
> | I did something stupid.
> |
> | Before I go much further, I'd like to ask: is there *any* interest in
> | this? Or are people satisifed with Trac? The primary motivations are
> | roughly, in no particular order:
> |
> |  1) Code review is good for everyone, a good way for people to learn the
> | code and ask questions, and useful to give feedback to newcomers.
> | And even experienced GHC hackers can learn things from reading code, as
> | we all do regularly, or find things that need cleanup.
> |
> |  2) Phabricator in particular makes it very easy to submit patches for
> | review. To submit a patch, I just run the command 'arc diff' and it Does
> | The Right Thing. It also makes it easy to ensure people are
> | *alerted* when a patch might be relevant to them.
> |
> |  3) They can be uploaded and created from the command line, and merged
> | easily afterwords the same way. This is particularly useful for
> | newcomers, and for me. :)
> |
> |  4) Differential is dedicated to code review, and much better at it than
> | just reading patches on Trac IMO.
> |
> |  5) It supports both post-commit code review, as well as pre-commit
> | review. Post commit would be especially useful for us too, I think.
> |
> | Point #2 and #3 are mostly relevant for me, because I mostly handle
> | incoming patches. But I think in general it would be nice, and make it a
> | lot easier for newcomers to submit patches, and us to look over them.
> |
> | Here's an example of a Differential code review:
> |
> | https://phabricator.haskell.org/D4
> |
> | This is a demo using my 'wip/ermsb' patch. You'll need to create an
> | account to login, but it shouldn't be much trouble, you can login
> | several ways. I'll fix the login requirement soon. Feel free to read the
> | code, comment on it, and play around. It's more of a demonstration, but
> | real code review would be welcome too. :)
> |
> | If people are interested in doing this, I can add notes to the wiki
> | pages for newcomers, and I'll send another email about Phab so people
> | can understand it a little better. But I want to ask first.
> |
> | There is an argument that our team is so small, code review has
> | unnecessary burdens. But I think Phab could help a lot with tracking
> | outside patches and getting good reviews for incoming patches, and it'll
> | make it easier for newcomers. And experienced pros can probably learn a
> | thing as well.
> |
> | Again, to be clear, I don't propose we migrate anything to Phabricator
> | from, say, Trac. There's no real pressure to do so and it would be tons
> | of work. I only propose we use it for code review, which is perfectly
> | fine, and how other projects like LLVM do code review (they use
> | Bugzilla).
> |
> | I also don't think the usage of Phabricator should be mandatory (unless
> | we decide that later because we like it), but I would like to see people
> | use it if possible.
> |
> | [1] http://phabricator.org
> |
> | --
> | Regards,
> |
> | Austin Seipp, Haskell Consultant
> | Well-Typed LLP, http://www.well-typed.com/
> | _______________________________________________
> | ghc-devs mailing list
> | ghc-devs at haskell.org
> | http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/ghc-devs
>



-- 
Regards,

Austin Seipp, Haskell Consultant
Well-Typed LLP, http://www.well-typed.com/