Create a ghc-simple-patch-propose list? Re: Notes from Ben's "contribute to ghc" discussion

Tue Sep 27 15:46:07 UTC 2016

To sum up, this proposes the following:

1. Allow PRs on GitHub.

2. Michael Sloan to write a new utility, ghc-hub, which automates tasks interfacing between GitHub and Phab. This utility would be used only by GHC HQ and not by contributors.

3. Small GitHub PRs can be merged directly, by ghc-hub.

4. Larger GitHub PRs can be migrated to Phab by ghc-hub. The contributor would be issued a polite email explaining how to set up a Phab account to continue to follow their contribution.

Have I captured this accurately? If so, a resounding +1 from me. I’ve wanted exactly this for a while.

Is this worth sending through ghc-proposals?

Thanks for volunteering item (2), Michael!

Richard

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Richard A. Eisenberg
Asst. Prof. of Computer Science
Bryn Mawr College
Bryn Mawr, PA, USA
cs.brynmawr.edu/~rae

> On Sep 26, 2016, at 11:09 PM, Manuel M T Chakravarty <chak at justtesting.org> wrote:
> 
> Sounds like a great idea to me and might alleviate SimonM’s concerns about fragmentation of dev attention.
> 
> Manuel
> 
>> Michael Sloan <mgsloan at gmail.com>:
>> 
>> Argh, sent too soon.  The first paragraph, revised:
>> 
>> This sounds like an ideal solution, Ben!  As has been discussed many
>> times before, GitHub has many users familiar with its interface.  By
>> allowing GitHub PRs, the initial contribution barrier will be lowered. If
>> there is an easy and straightforward process for shifting big patches
>> to Phabricator, then people who are regularly contributing via GitHub
>> PRs can be incrementally on-boarded to the Phabricator / Arcanist
>> workflow.
>> 
>> On Mon, Sep 26, 2016 at 12:07 PM, Michael Sloan <mgsloan at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> This sounds like an ideal solution, Ben!  As has been discussed many
>>> times before, GitHub has many users familiar with its interface.  By
>>> allowing GitHub PRs, the initial contribution
>>> 
>>> I think it would be acceptable for larger GitHub PRs to have some
>>> automated boilerplate response.  Ideally this would look like:
>>> 
>>> """
>>> Thanks for making this patch!  I've turned this into a Phab
>>> Differential xxx and closed this PR.  Please create a differential
>>> account associated with your email address ..."
>>> """
>>> 
>>> The email address can be automatically pulled from commit metadata.
>>> If one is absent, then this automated process isn't possible.  If it
>>> is present and
>>> 
>>> So, I'm imagining a utility that interfaces between both GitHub and
>>> Phab,allowing the following commands:
>>> 
>>> * "ghc-hub migrate https://github.com/ghc/ghc/pull/1" - migrates the
>>> patch to differential.  It may attempt to migrate body and title of
>>> the initial post, but lets not bother with migrating any review data.
>>> 
>>> * "ghc-hub merge https://github.com/ghc/ghc/pull/1" - merges the
>>> patch.  This is used for merging small patches.  It would not do an
>>> automated push.  Maybe have "--push" also perform the push?  So like
>>> if you are on master, then "ghc-hub merge
>>> https://github.com/ghc/ghc/pull/1 --push" would merge the patches and
>>> push to master.
>>> 
>>> How does this sound?  I like the idea a lot, and would enjoy helping
>>> with implementation, time permitting.  I could possibly start hacking
>>> on it if others give the go ahead of "Yes, lets do that".
>>> 
>>> -Michael
>>> 
>>> On Mon, Sep 26, 2016 at 11:45 AM, Ben Gamari <ben at smart-cactus.org> wrote:
>>>> Carter Schonwald <carter.schonwald at gmail.com> writes:
>>>> 
>>>>> In writing the following huge wall of text, I had and idea that I think
>>>>> many folks would find palatable:
>>>>> 
>>>>> What if simple small patches (such as hypothetical drive by doc patches )
>>>>> had a mailing list where folks could email the simple / small patches as
>>>>> email attachments plus a body text that summarizes the patch, what it does,
>>>>> and why it's simple!
>>>>> 
>>>> I completely agree that for small (e.g. documentation) patches our
>>>> current system is quite heavy. For this reason I suggested at ICFP that
>>>> we simply begin accepting small patches via GitHub pull requests.
>>>> Frankly, this is less work for me than merging patches from a mailing
>>>> list and I believe many users feel that GitHub is more accessible than a
>>>> mailing list.
>>>> 
>>>> The problem of course is what subset of patches do we want to allow to
>>>> be taken via GitHub. My suggested answer to that is any patch which, if
>>>> I were to write it myself, I would feel comfortable pushing directly to
>>>> the tree.
>>>> 
>>>> Then there is the question of what do we do with pull requests opened
>>>> which do not satisfy this criterion. In this case I would likely open a
>>>> Phabricator Differential with the pull request and close the pull
>>>> request with a link to the Diff. In the ideal case this will inspire the
>>>> contributor to join the review process on Phabricator; in the worst case
>>>> review turns up issues in the patch and the user gives up. Either way, at
>>>> least the contributor feels his patch has been seen and given the
>>>> attention it deserves.
>>>> 
>>>> Cheers,
>>>> 
>>>> - Ben
>>>> 
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>>>> 
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