Re: gSoC - ADD MERGE COMMAND - code patch submission - Mailing list pgsql-hackers

From Greg Smith
Subject Re: gSoC - ADD MERGE COMMAND - code patch submission
Date
Msg-id 4C3B862A.2070405@2ndquadrant.com
Whole thread Raw
In response to Re: gSoC - ADD MERGE COMMAND - code patch submission  (Peter Eisentraut <peter_e@gmx.net>)
Responses Re: gSoC - ADD MERGE COMMAND - code patch submission
Re: gSoC - ADD MERGE COMMAND - code patch submission
List pgsql-hackers
Peter Eisentraut wrote:
> I think it's better to share code that doesn't mean project guidelines
> and solicit advice rather than not to share anything.
>   

I feel the assumption that code is so valuable that it should be shared 
regardless of whether it meets conventions is a flawed one for this 
project.  There are already dozens, if not hundreds, of useful patch 
submissions that have been sent to this list, consumed time, and then 
gone nowhere because they didn't happen in a way that the community was 
able to integrate them properly.  For anyone who isn't producing 
commiter quality patches, the process is far more important than the 
code if you want to get something non-trivial accomplished.

Also, producing code in whatever format you want and dumping that on the 
community so that people like David Fetter waste their time cleaning it 
up is not the way the GSoC work is supposed to happen.  I didn't want 
any other current or potential future participants in that program to 
get the wrong idea from that example. 

There is a brief "get to know the community" period at the beginning of 
the summer schedule.  I think that next year this project would be well 
served to give each student a small patch to review during that time, as 
a formal intro to the community process.  The tendency among students to 
just wander off coding without doing any interaction like that is both 
common and counterproductive, given how patches to PostgreSQL actually 
shuffle along toward becoming commit quality code.  Far as I'm 
concerned, a day spent working with the patch review checklist on 
someone else's patch pays for itself tenfold when it comes time to 
produce patches that others will be able to review.

-- 
Greg Smith  2ndQuadrant US  Baltimore, MD
PostgreSQL Training, Services and Support
greg@2ndQuadrant.com   www.2ndQuadrant.us



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