Hello Hackers,
I'm organizing a Postgres Patch Review Workshop as a way to help new Postgres contributors get
experience and tips reviewing patches. Personally, I've been trying to review patches for years, but
I've missed most commitfests, and I've never been very confident in my feedback. Reviewing patches
is hard! But perhaps by working together it can be easier. So this workshop will be like pair
programming for patch review.
The plan is to form teams of 2-3 people, who will pick a patch and review it. Then we'll meet in a
larger group, and teams will spend 10-20 minutes presenting the patch and their feedback. We can
schedule more than one meeting if there is enough interest. Probably 3-4 groups can present in one
meeting. Perhaps we can have some veteran committers attend and review the reviews.
The March commitfest is starting soon, so I'd like to hear from people who want to participate. I'll
build a list and play matchmaker (but if you already know who you want to work with, let me know).
Please use this link to sign up:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeCI0V5xUgt-HOIZ1oeyEX-ElwopPY27WwwfpBqJ__RP7XC8A/viewform
If you are a longtime Postgres contributor and would be willing to attend the final meeting to offer
advice about the reviews, I'd love to get your help too! Please use that link to sign up.
We also have a Discord channel, #patch-review-workshop, on the PostgreSQL Hacking server:
https://discord.com/channels/1258108670710124574/1342147702804447354
Later, once you've sent your review to pgsql-hackers, send me a link. Then we'll schedule the larger
meeting(s), based on how many people completed the "assignment". I expect these will happen in late
March or early April.
Thanks to Robert Haas and Andres Freund for inspiring this! They did something similar at PgConf
2024 in Vancouver. I was at that workshop, and it was a great experience. I'm not planning to vet
patches ahead of time as they did---which sounds like a ton of work. Pick whatever patch you like.
I also don't want to reinvent anything from the commitfest app. My goal is just to help people find
partners and then present their feedback. Please add yourself as a reviewer in the commitfest app,
so that people don't all review the same thing!
Here are some links about reviewing patches:
- https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Reviewing_a_Patch
- Reviewing Postgres Patches for Fun and Profit, David Steele:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzNXFJ2-r0s
Yours,
--
Paul ~{:-)
pj@illuminatedcomputing.com
