HotSpot Style Guide change process

[Kim Barrett]

> On Dec 2, 2020, at 9:25 AM, Thomas Stüfe <thomas.stuefe at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Dec 2, 2020 at 12:04 PM Kim Barrett <kim.barrett at oracle.com> wrote:
>> I’d still like to get some feedback on the mechanics.  Is what I’ve done for a couple
>> of changes working for folks?  That is, is using a normal github PR for the change,
>> with “yes” votes via review approvals, good enough?  Are there changes that would
>> make this work better?  I’m mostly worried that we seem to be getting more or less
>> the same small group of people.  I can’t tell if that’s because others aren’t bothering,
>> or are they not noticing.  We want high visibility on changes to the Style Guide.
>> 
> 
> Hi Kim,
> 
> For me, it is not lack of interest. But changes to the style guide often drift to the bottom of the pile since there is so much to do, and discussing them takes time. 

I understand that. I've been intentionally sticking to things I think
should be uncontroversial for the initial few modifications from the
recent big update, to help figure out details of the process.  There
are a number of items "in the queue" that I expect will be more contentious.

> hotspot-dev being out of commission for so long in summer did not help either.

Yes, having hotspot-dev be effectively Oracle-internal-only for a critical period was not at all helpful.

> I sometimes do feel ambivalent about new features, like they don't bring enough to the table to justify the churn. One example, Uniform Initialization increased the number of idioms one has to know, without simplifying anything, since old-style initialization won't go away. But my emotions are never strong enough to publicly block such a proposal with a negative vote, especially in the face of exclusively positive feedback.

Perhaps my expections of what should be uncontroversial might be a bit
off? If you want to revisit that one, I'm fine with doing so. Obviously,
I have opinions...

The point of "rough consensus" is that it really isn't a vote, it's an
attempt to determine both whether there is general support and, at
least as importantly, whether there is something wrong with the
proposal such that it needs to be fixed or something else should be
done (including not making a change at all).

> I have no ready proposals of how to improve the process, just the vague feeling that PRs are maybe a bit low-key. And sometimes move too fast. Especially since the mail flood increased a lot since we switched to skara tooling.

That's part of why I've been intentionally sending them out with a
time window for discussion, and not treating them like normal PRs that
can be integrated as soon as the requisite number of reviews are
obtained and comments addressed.

But there isn't currently anything really highlighting these PRs and
the associated email threads as "special", other than having "HotSpot
Style Guide" in the subject.