Is webrev generation still relevant?

[Mark Sheppard]

FWIW, I think webrev is a superior and more lucid tool for reviewing changes especiallly as a PR proceeds with multiple updates, one can use the current Full webrev to clearly see the changes leaving the comments  in the github view.

I, for one, would appreciate retaining webrev

regards
Mark

________________________________________
From: jdk-dev <jdk-dev-retn at openjdk.org> on behalf of Pavel Rappo <pavel.rappo at oracle.com>
Sent: 18 January 2024 10:57
To: Lindenmaier, Goetz
Cc: Magnus Ihse Bursie; jdk-dev at openjdk.org
Subject: Re: Is webrev generation still relevant?

We have to be careful here. The reason why we don't hear about webrev _might_ not be because people don't use it, but because everyone who uses it is satisfied with how Skara does webrev.

FWIW, I rarely, if ever, look at PRs outside of my IDE.

-Pavel

> On 18 Jan 2024, at 10:32, Lindenmaier, Goetz <goetz.lindenmaier at sap.com> wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> I think this can be removed. At least no one at SAP uses it.
>
> Best regards, Goetz.
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: jdk-dev <jdk-dev-retn at openjdk.org> On Behalf Of Magnus Ihse Bursie
>> Sent: Thursday, January 18, 2024 10:04 AM
>> To: jdk-dev at openjdk.org
>> Subject: Is webrev generation still relevant?
>>
>> At the onset of Project Skara, one goal was to keep backwards
>> compatibility with developers' workflows. For this, a Skara bot was
>> created which generates webrevs, as closely aligned to the original ksh
>> webrev script as possible.
>>
>> Now I believe all developers are well into the Skara/GitHub way of doing
>> things, and I have not heard someone refer to webrevs in a long time. So
>> my first question is:
>>
>> * Is it still relevant to continue let the Skara bots generate webrevs?
>>
>> I personally have only used webrevs on a few occasions the last years,
>> and those have all been when the GitHub diff viewer was inadequate. For
>> instance, the webrev bot uses a more aggressive method of letting git
>> match files that have been simultaneously moved and edited, and the
>> Frames view align code side-by-side which is sometimes much more helpful
>> than the line-by-line view in GitHub. So, my second question is:
>>
>> * Should we keep the idea of a bot that generates diff pages, but
>> instead of mimicking the old webrev script, tailor it to cover up for
>> those use cases where GitHub falls short?
>>
>> I'm not suggesting we should immediately turn of the webrev bot, so if
>> you still like and use it, there is no cause for panic. I'm just trying
>> to get a sense of how people feel about the future for webrevs.
>>
>> /Magnus
>