Is webrev generation still relevant?

[daniel.daugherty at oracle.com]

I rely on the webrev view when I need to review the changes without all
the embedded commentary in the GitHub view. As others have said, the webrev
view is less noisy when you want to make sense of the changes without any
other context.

For complicated changes or code motion changes, the webrev view is far
superior because of the ability to shift the two views relative to each
other.

Of course, the GitHub view is perfect for simpler changes.

Dan


On 1/18/24 4:04 AM, Magnus Ihse Bursie wrote:
> 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
>