HotSpot Style Guide change process

Thomas Stüfe thomas.stuefe at gmail.com
Tue Dec 8 15:00:46 UTC 2020


On Mon, Dec 7, 2020 at 9:02 AM Kim Barrett <kim.barrett at oracle.com> wrote:

> > 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.
>

I am awaiting some of them eagerly, e.g. the use of "override".


> > 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...
>
>
I regret bringing up that point, since it served no purpose for this
discussion. I brought this up to demonstrate that the silence does not mean
nobody notices these decisions. This particular point is not important
enough to rekindle the discussion.

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 understand.


> > 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.
>

I'll set up a mail filter to highlight those.

The only idea I came up with is since these discussions are easier at the
start of a new release - everybody still has time - we could cluster them
around that time? That would also introduce a rhythm which people can get
used to.

Personally, I'd also prefer if these discussions were held independently
from a PR, since the Skara tooling causes too many mails and makes the
archived ML threads fragmented, and we still have no solution for the
fake-mail-address-problem.

Thanks, Thomas


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