Skip to content

Commit 010447c

Browse files
committed
MyFirstContribution: refrain from self-iterating too much
Finding mistakes in and improving your own patches is a good idea, but doing so too quickly is being inconsiderate to reviewers who have just seen the initial iteration and taking their time to review it. Encourage new developers to perform such a self review before they send out their patches, not after. After sending a patch that they immediately found mistakes in, they are welcome to comment on them, mentioning what and how they plan to improve them in an updated version, before sending out their updates. Helped-by: Torsten Bögershausen <[email protected]> Helped-by: Linus Arver <[email protected]> Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <[email protected]>
1 parent 844ede3 commit 010447c

File tree

1 file changed

+32
-0
lines changed

1 file changed

+32
-0
lines changed

Documentation/MyFirstContribution.txt

Lines changed: 32 additions & 0 deletions
Original file line numberDiff line numberDiff line change
@@ -1256,6 +1256,38 @@ index 88f126184c..38da593a60 100644
12561256
[[now-what]]
12571257
== My Patch Got Emailed - Now What?
12581258

1259+
Please give reviewers enough time to process your initial patch before
1260+
sending an updated version. That is, resist the temptation to send a new
1261+
version immediately, because others may have already started reviewing
1262+
your initial version.
1263+
1264+
While waiting for review comments, you may find mistakes in your initial
1265+
patch, or perhaps realize a different and better way to achieve the goal
1266+
of the patch. In this case you may communicate your findings to other
1267+
reviewers as follows:
1268+
1269+
- If the mistakes you found are minor, send a reply to your patch as if
1270+
you were a reviewer and mention that you will fix them in an
1271+
updated version.
1272+
1273+
- On the other hand, if you think you want to change the course so
1274+
drastically that reviews on the initial patch would be a waste of
1275+
time (for everyone involved), retract the patch immediately with
1276+
a reply like "I am working on a much better approach, so please
1277+
ignore this patch and wait for the updated version."
1278+
1279+
Now, the above is a good practice if you sent your initial patch
1280+
prematurely without polish. But a better approach of course is to avoid
1281+
sending your patch prematurely in the first place.
1282+
1283+
Please be considerate of the time needed by reviewers to examine each
1284+
new version of your patch. Rather than seeing the initial version right
1285+
now (followed by several "oops, I like this version better than the
1286+
previous one" patches over 2 days), reviewers would strongly prefer if a
1287+
single polished version came 2 days later instead, and that version with
1288+
fewer mistakes were the only one they would need to review.
1289+
1290+
12591291
[[reviewing]]
12601292
=== Responding to Reviews
12611293

0 commit comments

Comments
 (0)