[Twisted-Python] on avoiding our policy: casual fixes branch

[Andrew Bennetts]

On Thu, Mar 23, 2006 at 12:05:46PM -0500, glyph at divmod.com wrote:
[...]
> 
> For now, because defining "trivial" is so hard (what if your docstring fix 
> has a typo which actually changes some code which breaks some tests?), and 
> it is always too tempting to classify "just this one" branch as "trivial" 
> because the author wants to merge it really fast and it's not _too_ long, 
> the proposed solution is to have a shared "minor fixes" ticket and branch, 
> which should be reviewed once a week or so, and merged en-masse.

As stated on IRC, I think this adds significant, needless overhead to the
process for zero benefit.

The risk of a trivial commit (let's say this is defined as purely small cosmetic
or documentation changes, and that any code change is considered by definition
non-trivial) going wrong is low.  Even if it *does* go wrong, the cost of fixing
that is low (a simple revert away, and diagnosis is going to be easy with a diff
that tiny).  The proposed process is out of proportion with the problem.

Launchpad requires mandatory reviewer approval for merging to trunk -- with an
exception for trivial commits.  Trivial commits must have [trivial] in the
commit message, or they are automatically rejected.  Given we already puts diffs
in our commit mails, post hoc reviews are easy if anyone cares.  Abusing
[trivial] would be dealt with the same as any other abuse.  The system works
very well for us.  I think it would work well for Twisted, and the cost is
almost nothing: committers have to add "[trivial]" to commit messages.

Vote "no" to mindless bureaucracy! ;)

-Andrew.