Re: [boost] is review system in place is extremely slow? (was Re: [rfc] rcpp)

Subject: Re: [boost] is review system in place is extremely slow? (was Re: [rfc] rcpp)
From: Edward Diener (eldiener_at_[hidden])
Date: 2010-02-28 10:45:54

Andrey Semashev wrote:
> Hi Gennadiy,
> 
snip...
>> 4. Review process.
>> The candidate review can start at any time by the review manager (no
>> queue) and should take at least 2-4 month. There can be any number of
>> reviewed being run concurrently. The "candidate review" page should
>> include abstract, review package, and some kind of review submission
>> mechanism (maybe boolean yes/no + an actual review). The review should
>> be per person and each reviewer should have an ability to modify the
>> review.
>> Review discussion mechanism can be web based on rely on mailing list or
>> some mixture of these.
> 
> I disagree, in several points.
> 
> * 2-4 months is a very long period. You can't expect review manager and 
> the library authors focused on the review that long. Also, for simple 
> tools, such as Boost.Move that is in the queue now, there's nothing to 
> review during all that time. On the other hand, I agree that a few weeks 
> may not be enough for some larger scaled libraries. Which leads me to 
> conclusion that the review duration should be individual, decided by the 
> author, review manager and review wizards, taking into account other 
> reviews.
> 
> * Concurrent reviews is wrong. We don't have enough reviewers and 
> wizards to make sequential reviews. Allowing parallel reviews won't make 
> it better. The review quality will also drop.

I disagree with you here and agree with Gennadiy Rozental. In order to 
get more libraries reviewed and possible approved more quickly overall, 
and also to allow reviewers more time to review a library than is 
currently given for Boost reviews, I feel it is important that 
concurrent reviews take place with each one lasting over a longer time 
period than currently usually occurs.

One of the biggest factors in keeping possible reviewers from reviewing 
a Boost library is that the usual two week time frame is just not 
enough. One month would not be unjustified and perhaps two months would 
not be too long. In order to get more libraries reviewed given a longer 
time frame for each review, it would be necessary to allow reviews of 
more than one Boost library at a time.