Re: Do Tools Need Formal Reviews?

From: Julien Blanc (julien.blanc_at_[hidden])
Date: 2024-10-09 05:56:34

Le mardi 08 octobre 2024 Ã  15:39 -0700, Vinnie Falco via Boost a
écrit :
> 
> An argument used to justify a formal review is that the resulting
> feedback can improve the tool. I agree that feedback is generally
> helpful, this is true even if there is no formal review. That is,
> there is no requirement for a formal review to be ongoing for someone
> to provide feedback. Just provide the feedback. Tools are boring, and
> unlikely to attract a significant number of review responses. Formal
> reviews of proposed internal tools which receive a very small number
> of reviewers do not signal strong consensus and I believe harm
> morale.

I would like to emphasize this argument, and adds another one in favor
of a review. Reviews give visibility to the tool, it will result in
increased available information about what the tool do, how to use it,
and ideally result in the establishment on some guidelines on how to
use the tool for boost. It will makes maintainers aware that there's a
new tool available, and it may bring value to your library.

Going back to the specifics of Dmitry's pretty printer testing, i think
there's great value in reviewing that, because it's a quite new thing,
and it's more than just a tool because pretty printers have bugs that
will directly impact the customer experience. I don't see how the
outcome could be reject, but i do think that more feedback / other
opinions on this would be welcomed. And i do hope more libraries will
think about including pretty printers and test them.

Regards,

Julien