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docs: Write down some high-level thoughts on doing code reviews.

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This started as a PSA in the form of a series of chat messages in
`#general` on chat.zulip.org; putting them here, with some editing,
to make their value more durable.

Also rearrange this doc slightly so that it's not specific to
the server codebase, except in a few explicit spots.

The bit that's for authors should probably be somewhere else.
I think there isn't right now a great natural spot for it --
probably the top of docs/git-guide, some parts of docs/version-control,
and that paragraph here should all turn into a top-level "guide
to submitting code to Zulip" doc, which would link to the rest
of docs/git-guide and to some other resources.  Leaving that
for another day.
This commit is contained in:
Greg Price
2017-06-26 19:33:23 -07:00
committed by showell
parent 5c9f02924f
commit 8e82bf6532
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119
docs/code-reviewing.md
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@@ -1,10 +1,69 @@
# Reviewing Zulip server code
# Reviewing Zulip code
This document is a brief discussion of what we look for when reviewing
contributions to Zulip. It's meant partially for developers who want
to get their code merged faster, and partially for developers who have
made successful pull requests already and would like to start
participating in code review.
Code review is a key part of how Zulip does development! If you've
been contributing to Zulip's code, we'd love for you to do reviews.
This is a guide to how. (With some thoughts for writing code too.)
## Principles of code review
### Anyone can review
Anyone can do a code review -- you don't have to have a ton of
experience, and you don't have to have the power to ultimately merge
the PR. If you
* read the code, see if you understand what the change is
doing and why, and ask questions if you don't; or
* fetch the code (for Zulip server code,
[tools/fetch-rebase-pull-request][git tool] is super handy), play around
with it in your dev environment, and say what you think about how
the feature works
those are really helpful contributions.
### Please do reviews
Doing code reviews is an important part of making the project go.
It's also an important skill to develop for participating in
open-source projects and working in the industry in general. If
you're contributing to Zulip and have been working in our code for a
little while, we would love for some of your time contributing to come
in the form of doing code reviews!
For students participating in Google Summer of Code or a similar
program, we expect you to spend a chunk of your time each week (after
the first couple of weeks as you're getting going) doing code reviews.
### Fast replies are key
For the author of a PR, getting feedback quickly is really important
for making progress quickly and staying productive. That means that
if you get @-mentioned on a PR with a request for you to review it,
it helps the author a lot if you reply promptly.
A reply doesn't even have to be a full review; if a PR is big or if
you're pressed for time, then just getting some kind of reply in
quickly -- initial thoughts, feedback on the general direction, or
just saying you're busy and when you'll have time to look harder -- is
still really valuable for the author and for anyone else who might
review the PR.
People in the Zulip project live and work in many timezones, and code
reviewers also need focused chunks of time to write code and do other
things, so an immediate reply isn't always possible. But a good
benchmark is to try to always reply **within one workday**, at least
with a short initial reply, if you're working regularly on Zulip. And
sooner is better.
### Protocol for authors
When you send a PR, try to think of a good person to review it --
outside of the handful of people who do a ton of reviews -- and
`@`-mention them with something like "`@person`, would you review
this?". Good choices include
* someone based in your timezone or a nearby timezone
* people working on similar things, or in a loosely related area
## Things to look for
@@ -43,20 +102,9 @@ participating in code review.
user input, and potential bugs that are likely for the type of
change being made. Tests that exclude whole classes of potential
bugs are preferred when possible (e.g., the common test suite
`test_bugdown.py` between the [frontend and backend Markdown
processors](markdown.html) or the `GetEventsTest` test for buggy
race condition handling).
Backend: we are trying to maintain ~100% test coverage on the
backend, so backend changes should have negative tests for the
various error conditions. Frontend: If the feature involves frontend
changes, there should be frontend tests. See the [test
writing][test-writing] documentation for more details.
* *mypy annotations.* New functions should be annotated using [mypy]
and existing annotations should be updated. Use of `Any`, `ignore`,
and unparameterized containser should be limited to cases where a
more precise type cannot be specified.
`test_bugdown.py` between the Zulip server's [frontend and backend
Markdown processors](markdown.html), or the `GetEventsTest` test for
buggy race condition handling).
* *Translation.* Make sure that the strings are marked for
[translation].
@@ -104,15 +152,34 @@ participating in code review.
control][commit-messages] documentation for details on what we look
for.
### Zulip server
Some points specific to the Zulip server codebase:
* *Testing -- Backend.* We are trying to maintain ~100% test coverage
on the backend, so backend changes should have negative tests for
the various error conditions.
* *Testing -- Frontend.* If the feature involves frontend changes,
there should be frontend tests. See the [test
writing][test-writing] documentation for more details.
* *mypy annotations.* New functions should be annotated using [mypy]
and existing annotations should be updated. Use of `Any`, `ignore`,
and unparameterized containser should be limited to cases where a
more precise type cannot be specified.
## Tooling
To make it easier to review pull requests, use our [git tool]
To make it easier to review pull requests, if you're working in the
Zulip server codebase, use our [git tool]
`tools/fetch-rebase-pull-request` to check out a pull request locally
and rebase it against master. If a pull request just needs a little
fixing to make it mergeable, feel free to do that in a new commit,
then push your branch to GitHub and mention the branch in a comment on
the pull request. That'll save the maintainer time and get the PR
merged quicker.
and rebase it against master.
If a pull request just needs a little fixing to make it mergeable,
feel free to do that in a new commit, then push your branch to GitHub
and mention the branch in a comment on the pull request. That'll save
the maintainer time and get the PR merged quicker.
## Additional Resources