Re: [Monotone-devel] code review in practice

[Eric Anderson]

Evan Martin writes:
 > Does anyone have experience using monotone for code review?

Evan,
        Yes, we did this internally at HPL for reviews of work done by 
a contractor.

 > What process do you use? 

Our primary branch was usi.hpl.hp.com/ManagementTools/main, we had a
centralized machine (usi.hpl.hp.com) for everyone to use as a
centralized point of integration.

We used three different mechanisms depending on the
significance/chance of screwing things up.

  1) For major/risky changes:
     commit onto a separate branch; usi.hpl.hp.com/ManagementTools/work
     review on the branch
     propagate once it passes review
  2) For minor changes:
     commit onto the main branch shortly before the review.
     review in the main branch and fix issues during the review
  3) Sync directly from the contractor's monotone db to the reviewers'
     monotone db, review there and sync back.  We did this fairly rarely.

To extend it to multiple people, you could have per-person
sub-branches, e.g. usi.hpl.hp.com/ManagementTools/{eric,jill,bob,jane}
and someone would keep working on their branch until they had things
working well enough to merge to mainline.  Whether you do (2) depends
on how much you trust the people being reviewed.

We didn't end up using disapprove any, but we had good contractors.
        -Eric