Re: Upstreaming Reviewed-by to git.git

[Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>]

Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> writes:

> In any case, reading others' patch, together with the original
> version before the patch changed, is a great opportunity to learn
> the codebase and how the project work in general.  It is highly
> recommended.

Addendum.  The above makes it sound as if I am encouraging new
people to only read to learn silently, but that is not what I meant.

Reading and then expressing what you read in the patch in your own
words is a good way for you to learn the system.  And it is also a
good way for the patch author to ensure what was written in the
patch is understandable.  For somebody who is totally new to the
codebase, any patch that is more complex than the most trivial might
not be hard to understand and that is not a patch author's fault,
but once contributors have learned the codebase enough, even before
they have their own changes to our codebase, a new patch should be
written in such a way to understandable by them without getting
misunderstood.  So a mere "this looks good to me" by new people may
not add much value to the discussion, but thinking aloud in more
detail, expressing why they think the patch is good, e.g. "I think
this change tries to do X by doing Y.  If I were doing so, I might
do so by Z, but I think Y would be a better approach than that"
would help others to see that what is written in the patch was truly
understandable (if what the new person said was to the point) or
misleading (otherwise).

Thanks.