Re: [PATH 5.10 0/4] xfs stable candidate patches for 5.10.y (part 1)

From: Amir Goldstein <amir73il@gmail.com>
To: Dave Chinner <david@fromorbit.com>
Cc: Luis Chamberlain <mcgrof@kernel.org>,
	Christoph Hellwig <hch@infradead.org>,
	"Darrick J . Wong" <darrick.wong@oracle.com>,
	"Theodore Ts'o" <tytso@mit.edu>,
	Adam Manzanares <a.manzanares@samsung.com>,
	Tyler Hicks <code@tyhicks.com>,
	linux-xfs <linux-xfs@vger.kernel.org>,
	fstests <fstests@vger.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: [PATH 5.10 0/4] xfs stable candidate patches for 5.10.y (part 1)
Date: Sat, 28 May 2022 08:00:48 +0300	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <CAOQ4uxgYoK=mE=Fpt8BizgHxXmgajCk=t2k6nzHb2mM=C-HvAg@mail.gmail.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20220527234202.GF3923443@dread.disaster.area>

On Sat, May 28, 2022 at 2:42 AM Dave Chinner <david@fromorbit.com> wrote:
>
> On Fri, May 27, 2022 at 08:40:14AM -0700, Luis Chamberlain wrote:
> > On Fri, May 27, 2022 at 03:24:02PM +0300, Amir Goldstein wrote:
> > > On Fri, May 27, 2022 at 12:08 PM Dave Chinner <david@fromorbit.com> wrote:
> > > > Backport candidate: yes. Severe: absolutely not.
> > > In the future, if you are writing a cover letter for an improvement
> > > series or internal pull request and you know there is a backport
> > > candidate inside, if you happen to remember to mention it, it would
> > > be of great help to me.
>
> That's what "fixes" and "cc: stable" tags in the commit itself are
> for, not the cover letter.

Cover letter is an overview of the work.
A good cover letter includes an overview of the individual patches
in the context of the whole work as your cover letter did:

Summary of series:

Patches Modifications
------- -------------
1-7: log write FUA/FLUSH optimisations
8: bug fix
9-11: Async CIL pushes
12-25: xlog_write() rework
26-39: CIL commit scalability

So it was lapse of judgement on my part or carelessness that made me
eliminate the series without noting patch #8.

Furthermore, the subject of the patch has Fix and trailer has
Reported-and-tested-by:
so auto candidate selection would have picked it up easily, but my scripts
only looked for the obvious Fixes: tag inside the eliminated series, so that
is a problem with my process that I need to improve.

So the blame is entirely on me! not on you!

And yet.
"bug fix"?
Really?

I may not have been expecting more of other developers.
But I consider you to be one of the best when it comes to analyzing and
documenting complex and subtle code, so forgive me for expecting more.
I am not talking about severity or rareness or other things that may change
in time perspective. I am talking about describing the changes in a way that
benefits the prospective consumers of the cover letter (i.e. me).

It makes me sad that you are being defensive about this, because I wish
to be able to provide feedback to developers without having deal with a
responses like:
"I don't need anyone trying to tell me what I should have been doing"

Not every suggestion for an improvement is an attack.
You do not have to agree with my suggestions nor to adopt them,
but please do not dismiss them, because they come in good faith.

Thanks,
Amir.