Code review policy - IMP-dev

12 Dec 2007


      It seemed sensible to me to come up with a default IMP code review 
policy. Please take a look over it and if you have any issues with it, 
think it needs to be clarified some more, etc., follow up to the list:
https://salilab.org/internal/manuals/imp/ch01s04.html
Text from that URL:
Code review
To ensure code quality, additions to the IMP kernel should be reviewed 
by the other developers. In general, this means posting a patch with 
some explanation of the changes (e.g. suitable for the source control 
logs) to the imp-dev@salilab.org mailing list. This is mandatory for 
changes that:
* Change the API (e.g. remove or rename existing methods or classes, 
change the arguments taken by existing methods, change the behavior of 
existing methods, change the return values or thrown exceptions of 
existing methods).
* Remove or modify existing test cases.
For more minor changes, such as adding new tests, methods and/or classes 
(which may change the ABI but not the API), documentation updates, etc. 
review is not required but is recommended.
Patches should contain a related set of changes. For example, a patch 
which adds a new method foo, a new testcase for foo, and some 
documentation for the SpecialVector class, should be split into two 
patches: one for the foo method and test, and the other for the 
SpecialVector documentation.
New code in patches should also adhere to the coding style guidelines.
Rationale: Other developers may have external applications and their own 
in-progress work which may be adversely affected by your changes. There 
may also be disagreement about a change, so discussing it on the mailing 
list first assures that a consensus is first reached, rather than other 
developers later reverting the change. It is much easier to review a 
patch if it is small and contains only relevant changes, and in addition 
it can generally be applied to source control virtually unchanged if the 
code is OK.
Ben
-- 
ben@salilab.org                      http://salilab.org/~ben/
"It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data."
    - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle