Re: [Gdbheads] Re: Feb's patch resolution rate

[Michael Snyder]

Andrew Cagney wrote:
> > > Hmm, I should have also counted who reviewed Daniels patches as I now
> > >
> > > > suspect the results would be similar.
> > > >
> > > > If anything it should be Elena and you [david] maintaining the 
> > > > symbol table.
>
>
> Jim, lets stick to this question.  Would the pair:
>
>     Elena
>     David
>
> make for a better symbol table leads than:
>
>     JimB
>     Elena
>
> The symbol table is a critical piece of infrastructure and as such needs 
> a steady hand, and a long term commitment by developers.  Both through 
> overhaul, and through a disciplined and diligent review of patches. What 
> the area does not need is random tugs in differing directions based on 
> the wim of "maintainer of the day".

On the other hand, I wouldn't call most of the global maintainers
"maintainer of the day".  In fact, each of us was vested as a
global maintainer precisely because we were demonstrably, broadly
experienced enough to work in most or all parts of GDB.

I, for instance, have been working in that symbol table
for nearly a decade.  You won't find my earliest work in
the ChangeLogs, because they're still stuck in Apple's branch.
But you can see me working on stabs and dbxread in 1997,
as well as decode_line_1, minsyms, objfiles, symfile and
symtab.  Between my contributions of overlays, generic
call dummies, and regcache.c, I've been all over that code
for years.  Certainly not as much in recent years as Jim or
Elena, but I can't see how you could argue that I'm not
qualified to approve at least some symbol table patches.


[...]

> GDB needs people that _do_ review symtab patches, not people that are 
> listed as being "able to approve" symtab patches.  There is a very real 
> difference.

I don't see how taking the capability away from them increases
the likelyhood that they will do the job.