Re: Please help the rdiff-backup project by reviewing pull requests (not a hard thing to do!)

[Eric Lavarde]

Hello everybody,

thanks, Otto, for this necessary call to action!

Let me re-enforce the message and also explain what I expect when 
someone reviews one of my PRs. The good news is that you don't need to 
be afraid, I don't bite (especially not in Corona times) and I stay 
friendly even if I disagree with your observations, which is very normal.

The other good news is that you don't need to be a specialist of the 
rdiff-backup code, just have some knowledge of Python, so that you can 
review the code and ask some more or less stupid questions. It's really 
fine if they are not really stupid but just genuine: if you don't 
understand what I'm trying to do, it might mean that my code, comments 
or documentation aren't as clear as I think they are.

A few rules of thumb to make it clearer:

- do your homework, if it's basic Python knowledge missing, read the 
docs before you comment, but I'm fine if your understanding is only 
theoretical
- if my code is too complex, fair remark. Lack of comment might be the 
issue.
- be ready to see me disagree: even if I don't agree with your proposed 
changes, I'll explain (gently) why, and you'll learn something, and 
it'll help me clarify my thoughts and make sure that I really took the 
right decision (or possibly not).

So, don't hesitate, it's a cross check that I don't oversee something 
obvious.

Thanks, Eric

On 17/02/2021 07:41, Otto Kekäläinen wrote:
> Hello!
>
> Please go to https://github.com/rdiff-backup/rdiff-backup/pulls and
> check out the 3 most recent PRs.
>
> The project is currently somewhat stalled by the lack of PR reviewers.
> Eric has made a couple of PRs but I personally don't have time right
> now to review them. The project needs more reviewers – at minimum you
> only need to skim the changes (documentation changes, code changes)
> and comment something so that Eric does not have to do everything by
> himself.
>
> A big thanks to Eric for being the main developer and reviving
> rdiff-backup and getting 2.0 released. If there isn't enough support
> from the subscribers of this mailing list and users of rdiff-backup,
> Eric might loose interest in maintaining the code.
>
> So please step up those who can.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Otto