Hi all! I want to propose that we try and adopt a code style and quality guide. Its a big endeavor, but I think it's worth trying :-)
The Apache Flink community and contributor base is growing quite a bit, new committers and contributors are coming on board frequently. Everyone comes from a different background and brings a different level of experience. Different contributors apply different styles, and contributions are naturally of varying code quality. We are struggling with finding a good balance between: (1) On the one hand maintaining a certain code standard for a big and complex system like Flink, to reduce bugs and make future contributions feasible (and not impossible due to code complexity). (2) On the other hand, make contributions possible for contributors. This means not guarding everything to the point that no contributions can get in any more. My suggestion to help with this is to define a standard and document it explicitly. It will help to get everyone on the same page what the expectation is, and it helps contributors know what to pay attention to. Such a guide should also help make review more efficient, because contributors can know up front what reviewers will look at. Over the past weeks, I took a look at the current Flink code base and talked to some committers and contributors and tried to come up with a proposal that reflects the approaches and standards that many committers have adopted lately. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1owKfK1DwXA-w6qnx3R7t2D_o0BsFkkukGlRhvl3XXjQ This guide is not fix and final, we should discuss it and expand and adjust it over time. The guide tries to strike a balance between too much contents (don't force someone to read a book before contributing) and being comprehensive enough. The guide looks long, but much of it are component or aspect specific parts, like how to deal with new dependencies, configuration changes, etc. I an curious to hear whether you think such a guide is in principle a good idea. If yes, is the one here a good starting point? Best, Stephan
