Hello, Due to a recent problem I had with an API addition (solved while writing the E-Mail about it, the rubber duck technique worked!) I noticed, not for the first time, something missing...
the Trolltech API review process. The thing that ensured that (almost) all new API made sense to humans semi-informed about the subject matter the API deals with. I don't know how it was done - I recall some rumors about people getting into a room and reviewing API on a projector or something. Nowadays, API not contributed by TQtC is not-really-reviewed on Gerrit. Gerrit is somehow much more detail-oriented, and criticizing "too subjective" stuff is frowned upon. There's a fine line between annoying people for no good enough reason and being too lenient and letting bad code / API slip through. For API, due to its somewhat subjective nature, I would argue that the level of strictness required to achieve a good result is already more strict than what is perceived as annoying people for no good reason. It doesn't help that the strictest and most nitpicky reviewers generally care the least about API. So yeah, I came with a problem and no good suggestion for a solution. I would be fine with TQtC doing API reviews at some point well before release and telling everyone the results in time to improve their code additions for that release, but that's just my opinion. I suspect that a room full of "dude, that API sucks, you can't ship that" makes more of an impression on perpetrators of subpar API than one or two -1 for "only" soft reasons on Gerrit. At an API review meeting, there *will* be a sufficiently large number people to achieve that effect. On Gerrit, well, most people prefer doing something else, like micro-optimizing something. Nobody can argue with contributions like that. But they are perhaps not as important as ensuring API quality. Everything I have written about API applies to documentation as well. It seems like whatever the implementor writes is accepted and that is that. AFAIU that was not exactly how it used to be done at Trolltech when it was still called Trolltech? tl;dr: API quality is not something people work on casually and voluntarily, it seems like it needs more / more suitable process to achieve. (Also, nobody likes process.) Now what? Cheers, Andreas _______________________________________________ Development mailing list Development@qt-project.org http://lists.qt-project.org/mailman/listinfo/development
