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Wireshark-dev: Re: [Wireshark-dev] What does [WIP] really mean?

From: Gerald Combs <gerald@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Mon, 14 Apr 2014 11:49:10 -0700
On 4/11/14 7:35 PM, mmann78@xxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> I've seen a handful of patches submitted to Gerrit with [WIP] in the
> title.  Obviously this means "work in progress", but what does it mean
> for reviewers of the patch?  Should reviews be held off until
> more/better patches are submitted (with help accepted)?  Notification
> that a feature is being worked on?  Please help me test this?

I've been using it for feature branches, to stage code that either has a
long development cycle or needs to be tested on different machines. My take:

- Reviews: If someone wants to review the code that's fine, but WIP
implies "moving target".

- Help: Always welcome, and the sort of thing that Gerrit is supposed to
facilitate.

- Notification: This is built-in as long as the commit title is
sufficiently descriptive.

- Testing: Always welcome.

The early feedback I Qt IO graph (change 435) helped to direct later
changes to the code.

> If a reviewer thinks the current patch is "a good start" for a feature
> (and worthy of current inclusion), is it okay to give the +2?

I don't see why not, but he or she should probably check with the
submitter first.

> Since Gerrit doesn't seem to track multiple patches to a "feature" like
> a Bugzilla ticket can, is the [WIP] trying to be "feature complete"
> before submission?

It does as long as a single change ID maps to a "feature". I ended up
uploading 10 patch sets for the IO Graph.