Re: [Xen-devel] [xen 4.6 retrospective] [Good and Bad] Posting a design document first is helpful

["Jan Beulich" <JBeulich@xxxxxxxx>]

>>> On 31.08.15 at 10:26, <feng.wu@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> The whole point of having such design discussions is to get maintainer's 
> feedbacks as early as possible
> and have everyone agree on the solution architecture up front. This approach 
> has worked great when all
> relevant maintainers actively participate in the discussions like the case 
> of PML patchset. Our assumption is
> that all relevant maintainers agree with the design if they remain silent 
> during design discussion. However,
> when we come up with an implementation based on the agreed design and 
> maintainers who did not participate
> in design discussion raise design problems later, it really made engineers 
> frustrated and defeated the whole
> motivation of having design discussion up front.

I understand that this can be frustrating, and I for my part try to
participate in design discussions whenever possible/reasonable.
However, just like for patch review and any other discussions there
is limited bandwidth, and hence determining the point in time when
everyone potentially having an opinion has voiced theirs can be
rather difficult (as no reply doesn't mean there isn't going to be a
reply). And then you have to face that sometimes a design looks
good when looking at it from an abstract perspective, but when
it comes to implementing what was designed it may still turn out to
be flawed. I.e. posting (and discussing) a design early can only
help an easier subsequent patch review process, it can't guarantee
it.

Jan


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