There was some discussion on https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/YARN-9052
about concerns surrounding the costs/benefits of code cleanup JIRAs. This email
is to get the discussion going within a wider audience.
The positive points for code cleanup JIRAs:
- Clean up tech debt
- Make code more readable
- Make code more maintainable
- Make code more performant
The concerns regarding code cleanup JIRAs are as follows:
- If the changes only go into trunk, then contributors and committers trying to
backport to prior releases will have to create and test multiple patch versions.
- Some have voiced concerns that code cleanup JIRAs may not be tested as
thoroughly as features and bug fixes because functionality is not supposed to
change.
- Any patches awaiting review that are touching the same code will have to be
redone, re-tested, and re-reviewed.
- JIRAs that are opened for code cleanup and not worked on right away tend to
clutter up the JIRA space.
Here are my opinions:
- Code changes of any kind force a non-trivial amount of overhead for other
developers. For code cleanup JIRAs, sometimes the usability, maintainability,
and performance is worth the overhead (as in the case of YARN-9052).
- Before opening any JIRA, please always consider whether or not the added
usability will outweigh the added pain you are causing other developers.
- If you believe the benefits outweigh the costs, please backport the changes
yourself to all active lines. My preference is to port all the way back to 2.10.
- Please don't run code analysis tools and then open many JIRAs that document
those findings. That activity does not put any thought into this cost-benefit
analysis.
Thanks everyone. I'm looking forward to your thoughts. I appreciate all you do
for the open source community and it is always a pleasure to work with you.
-Eric Payne
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