Bad Patches and Issues with other devolopers

[Valdis.Kletnieks at vt.edu]

On Tue, 05 Aug 2014 13:42:58 -0400, Nick Krause said:
> I have sent out just ten bad patches and the developers seem very
> annoyed with me and

Let's face it - if you've sent ten bad patches in a row without getting
one right, you're doing something wrong.  And although total noob coders
scale very well (there seems to be a never-ending supply of them), maintainers
don't scale well at all - and they have a *huge* workload to review a lot of
patches every release cycle.

I can't think of a single maintainer that isn't willing to provide advice.

I also can't think of a single maintainer who *doesn't* get torqued off
massively when V2 of a patch, or another patch, comes in from the same
person and it's obvious the advice wasn't listened to.  They don't have
time for that sort of foolishness.

> think I am trolling. If someone on this list can find a way for me to
> improve my relationship
> with them and let me continue my work here that would be great.

First and foremost, when senior kernel developers give you specific advice,
*listen to it*.  If somebody like Ted T'so tells you that it's unacceptable to
send patches that aren't compile-tested, *you should never be sending another
patch that didn't compile clean*.  Period. End Of Discussion.

In fact, you should strive higher - don't submit a patch unless you are
(a) booted onto the patched kernel, (b) verify it by checking uname -r, and
(c) have done testing that your patch actually fixed the issue you were
patching without breaking anything.

Running around willy-nilly submitting patches all over the tree doesn't
inspire confidence in your patches - especially after you've hit multiple
subsystems and been told "This is wrong and you obviously (a) don't understand
the subsystem and (b) didn't bother figuring it out".

Also, you may want to sit down for a few days, and think long and hard
about *why* you're so desperate to submit kernel patches.  Do you have a
good reason to devote the time?  Or is it just ego-stroking?  (Personally,
I've been around since the 2.5.47 or so kernel - and I'm only doing it
because I have a Dell laptop on my desk and a quarter acre of servers across
the hall, and lots of users on our campus - and every good bug report I file
against linux-next means a crappy bug report from a user after the release
escapes)

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