NoQ added inline comments.
================ Comment at: clang/www/analyzer/open_projects.html:27-32 + <p>New checkers which were contributed to the analyzer, + but have not passed a rigorous evaluation process, + are committed as "alpha checkers" (from "alpha version"), + and are not enabled by default. + + The development of many such checkers has stalled over the years. ---------------- george.karpenkov wrote: > NoQ wrote: > > This is extremely important to get right. Alpha doesn't mean "i did an > > experiment, let me dump my code so that it wasn't lost, maybe others will > > pick it up and turn it into a useful checker if they figure out how". Alpha > > doesn't mean "a checker that power-users can use at their own risk when > > they want to find more bugs". Alpha doesn't mean "i think this checker is > > great but maintainers think it's bad so they keep me in alpha but i'm happy > > because i can write in my resume that i'm an llvm contributor". All of > > these are super popular misconceptions. > > > > Alpha means "i'm working on it". That's it. > > > > Let's re-phrase to something like: "When a new checker is being developed > > incrementally, it is committed into clang and is put into the hidden > > "alpha" package (from "alpha version"). Ideally, once all desired > > functionality of the checker is implemented, checker should be moved out of > > the alpha package and become enabled by default or recommended to opt-in > > into, but development of many alpha checkers has stalled over the years." > Let's ignore (3) as a red herring, but I'm not sure I see the difference > between (1), (2) and (4). When someone works actively on a checker, but then > stops, it immediately transfers from state (4) to state (2) and optionally (1) This is kinda mostly about the attitude with which people should put stuff into the `alpha` package. Yeah, if someone stops for inevitable reasons, then we're inevitably left with unmaintained experimental code in the repo, i guess that's why this section exists. But contributors shouldn't plan for this from the start. A lot of contributors literally believe that alpha is by design a stockpile of incomplete work and weird experiments and it'll make everybody happy if they add more incomplete work and weird experiments into it, i myself misunderstood this for a long time and i want to address this misconception. https://reviews.llvm.org/D53024 _______________________________________________ cfe-commits mailing list cfe-commits@lists.llvm.org http://lists.llvm.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/cfe-commits
