On Fri, Apr 27, 2018 at 7:05 PM, Niharika Kohli <nkohli(a)wikimedia.org>
wrote:
Also, I think dropping the limit to 4 patches per
window is extreme,
especially if we are asking people to start splitting their patches now.
Very often we can +2 multiple patches in one go if they don't affect each
other, or sync out changes together if they happen to the same file. I've
deployed 8 patches in a window often, with people asking if they can add
more yet. Due to timezone limitations, most people can only attend one of
the SWAT windows and if they can't get it out in that window, they have to
wait a whole day or more to get it out.
FWIW, here are some stats on the patch counts for the first three months of
2018 (might contain errors, tried not to spend too much time on it):
EU mid: 8, 6, 2, 10, 1, 6, 1, 2, 1, 2, 2, 6, 2, 9, 6, 10, 2, 1, 1, 8, 7, 5,
5, 5, 2, 7, 6, 8, 4, 7, 4, 4, 4, 1, 1, 4, 3, 3, 2, 4, 4, 5, 5, 1
(average: 4.25, max of 2-week rolling average: 5.7)
Morning: 7, 1, 1, 5, 1, 3, 4, 1, 6, 3, 4, 3, 3, 5, 6, 4, 3, 5, 8, 4, 5, 4,
3, 0, 3, 1, 5, 9, 2, 1, 3
(average: 3.6, max of 2-week rolling average: 5)
Evening: 8, 1, 1, 1, 1, 3, 3, 2, 1, 3, 4, 2, 1, 1, 2, 1, 1, 5, 1, 6, 1, 3,
3, 1, 2, 3, 1, 0, 9, 10, 5, 4, 1, 6, 2, 1, 2, 4, 3
(average: 2.8, max of 2-week rolling average: 4.75)
ie. if the new policy was introduced at the start of the year, it would
have caused at least a two-week delay in all three SWAT windows at one
point at least, and it would have caused an ever-growing backlog of patches
for EU mid-day.
(That's without taking the split patch requirement into account, it's hard
to tell how many patches that would have affected.)