Link Details

Gerrit, a Git-based system for managing code review, is helping to spread the popular distributed revision control system into Android-using companies, many of which have heavy quality assurance, management, and legal processes around software. HTC, Qualcomm, TI, Sony Ericsson, and Android originator Google are all running Gerrit, project leader Shawn Pearce said in a talk at the October 2009 GitTogether event, hosted at Google in Mountain View. The Gerrit story starts with the progressive escape of an in-house Google process and tool. Google requires code review for any change to company code or configuration files; there are a few exceptions, but those are subject to review after deployment. The code review process started out using lots of email, but for the past several years it has been automated. When Guido van Rossum, creator of the Python language, began working at Google in 2005, he started developing a tool, in Python naturally, to coordinate code reviews. The result, called Mondrian, lets users view the proposed change as a side-by-side comparison, and participate in comment threads attached anywhere in the code under review. An overview page shows a to-do list of incoming changes to review and reviewers' comments. Van Rossum presented Mondrian at a public talk in 2006.