We've been looking for options to integrate Code Reviews to our development process. As we've been using PlasticSCM quite a while now, the logical method would be to use the internal Code Review system that's already been implemented to PlasticSCM.
However, we've been hitting a wall with this. The single biggest problem of using the built-in code review is that we use PlasticSCM as a distributed SCM, and none of our programmers connect straight to the Cloud Repository. Now, as I understand the code review process in PlasticSCM, it'd look a bit like this:
1. Select a branch you are ready to merge
2. Create a new code review for that branch
3. Some other programmer regularly checks code reviews, and sees there is a new code review present
4. This programmer then proceeds to review the code, comments and requests changes and clarifications accordingly
5. Now the original programmer checks the code reviews, and processes new comments and acts accordingly
6. Once everyone is satisfied, the code review is marked as Reviewed, and the merge can go on ahead
Now, suppose Programmer A has created a code review on their local workspace, that needs to be addressed by Programmer B. Programmer B now subsequently checks their Code Review tab, and they find nothing. It seems the information hasn't moved at all. As far as I know, the code review information is moved between servers with metadata. However, you cannot push only a metadata change to some other server, thus the only way to move the information about the code review would be to also make a file change that you could push.
So now, we have a few additional steps:
2a. Touch a file to change it and check-in to local
2b. Sync repositories
The other way we could make this work is to have a workspace that connects straight to the cloud, and only use code reviews on that workspace. This however creates a lot of possibilities for confusion, and it's not the direction we want to go.
So the question remains: How to either a) automatically or semi-automatically send code review data to the cloud server and back to local or b) change the code reviews window to actually access the cloud repository's code reviews while everything else is connected to local or c) streamline the sharing of code review information between distributed local servers some other way to prevent the need for creating a small change and a useless commit just to send a code-review comment?