From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: "Eric S. Raymond" Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: resolving ambiguity in action stamps Date: Sun, 14 Sep 2014 06:55:31 -0400 Organization: Eric Conspiracy Secret Labs Message-ID: <20140914105531.GA30576@thyrsus.com> References: <87wq9841zx.fsf@uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp> <20140913053525.GA15582@thyrsus.com> <87tx4c3t4k.fsf@uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp> <20140913.092630.2301242291023129455.hanche@math.ntnu.no> <20140913105058.GA16776@thyrsus.com> <87r3ze4pw6.fsf@uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp> Reply-To: esr@thyrsus.com NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1410692164 14618 80.91.229.3 (14 Sep 2014 10:56:04 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 14 Sep 2014 10:56:04 +0000 (UTC) Cc: Harald Hanche-Olsen , emacs-devel@gnu.org To: "Stephen J. Turnbull" Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sun Sep 14 12:55:58 2014 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1XT7TK-0002gf-H9 for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sun, 14 Sep 2014 12:55:58 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:53602 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XT7TJ-0002gL-VZ for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sun, 14 Sep 2014 06:55:57 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:43913) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XT7Sz-0002gC-9V for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 14 Sep 2014 06:55:42 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XT7Sv-0001TD-6J for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 14 Sep 2014 06:55:37 -0400 Original-Received: from static-71-162-243-5.phlapa.fios.verizon.net ([71.162.243.5]:51425 helo=snark.thyrsus.com) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XT7Sv-0001T7-2O for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 14 Sep 2014 06:55:33 -0400 Original-Received: by snark.thyrsus.com (Postfix, from userid 1000) id F345B3805FC; Sun, 14 Sep 2014 06:55:31 -0400 (EDT) Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <87r3ze4pw6.fsf@uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp> X-Eric-Conspiracy: There is no conspiracy User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.21 (2010-09-15) X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.2.x-3.x [generic] X-Received-From: 71.162.243.5 X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:174285 Archived-At: Stephen J. Turnbull : > I really don't see what's wrong with > > 2014-09-15 Stefan Monnier > > * JOKES (dumb_joke_internal): Revert Eric Raymond's commit of > 2014-04-01 [deadbeefcafefeeddefaceddeafadd0123456789]. > It was a funny-once, Man. > > Or whatever formatting you want, as long as the SHA1 ref is easily > parsable out of the text. At least two things are wrong with it. One is a genuinely funny gotcha. You can't get to git hashes without going through something semantically like my version stamps on the way! Think hard about what you'd need to do to know what the right SNA1 hash is for my hypothetical funny-once commit at the time you generate the final version of this changelog comment about the reversion. You'll get it, and when you do you might actually laugh. The second problem is that it's not future-proof. Someday we might have to change VCSes again; git is the *fifth*, after RCS CVS Arch bzr. It would be unwise to assume that nobody will ever have a better idea. At that time it would be a Really Good Thing if as few of our commit refs as possible are opaque magic cookies - and in order to translate them to whatever new commit-ref format we'll *still* have to go through a semantic equivalent of revision stamps! Thus, it seems best to me to just land on a VCS-independent and human-readable version-stamp format and stay there, treating VCS-specific commit-refs as a practice flaw to be avoided. -- Eric S. Raymond