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: Metaproblem, part 3 Date: Wed, 3 Dec 2014 16:54:26 -0500 Organization: Eric Conspiracy Secret Labs Message-ID: <20141203215426.GA15791@thyrsus.com> References: <20141203142859.24393.98673@vcs.savannah.gnu.org> <20141203193110.GF12748@thyrsus.com> 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 1417643729 18592 80.91.229.3 (3 Dec 2014 21:55:29 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 3 Dec 2014 21:55:29 +0000 (UTC) Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Stefan Monnier Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Wed Dec 03 22:55:23 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 1XwHtI-0000BJ-0f for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Wed, 03 Dec 2014 22:55:20 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:43519 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XwHtH-0005bu-Ne for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Wed, 03 Dec 2014 16:55:19 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:55703) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XwHt0-0005Yt-Tz for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 03 Dec 2014 16:55:07 -0500 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XwHsv-0003u2-AE for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 03 Dec 2014 16:55:01 -0500 Original-Received: from static-71-162-243-5.phlapa.fios.verizon.net ([71.162.243.5]:59649 helo=snark.thyrsus.com) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XwHsv-0003tu-6y for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 03 Dec 2014 16:54:57 -0500 Original-Received: by snark.thyrsus.com (Postfix, from userid 1000) id A0075382D74; Wed, 3 Dec 2014 16:54:26 -0500 (EST) Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: 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:178781 Archived-At: Stefan Monnier : > Every commit should come with a commit message, yes. > And every commit message should use the ChangeLog format (plus > a summary if appropriate). > And every commit message should be duplicated in the ChangeLog file. But Paul Eggert said: "It's not needed for one-liners." So not only do we have commenting conventions that are duplicative, fussy, and undocumented, the senior developers seem not to agree on the details. Hello? Hello? Am I the only one that sees a problem here? I've been hacking on Emacs since before it was GNU Emacs and now *I* feel like I'm walking on eggshells and the overhead of contributing is irritatingly high. How much more forbidding do you suppose it is for J. Random Junior Hacker? Put differently: #emacs has over 500 regulars. It appears to me that no more than a dozen, if that, have contributed a line of code to the development tree. Does nobody in the project leadership ever think about what that implies? My next commit will be me diligently attempting to comply with Stefan's instruction. And thinking that a hell of a lot besides the version-control system needs to change around here. -- Eric S. Raymond