Re: deleting rcs keywords from emacs sources

[spiegel@genion.de]

> [...] and as far as I know aren't really particularly useful,
> so I'd like to simply delete them from the
> emacs sources.

I absolutely, positively couldn't live without them. I have in fact doubts whether 
intelligent life on earth would be possible at all without them. Of course 
that could be just me, so I'm open for counter-arguments :-)

I have used these keywords on countless occasions in VC maintenance. I don't 
know how I should identify the file versions that people are talking about 
without these stamps inside the files.  It is true that as long as people 
use vanilla code from an Emacs release, they can always say "I have this 
problem with VC from Emacs 21.x", but it is still easier for me if they 
just say "vc.el version 1.311 barfs on me".  Then I don't have to go looking 
which version we shipped with Emacs 21.x (if a release tag was applied at 
all).

Identifying the version becomes impossible when I send people an updated copy 
of vc.el (which I often do), or they grab it from CVS.
What other means would be available?  Should I ask for an md5sum of the 
file, or a copy of the file itself and diff it against my copy?

If the headers are a problem during merging, I think it would be very worthwhile 
to implement a way for the merge operation to ignore them. That would be 
helpful for many people like myself for whom the version headers are an 
integral part of their work routine. (Incidentally, a user once reported 
a VC bug to me in an old version that didn't have headers in the file, and 
he was astonished that he couldn't find any.)

As I said, I am certainly open for alternatives (incidentally, does your remark 
mean that arch doesn't have version headers at all, Miles)?

Sorry for the rough writeup and the unfamiliar e-mail address, I'm writing from 
a customer site.

Andre