historial question: the first commits (is the conversion screwed?)

historial question: the first commits (is the conversion screwed?)

[Uwe Brauer]

Hi

I know that Emacs used various VC systems, RCS, CVS, BZR and finally
git.

I got interested in the first commits, so I run
either 

 git log --reverse

Or since I converted the repo to mercurial

 hg up 1

In both cases I see:

 ommit ce5584125c44a1a2fbb46e810459c50b227a95e2
Author: Jim Blandy <jimb@redhat.com>
Date:   Thu Apr 18 00:48:29 1985 +0000

    entered into RCS

commit ff9c6df4b0766bef72f6b1f4c8fca65737d9ad6b
Author: Jim Blandy <jimb@redhat.com>
Date:   Sat Dec 14 16:58:10 1985 +0000

    Initial revision

What puzzles me, is that there were so few commits when starting the
project and 

Jim Blandy <jimb@redhat.com>

redhat in 1985, really?

From wikipedia:
Founded in 1993, Red Hat has its corporate headquarters 

This is not really a serious issue, but I wondered whether the
conversion process worked reliable, at least for the first commits.

Regards

Uwe Brauer 

Re: historial question: the first commits (is the conversion screwed?)

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Uwe Brauer <oub@mat.ucm.es>
> Date: Sat, 17 Aug 2019 13:02:37 +0200
> 
> commit ff9c6df4b0766bef72f6b1f4c8fca65737d9ad6b
> Author: Jim Blandy <jimb@redhat.com>
> Date:   Sat Dec 14 16:58:10 1985 +0000
> 
>     Initial revision
> 
> What puzzles me, is that there were so few commits when starting the
> project and 
> 
> Jim Blandy <jimb@redhat.com>
> 
> redhat in 1985, really?
> 
> >From wikipedia:
> Founded in 1993, Red Hat has its corporate headquarters 
> 
> This is not really a serious issue, but I wondered whether the
> conversion process worked reliable, at least for the first commits.

You are looking at a log that was significantly edited by the various
conversions, including the email addresses of the authors.  CVS stated
just the username, without any email address.

Re: historial question: the first commits (is the conversion screwed?)

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Sat, 17 Aug 2019 15:14:28 +0300
> From: Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>
> Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org
> 
> > commit ff9c6df4b0766bef72f6b1f4c8fca65737d9ad6b
> > Author: Jim Blandy <jimb@redhat.com>
> > Date:   Sat Dec 14 16:58:10 1985 +0000
> > 
> >     Initial revision
> > 
> > What puzzles me, is that there were so few commits when starting the
> > project and 
> > 
> > Jim Blandy <jimb@redhat.com>
> > 
> > redhat in 1985, really?
> > 
> > >From wikipedia:
> > Founded in 1993, Red Hat has its corporate headquarters 
> > 
> > This is not really a serious issue, but I wondered whether the
> > conversion process worked reliable, at least for the first commits.
> 
> You are looking at a log that was significantly edited by the various
> conversions, including the email addresses of the authors.  CVS stated
> just the username, without any email address.

Here's the same commit from CVS log:

  revision 1.1
  date: 1985-04-18 00:48:29 +0000;  author: jimb;  state: Exp;
  branches:  1.1.18;  1.1.20;  1.1.24;
  entered into RCS

Re: historial question: the first commits (is the conversion screwed?)

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Sat, 17 Aug 2019 15:18:03 +0300
> From: Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>
> Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org
> 
> > > commit ff9c6df4b0766bef72f6b1f4c8fca65737d9ad6b
> > > Author: Jim Blandy <jimb@redhat.com>
> > > Date:   Sat Dec 14 16:58:10 1985 +0000
> > > 
> > >     Initial revision
> > > 
> > > What puzzles me, is that there were so few commits when starting the
> > > project and 
> > > 
> > > Jim Blandy <jimb@redhat.com>
> > > 
> > > redhat in 1985, really?
> > > 
> > > >From wikipedia:
> > > Founded in 1993, Red Hat has its corporate headquarters 
> > > 
> > > This is not really a serious issue, but I wondered whether the
> > > conversion process worked reliable, at least for the first commits.
> > 
> > You are looking at a log that was significantly edited by the various
> > conversions, including the email addresses of the authors.  CVS stated
> > just the username, without any email address.
> 
> Here's the same commit from CVS log:
> 
>   revision 1.1
>   date: 1985-04-18 00:48:29 +0000;  author: jimb;  state: Exp;
>   branches:  1.1.18;  1.1.20;  1.1.24;
>   entered into RCS

Sorry, that was the first commit in the repository.  The one above
corresponds to this one:

  revision 1.1
  date: 1985-12-14 16:58:10 +0000;  author: jimb;  state: Exp;
  Initial revision

Re: historial question: the first commits (is the conversion screwed?)

[Stefan Monnier]

> commit ff9c6df4b0766bef72f6b1f4c8fca65737d9ad6b
> Author: Jim Blandy <jimb@redhat.com>
> Date:   Sat Dec 14 16:58:10 1985 +0000
>
>     Initial revision

AFAIK what you're seeing is the fact that Emacs's sources were not under
RCS before 1985 (I believe the corresponding commit history is lost) and
that there was no "email" recorded with users back in the RCS and CVS
days, so the corresponding identifiers were mapped (somewhat manually)
to the corresponding email address.

The closest to the early commit history we have is
https://github.com/larsbrinkhoff/emacs-history combined with the
ChangeLog files.


        Stefan

Re: historial question: the first commits (is the conversion screwed?)

[Uwe Brauer]

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   > Sorry, that was the first commit in the repository.  The one above
   > corresponds to this one:

   >   revision 1.1
   >   date: 1985-12-14 16:58:10 +0000;  author: jimb;  state: Exp;
   >   Initial revision


I see, the strange thing is that it seem the first file checkin was
unused.el.

I would have expected emacs.c or something like this.

The question is how reliable is the conversion? It seem to work
reasonable well for the part which concerns bzr, but I am not so sure
about the RCS stuff.

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Re: historial question: the first commits (is the conversion screwed?)

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Uwe Brauer <oub@mat.ucm.es>
> Date: Sat, 17 Aug 2019 15:37:03 +0200
> 
>    >   revision 1.1
>    >   date: 1985-12-14 16:58:10 +0000;  author: jimb;  state: Exp;
>    >   Initial revision
> 
> 
> I see, the strange thing is that it seem the first file checkin was
> unused.el.
> 
> I would have expected emacs.c or something like this.

You will have to ask Jim.  I presume the initial commit was a long
process, one file at a time, and it was done according to some
more-or-less arbitrary order.  Don't forget that Emacs was maintained
for several years before the initial commit, so all the files were
already there.

> The question is how reliable is the conversion? It seem to work
> reasonable well for the part which concerns bzr, but I am not so sure
> about the RCS stuff.

The result is consistent with what the CVS repository shows, so I
don't understand why you have any doubts.

Re: historial question: the first commits (is the conversion screwed?)

[Uwe Brauer]

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>>> "SM" == Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> writes:

   >> commit ff9c6df4b0766bef72f6b1f4c8fca65737d9ad6b
   >> Author: Jim Blandy <jimb@redhat.com>
   >> Date:   Sat Dec 14 16:58:10 1985 +0000
   >> 
   >> Initial revision

   > AFAIK what you're seeing is the fact that Emacs's sources were not under
   > RCS before 1985 (I believe the corresponding commit history is lost) and
   > that there was no "email" recorded with users back in the RCS and CVS
   > days, so the corresponding identifiers were mapped (somewhat manually)
   > to the corresponding email address.

   > The closest to the early commit history we have is
   > https://github.com/larsbrinkhoff/emacs-history combined with the
   > ChangeLog files.

Ah thanks, the Xemacs part is not correct, though. Steve sent the
propose-to-close-down message in 2015 not 2013, and even now, Aidan regularly pushes changes.

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Re: historial question: the first commits (is the conversion screwed?)

[John Wiegley]

>>>>> "UB" == Uwe Brauer <oub@mat.ucm.es> writes:

UB> What puzzles me, is that there were so few commits when starting the
UB> project and 
UB> 
UB> Jim Blandy <jimb@redhat.com>
UB> 
UB> redhat in 1985, really?
UB> 
UB> From wikipedia:
UB> Founded in 1993, Red Hat has its corporate headquarters 
UB> 
UB> This is not really a serious issue, but I wondered whether the conversion
UB> process worked reliable, at least for the first commits.

Jim Blandy is that good at predicting trends. Never doubt the man.

-- 
John Wiegley                  GPG fingerprint = 4710 CF98 AF9B 327B B80F
http://newartisans.com                          60E1 46C4 BD1A 7AC1 4BA2

Re: historial question: the first commits (is the conversion screwed?)

[Uwe Brauer]

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UB> What puzzles me, is that there were so few commits when starting the
UB> project and 
UB> 
UB> Jim Blandy <jimb@redhat.com>
UB> 
UB> redhat in 1985, really?
UB> 
UB> From wikipedia:
UB> Founded in 1993, Red Hat has its corporate headquarters 
UB> 
UB> This is not really a serious issue, but I wondered whether the conversion
UB> process worked reliable, at least for the first commits.

> Jim Blandy is that good at predicting trends. Never doubt the man.

That, of course, explains everything.

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Re: historial question: the first commits (is the conversion screwed?)

[Jim Blandy]

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On Sat, Aug 17, 2019 at 11:30 AM John Wiegley <johnw@gnu.org> wrote:

> Jim Blandy is that good at predicting trends. Never doubt the man.
>

It's true. That's why I still use Emacs.

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