From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: phillip.lord@russet.org.uk (Phillip Lord) Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Is it time to drop ChangeLogs? Date: Thu, 07 Jul 2016 12:29:23 +0100 Message-ID: <87oa694rfw.fsf@russet.org.uk> References: <56BE7E37.3090708@cs.ucla.edu> <4hd1rw1ubr.fsf@fencepost.gnu.org> <83vb50wxhv.fsf@gnu.org> <87y49vz4cg.fsf@acer.localhost.com> <87twg2g86g.fsf@lifelogs.com> <83eg76n5h5.fsf@gnu.org> <87y45eeoor.fsf@lifelogs.com> <577D42BB.1020500@cs.ucla.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1467891032 8498 80.91.229.3 (7 Jul 2016 11:30:32 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 7 Jul 2016 11:30:32 +0000 (UTC) Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Paul Eggert Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Thu Jul 07 13:30:22 2016 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 1bL7Vd-0005T0-Ba for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Thu, 07 Jul 2016 13:30:21 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:38984 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1bL7Vc-0003Zf-D1 for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Thu, 07 Jul 2016 07:30:20 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:60378) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1bL7VW-0003ZY-TH for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 07 Jul 2016 07:30:16 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1bL7VT-0003q6-5U for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 07 Jul 2016 07:30:13 -0400 Original-Received: from cloud103.planethippo.com ([31.216.48.48]:60696) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1bL7VS-0003ft-RF for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 07 Jul 2016 07:30:11 -0400 DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; q=dns/txt; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=russet.org.uk; s=default; h=Content-Type:MIME-Version:Message-ID: In-Reply-To:Date:References:Subject:Cc:To:From; bh=5GNmKv8m3lrhklr1MvsdgESzbfsQH73YExgMPG5pHac=; b=b9m/rrizmx3gRWWqtt9mw9l3K7 JKSUQM6kMVdx17E6lmAkCMKxBxtdRUqrasNB27+rfBQiJjWtdAZEO+jkaH69SQpGkrFFnCA+2v8pK 7o0K3ELixd6GQqjyyw5tcW5kqzVAD+PRY5JU926/dFAPQALMmB2V91Cw4LgMJtliMMhiBv0KEatKM uEdogx7K5l0Hi6ZiNYa0CtU0J+BYVHeZ+kF5Ez05oe5Jre/MxRuUncd6lSg7Ky4meAwdhys+3hJTd ALd5y8HCKqN4zG7+o8CZ1C++NZGAZmMCJeNVISMnhQKSJa6pkfgGQ8t70Q0MTmogycZ1ejmtEtIvl LO8f37mg==; Original-Received: from janus-nat-128-240-225-60.ncl.ac.uk ([128.240.225.60]:32952 helo=russet.org.uk) by cloud103.planethippo.com with esmtpsa (TLSv1.2:DHE-RSA-AES128-SHA:128) (Exim 4.86_1) (envelope-from ) id 1bL7Uh-000DvU-P2; Thu, 07 Jul 2016 12:29:23 +0100 In-Reply-To: <577D42BB.1020500@cs.ucla.edu> (Paul Eggert's message of "Wed, 6 Jul 2016 19:41:15 +0200") User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/25.0.95 (gnu/linux) X-AntiAbuse: This header was added to track abuse, please include it with any abuse report X-AntiAbuse: Primary Hostname - cloud103.planethippo.com X-AntiAbuse: Original Domain - gnu.org X-AntiAbuse: Originator/Caller UID/GID - [47 12] / [47 12] X-AntiAbuse: Sender Address Domain - russet.org.uk X-Get-Message-Sender-Via: cloud103.planethippo.com: authenticated_id: phillip.lord@russet.org.uk X-Authenticated-Sender: cloud103.planethippo.com: phillip.lord@russet.org.uk X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 3.x X-Received-From: 31.216.48.48 X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.21 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" Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:205309 Archived-At: Paul Eggert writes: > On 07/06/2016 06:06 PM, Ted Zlatanov wrote: >> using a pull request system would reduce the >> need for writing every commit message as if it was going into a >> ChangeLog > I don't see why; if we're going to keep the current format, pull requests > should use the format too. > > I have the sense that pull requests work better in projects with a large > number of occasional committers and a small number of full-time developers who > triage and review. Emacs development doesn't work that way: among other > things, there are no full-time developers, and we don't have enough reviewer > time. So it may not be a good fit for the pull-request model. (It might make > sense to change Emacs's development model but that's a larger topic....) I think that this is not true. I have recently sent patches into, for example, ensime which is a fairly small development. Also, Cask uses an always PR model which means that all changes get looked at by at least two people. Where PRs work better over direct commits is when ever someone wants comments and feedback. There are two main reasons for this. One is where commits need to be checked by someone else before going in; the emacs-25 branch is in this state at the moment. The other is where someone wants feedback on their work, because they are new, or because they are fiddling with parts of Emacs which they understand poorly. I've found this extremely useful, for instance, with my changes to the undo system, which involved extensive communications mostly with Stefan. With Cask, also, I have found this very useful, since I've had to make changes to in three different languages. At the moment, we have a poor workflow for supporting this. - I can push a branch onto the Emacs git. But, this is not squashable, so the final state before the merge is hard to do - There is no system for queuing pull requests, so sometimes things get forgotten - I can send patches, but this is clunk compared to pushing a branch within version control. - There is no system for viewing feedback about an individual patch. - There is no system for adding inline comments to patches Installing something like gerrit or kallithea would be nice (I have no direct experience of using either, but they are similar to other systems). However, this would be considerable work. Perhaps, as a half way house, we could use the resources that we have. PRs could go to the bug reporting system. This will, at least, keep all the conversations in one place. If we can tag these with "has patch" here as well, it will give an queue also. We would still need to do something about the Emacs git, in terms of squashability; in practice, this would probably require something like gitolite as allowing non-FF pushes on all branches would be a bad thing. This would not give a nice web interface, nor inline comments, but it's a start. Phil