From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Richard Stallman Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Is it time to drop ChangeLogs? Date: Thu, 07 Jul 2016 17:56:01 -0400 Message-ID: References: <56BE7E37.3090708@cs.ucla.edu> <4hd1rw1ubr.fsf@fencepost.gnu.org> <83vb50wxhv.fsf@gnu.org> <87y49vz4cg.fsf@acer.localhost.com> <87twg2g86g.fsf@lifelogs.com> Reply-To: rms@gnu.org NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=Utf-8 X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1467928770 29337 80.91.229.3 (7 Jul 2016 21:59:30 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 7 Jul 2016 21:59:30 +0000 (UTC) Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Ted Zlatanov Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Thu Jul 07 23:59:22 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 1bLHKM-0001CY-Fo for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Thu, 07 Jul 2016 23:59:22 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:42478 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1bLHKL-0002Ye-IF for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Thu, 07 Jul 2016 17:59:21 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:46637) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1bLHHD-00070l-Ur for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 07 Jul 2016 17:56:09 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1bLHHC-0001mE-Tm for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 07 Jul 2016 17:56:07 -0400 Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::e]:33940) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1bLHHA-0001ke-8B; Thu, 07 Jul 2016 17:56:04 -0400 Original-Received: from rms by fencepost.gnu.org with local (Exim 4.82) (envelope-from ) id 1bLHH7-0007TX-HV; Thu, 07 Jul 2016 17:56:01 -0400 In-reply-to: <87twg2g86g.fsf@lifelogs.com> (message from Ted Zlatanov on Wed, 06 Jul 2016 10:20:07 -0400) X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.2.x-3.x [generic] X-Received-From: 2001:4830:134:3::e 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:205382 Archived-At: [[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider ]]] [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies, ]]] [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]] > Currently, I think ChangeLogs are a barrier to contribution. We no longer directly maintain ChangeLog files. Are you talking about writing the commit log entries? The vast > majority of other software projects don't use them. Are you saying that most projects do not keep track of which functions are changed in each commit? How can maintainers figure out how to solve problems without detailed log records to show them which previous changes they need to study? That "vast majority" -- how long have those projects been going? GNU Emacs was first released over 30 years ago. > So I would suggest moving to a pull request system, where code review > from a second contributor is required to merge any non-trivial code > (exceptions should be granted based on years contributing to Emacs). > That also gives *everyone* the opportunity to comment on the code before > it's merged, instead of post-facto. Clearly services such as Github and > BitBucket and many others have been offering this functionality for a > while with good results. I don't know exactly how this works, but it seems like a good idea. > A big advantage of pull requests is that they can group commits, so each > commit doesn't need the level of detail it does today, and so the > evolution of the work is visible to a reviewer. I don't see how the one relates to the other. Better review of the changes before they installed will not eliminate the need for support _finding_ pertinent changes for a problem found 5 or 10 years from now. > The pull > request system can later provide *everything* that a ChangeLog could, I am skeptical of this claim. How precisely will the pull request system provide what we now get from the detailed lists of objects changed in the log entries? -- Dr Richard Stallman President, Free Software Foundation (gnu.org, fsf.org) Internet Hall-of-Famer (internethalloffame.org) Skype: No way! See stallman.org/skype.html.