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: Sat, 09 Jul 2016 12:55:30 -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> <87twg05nqf.fsf@russet.org.uk> Reply-To: rms@gnu.org NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=Utf-8 X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1468083402 3738 80.91.229.3 (9 Jul 2016 16:56:42 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 9 Jul 2016 16:56:42 +0000 (UTC) Cc: tzz@lifelogs.com, emacs-devel@gnu.org To: phillip.lord@russet.org.uk (Phillip Lord) Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sat Jul 09 18:56:34 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 1bLvYN-0001EV-Ka for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sat, 09 Jul 2016 18:56:31 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:51821 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1bLvYJ-0006Vq-PP for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sat, 09 Jul 2016 12:56:27 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:44961) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1bLvYC-0006Tx-Hw for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 09 Jul 2016 12:56:21 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1bLvYA-000746-QW for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 09 Jul 2016 12:56:19 -0400 Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::e]:43781) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1bLvXR-0006gs-UU; Sat, 09 Jul 2016 12:55:33 -0400 Original-Received: from rms by fencepost.gnu.org with local (Exim 4.82) (envelope-from ) id 1bLvXO-0003Qf-0z; Sat, 09 Jul 2016 12:55:30 -0400 In-reply-to: <87twg05nqf.fsf@russet.org.uk> (phillip.lord@russet.org.uk) 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:205472 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. ]]] > They use the version control system. This provides different information > from the changelogs, of course. Worse in some cases, but better in > others. A function that is renamed, for example, but stays in the same > place in the file is better tracked by VC than a changelog. With all due respect, I think that is not true, not even close to being true. The change log is tremendously better in all cases than any other method I've seen. It is hard work to recover the change log from a diff. A diff doesn't generally show the names of the entities that it changes. It takes human effort have to see which entities are changed in any given checkin; thus, it takes lots and lots of human effort to find which checkins to the file affected any given entity. -- 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.