From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: "Drew Adams" Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: RE: Why maintain old style ChangeLog? Date: Thu, 9 Dec 2010 09:24:19 -0800 Message-ID: References: <87wrqjsz0o.fsf@puma.rapttech.com.au> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: dough.gmane.org 1291936459 4433 80.91.229.12 (9 Dec 2010 23:14:19 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 9 Dec 2010 23:14:19 +0000 (UTC) To: "'Tim X'" , Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Fri Dec 10 00:14:15 2010 Return-path: Envelope-to: geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1PQpgl-00041J-1q for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Fri, 10 Dec 2010 00:14:15 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:45996 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1PQpgk-0001bw-8S for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Thu, 09 Dec 2010 18:14:14 -0500 Original-Received: from [140.186.70.92] (port=54215 helo=eggs.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1PQkEJ-0007yy-0A for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Thu, 09 Dec 2010 12:24:32 -0500 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1PQkEH-0008Ua-U5 for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Thu, 09 Dec 2010 12:24:30 -0500 Original-Received: from rcsinet10.oracle.com ([148.87.113.121]:42684) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1PQkEH-0008UR-P0 for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Thu, 09 Dec 2010 12:24:29 -0500 Original-Received: from acsinet15.oracle.com (acsinet15.oracle.com [141.146.126.227]) by rcsinet10.oracle.com (Switch-3.4.2/Switch-3.4.2) with ESMTP id oB9HORRA007321 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA bits=256 verify=OK); Thu, 9 Dec 2010 17:24:28 GMT Original-Received: from acsmt355.oracle.com (acsmt355.oracle.com [141.146.40.155]) by acsinet15.oracle.com (Switch-3.4.2/Switch-3.4.1) with ESMTP id oB9DPpfr020623; Thu, 9 Dec 2010 17:24:25 GMT Original-Received: from abhmt015.oracle.com by acsmt354.oracle.com with ESMTP id 840577571291915461; Thu, 09 Dec 2010 09:24:21 -0800 Original-Received: from dradamslap1 (/130.35.178.194) by default (Oracle Beehive Gateway v4.0) with ESMTP ; Thu, 09 Dec 2010 09:24:20 -0800 X-Mailer: Microsoft Office Outlook 11 In-Reply-To: <87wrqjsz0o.fsf@puma.rapttech.com.au> Thread-Index: AcuXXL+/rrMRQ+VPRPicrA9U15jbTAAaFLyA X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2900.5994 X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.6 (newer, 3) X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:77096 Archived-At: > I agree that the facilities of the version control system do > provide you with lots of additional functionality, much of > which does duplicate what was previously provided via ChangeLog. > However, I don't think it is an either/or situation. > > Many people don't run a full version control branch. Instead they just > download a snapshot or tar ball. These people don't ahve the version > control history and meta data. For them, the change log is important. I'd even go so far as to say that delivering a complete change history is part of the politeness (and freedom) of delivering a program's source code. Likewise, documentation. Sure, we could make users jump through hoops to get this info, but why hinder them? We could also deliver only binary executables and make them try to reverse-engineer some source code based on the machine etc. ;-) Consideration, cooperation, and civility demand giving users as much info as you have about your program, from soup (requirements descriptions: what it's supposed to do), through multiple other courses (design descriptions: how it works, source code with comments, documentation), to nuts (the working binary).