From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Paul Eggert Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Is it time to drop ChangeLogs? Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2016 10:09:01 -0800 Organization: UCLA Computer Science Department Message-ID: <56E066BD.5050403@cs.ucla.edu> References: <56BE7E37.3090708@cs.ucla.edu> <4hd1rw1ubr.fsf@fencepost.gnu.org> <83vb50wxhv.fsf@gnu.org> <87y49vz4cg.fsf@acer.localhost.com> <64a52598-ad53-498c-993c-67d7827dbdfc@default> <838u1uuuau.fsf@gnu.org> <878u1um2xl.fsf@thinkpad.rath.org> <87fuw090k7.fsf@wanadoo.es> <83y49spuxt.fsf@gnu.org> <87pov4achc.fsf@acer.localhost.com> <83r3fkpb3u.fsf@gnu.org> <83lh5rps0t.fsf@gnu.org> NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1457546971 28013 80.91.229.3 (9 Mar 2016 18:09:31 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2016 18:09:31 +0000 (UTC) Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Eli Zaretskii , John Wiegley Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Wed Mar 09 19:09:18 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 1adiXq-0003f2-S8 for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Wed, 09 Mar 2016 19:09:14 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:43282 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1adiXq-0000fi-4N for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Wed, 09 Mar 2016 13:09:14 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:48331) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1adiXm-0000ee-I1 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 09 Mar 2016 13:09:11 -0500 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1adiXl-0001X1-Ec for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 09 Mar 2016 13:09:10 -0500 Original-Received: from zimbra.cs.ucla.edu ([131.179.128.68]:43174) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1adiXh-0001Wo-7K; Wed, 09 Mar 2016 13:09:05 -0500 Original-Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by zimbra.cs.ucla.edu (Postfix) with ESMTP id 904C5160F68; Wed, 9 Mar 2016 10:09:04 -0800 (PST) Original-Received: from zimbra.cs.ucla.edu ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (zimbra.cs.ucla.edu [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10032) with ESMTP id gNn9n2XfcPiQ; Wed, 9 Mar 2016 10:09:03 -0800 (PST) Original-Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by zimbra.cs.ucla.edu (Postfix) with ESMTP id 60F8D160F69; Wed, 9 Mar 2016 10:09:03 -0800 (PST) X-Virus-Scanned: amavisd-new at zimbra.cs.ucla.edu Original-Received: from zimbra.cs.ucla.edu ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (zimbra.cs.ucla.edu [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10026) with ESMTP id 8ee82k9MQgvn; Wed, 9 Mar 2016 10:09:03 -0800 (PST) Original-Received: from penguin.cs.ucla.edu (Penguin.CS.UCLA.EDU [131.179.64.200]) by zimbra.cs.ucla.edu (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id 007A6160E8D; Wed, 9 Mar 2016 10:09:01 -0800 (PST) User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:38.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/38.6.0 In-Reply-To: <83lh5rps0t.fsf@gnu.org> X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 3.x X-Received-From: 131.179.128.68 X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 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-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:201267 Archived-At: On 03/09/2016 07:53 AM, Eli Zaretskii wrote: > Writing a log entry in ChangeLog format is an excellent opportunity > for reflecting on the changeset Yes, the ChangeLog format is useful. I use it myself for commits I make to GNU projects (as well as some non-GNU projects, e.g., https://github.com/eggert/tz). Perhaps the format could be improved, but that should be a different thread. > So removing ChangeLog files will be a bad blow to our ability to > easily and conveniently research the past, No, this doesn't follow. If we use ChangeLog formats in commit messages, we can still research the past easily and conveniently. > If we drop the ChangeLog files, there's no way we can explain why we > ask for commit log messages in ChangeLog format, so the next logical > step is to drop that as well, and we will then lose valuable information. It's not a logical step at all, and we already have an explanation of why we ask for ChangeLog format in CONTRIBUTE. Perhaps the explanation can be improved, but that's true no matter what approach we take (assuming we continue to prefer ChangeLog format). > Other prominent GNU projects that maintain ChangeLog files in the > repository include GCC, Binutils, GDB, glibc, and Texinfo. XEmacs also > has it. Why should Emacs be the first one to plunge into this adventure? Emacs is not the first at all. All the projects I've mentioned (Guile, coreutils, tar, etc.) used to maintain ChangeLog files in the repository. They've all moved away from that approach, in large part because of the hassle and confusion it entails. > > There are 3 possibilities: > > . Keep the current system, where ChangeLog is produced from Git log > and mistakes made in Git log should be corrected manually after > producing ChangeLog > > . Give up on having ChangeLog files, either produced from Git log or > maintained in the repository -- meaning a tarball will not include > any ChangeLog at all > > . Go back to previous practice where we maintained ChangeLog files > in the repository, and Git log messages were just copies of the > ChangeLog entries There is a 4th possibility: switch to what coreutils etc. do. > This would mean we don't care at all about what's in the ChangeLog. No, we can still make corrections with the 4th possibility. And even if we couldn't make corrections, it wouldn't mean we don't care about what's in the ChangeLog.