From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Eli Zaretskii Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Should we restore manually maintained ChangeLogs Date: Wed, 09 Mar 2016 21:14:58 +0200 Message-ID: <83io0vo43x.fsf@gnu.org> References: <56BE7E37.3090708@cs.ucla.edu> <4hd1rw1ubr.fsf@fencepost.gnu.org> <83vb50wxhv.fsf@gnu.org> <87y49vz4cg.fsf@acer.localhost.com> <87vb4zb0i4.fsf@gnu.org> <837fheuu6a.fsf@gnu.org> <83twkiteb3.fsf@gnu.org> <83lh5utbxb.fsf@gnu.org> <56DDD02A.20809@cs.ucla.edu> <83fuw2t2ue.fsf@gnu.org> <56DE0F6A.6010207@cs.ucla.edu> <83pov5rmt6.fsf@gnu.org> <56DFD78F.40205@cs.ucla.edu> <56E06093.7050509@cs.ucla.edu> <83twkfo7ij.fsf@gnu.org> <56E071AB.8050008@cs.ucla.edu> Reply-To: Eli Zaretskii NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1457550913 30146 80.91.229.3 (9 Mar 2016 19:15:13 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2016 19:15:13 +0000 (UTC) Cc: monnier@iro.umontreal.ca, emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Paul Eggert Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Wed Mar 09 20:15:08 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 1adjZa-0002z4-DR for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Wed, 09 Mar 2016 20:15:06 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:43609 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1adjZZ-0006li-QI for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Wed, 09 Mar 2016 14:15:05 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:41490) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1adjZL-0006lR-RP for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 09 Mar 2016 14:14:52 -0500 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1adjZH-00049G-L2 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 09 Mar 2016 14:14:51 -0500 Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::e]:44717) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1adjZH-00049C-HY; Wed, 09 Mar 2016 14:14:47 -0500 Original-Received: from 84.94.185.246.cable.012.net.il ([84.94.185.246]:4192 helo=home-c4e4a596f7) by fencepost.gnu.org with esmtpsa (TLS1.2:RSA_AES_128_CBC_SHA1:128) (Exim 4.82) (envelope-from ) id 1adjZG-0001Xm-NG; Wed, 09 Mar 2016 14:14:47 -0500 In-reply-to: <56E071AB.8050008@cs.ucla.edu> (message from Paul Eggert on Wed, 9 Mar 2016 10:55:39 -0800) 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: 2.1.14 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:201290 Archived-At: > Cc: monnier@iro.umontreal.ca, emacs-devel@gnu.org > From: Paul Eggert > Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2016 10:55:39 -0800 > > On 03/09/2016 10:01 AM, Eli Zaretskii wrote: > > Who needs a history record one cannot trust? It's worse than having > > no record at all. > > Any historian will tell you that you cannot trust historical records. > Caesar's commentaries, Churchill's speeches, the Open Group Rationale, > Emacs ChangeLog entries -- they're all riddled with errors, and > sometimes have outright fabrications, and anybody studying them must > take this into account. That's just life. If I wanted to be a historian, I wouldn't be here. This community is about software development, not about historical research. When I'm looking up a commit, I want accurate information about it. I don't want to embark on a history research project to find out which words are truthful and which are a lie. IOW, this analogy is not helpful, and I suspect you know that. > There is a reasonable question about how much of our development effort > should be devoted to sprucing up ChangeLogs after they're committed. I > think this should be low priority, whereas as I understand it you would > prefer that we boost its priority. Neither side is advocating > untrustworthy ChangeLogs, or perfect ChangeLogs for that matter; it's > mainly a question of where to allocate our scarce development resources. I'm arguing that we shouldn't _need_ to allocate resources to it. Reinstating ChangeLog files solves that with minimal costs, and its only disadvantage seems to be that it sounds "regression" to some.