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: Tue, 08 Mar 2016 19:05:10 +0200 Message-ID: <83r3fkrjcp.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> <1ceba0e3-b8a7-393d-ce41-213aee11b7f8@yandex.ru> <83si01rn0y.fsf@gnu.org> <56DEFEFC.3010404@cs.ucla.edu> Reply-To: Eli Zaretskii NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1457456728 23547 80.91.229.3 (8 Mar 2016 17:05:28 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 8 Mar 2016 17:05:28 +0000 (UTC) Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Paul Eggert Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Tue Mar 08 18:05:20 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 1adL4P-0007rB-Sb for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Tue, 08 Mar 2016 18:05:18 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:36146 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1adL4M-0005X1-0z for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Tue, 08 Mar 2016 12:05:14 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:58653) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1adL4F-0005SZ-5z for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 08 Mar 2016 12:05:11 -0500 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1adL4A-0004De-JO for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 08 Mar 2016 12:05:07 -0500 Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::e]:43270) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1adL4A-0004Da-G7; Tue, 08 Mar 2016 12:05:02 -0500 Original-Received: from 84.94.185.246.cable.012.net.il ([84.94.185.246]:2915 helo=home-c4e4a596f7) by fencepost.gnu.org with esmtpsa (TLS1.2:RSA_AES_128_CBC_SHA1:128) (Exim 4.82) (envelope-from ) id 1adL49-0002yT-AF; Tue, 08 Mar 2016 12:05:01 -0500 In-reply-to: <56DEFEFC.3010404@cs.ucla.edu> (message from Paul Eggert on Tue, 8 Mar 2016 08:34:04 -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:201178 Archived-At: > Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org > From: Paul Eggert > Date: Tue, 8 Mar 2016 08:34:04 -0800 > > Eli Zaretskii wrote: > > You (and some others) say the format and the content in the log > > messages are important, and I agree. But if we do care about them, > > how can we NOT clean them up? > > We can care about them, but agree to fix them up only until they become part of > history. Once they're history we don't worry about trying to change history; > they're just old mistakes that are part of the log but are not otherwise part of > the current Emacs. If managed well, this can help motivate contributors to write > good commit messages the first time. This approach is not perfect, but it works > reasonably well in other projects and it is way easier to explain and to > maintain than what we're doing now, or what we did a year ago. AFAIK, those other projects get commits from veteran GNU developers such as yourself, which have the ChangeLog format and good log messages burnt into their finger memories. Emacs is different. We have to educate the newcomers to become such veterans. And education simply doesn't work without the need to fix your beginner's mistakes. By giving up on the need to fix them, we inadvertently send a very loud and clear message to the newcomers saying that good, correct, and accurate log messages are not important. As result, they will never acquire the skills that you and other veterans here have since long ago. When I was a newcomer, I had the privilege of getting comments and requests to fix my log messages from Richard and others. Had they not insist on making my errors clear to me, had they not asked for me to fix them, I wouldn't be able to write the kind of log messages and other short descriptions I can do today. So let's stop thinking about ourselves -- we don't need these fixes anyway. Let's think about the new generation, the ones we must educate as long as we are around. They _need_ us to point them to their flops, and they need to learn to fix them. This cannot be learned in theory, only by doing. It is an important part of their apprenticeship. This isn't about perfectionism, this is about teaching the newcomers to be better Emacs developers. > So, for example, we should strive to get the "tiny change" stuff right the first > time in commit messages; but if we make mistakes in that area it OK -- the sky > will not fall down, and software archaeologists of the future will still be able > to figure things out well enough. The skies will not fall down if Emacs ceases to exist, either, or becomes a much less clean and orderly project than it is now. But we'd like to avoid that, one hopes.