bug#7367: 24.0.50; change logs in source code

bug#7367: 24.0.50; change logs in source code

[Drew Adams]

emacs -Q
 
Visiting wdired.el, I see that this is the complete content of the
`Change log:' entry:
 
;; Google is your friend (previous versions with complete changelogs
;; were posted to gnu.emacs.sources)
 
Please restore the normal, helpful, user-friendly source-file change
logs that were in the author's file.  Emacs users should be able to get
the info they need by consulting only the source code.  They should not
need any Internet access, in particular.
 
This seems like just laziness on the part of Emacs development.
But is also an anti-user policy.
 
(And stop selling Google.  Although I agree that googling can be
helpful.)
 
Other files have similar cop-out text.  In ffap.el the `Change log:'
entry tells you to go ftp the change log (and to go hunt for the
place to ftp it from).
 
Users should not need Internet access to get hold of the source-file
change logs.  At the very least, they should be able to visit another
local file.  And that file location should be clearly indicated in the
source library, so a simple find-file-at-point will go there.
 
Emacs source files contain lots of text such as `Todo list' that is less
important than change-log history.  Users deserve better than telling
them to go search the Internet for change history.

Change logs are not just for Emacs developers' internal use.
They are for users.
 

In GNU Emacs 24.0.50.1 (i386-mingw-nt5.1.2600)
 of 2010-11-09 on 3249CTO
Windowing system distributor `Microsoft Corp.', version 5.1.2600
configured using `configure --with-gcc (4.4) --no-opt --cflags
-Ic:/imagesupport/include'
 

bug#7367: 24.0.50; change logs in source code

[Štěpán Němec]

"Drew Adams" <drew.adams@oracle.com> writes:

[...]

> Please restore the normal, helpful, user-friendly source-file change
> logs that were in the author's file.  Emacs users should be able to get
> the info they need by consulting only the source code.  They should not
> need any Internet access, in particular.
>  
> This seems like just laziness on the part of Emacs development.
> But is also an anti-user policy.

[...]

> Emacs source files contain lots of text such as `Todo list' that is less
> important than change-log history.  Users deserve better than telling
> them to go search the Internet for change history.
>
> Change logs are not just for Emacs developers' internal use.
> They are for users.

They are neither. They're completely useless.

Just to provide a different opinion: I never saw a useful `Change Log:'
section in any of (quite a lot of) Elisp libraries I've seen (Emacs core
or third party), so I definitely welcome their absence. It's mostly just
noise, because the change descriptions alone are not very telling. I'm
only interested in the kind of information you get from version control
systems (i.e., commented diffs), not something like "Added feature foo"
or "Fixed bug in bar".

(I can see that a short summary of user-visible changes since the last
version might be useful for third-party libraries, but that's obviously
not what Drew has in mind here (just have a look at the humongous change
logs in his own libraries :-)))

FWIW, I also find `Todo:' more, not less, important than `Change Log:'.

Štěpán

bug#7367: 24.0.50; change logs in source code

[Drew Adams]

Hey, why not give users only Internet links for the source code too while you're
at it?  Why bother to give them the source code for local use? Better yet, just
tell them to search the Internet for it.

Change log info, like any info, can be of variable quality/utility. It is info
about the source code, just like comments (and diffs) are, and as such it can be
useful to at least some users. Just like comments, it can inform you about
implementation and design logic - the intentions behind what is there currently.

The point is not that all change logs provide great info; the point is that
users deserve to have the info locally, whatever it is and however useful it
might be. They should not be shoved off to search the Internet.

bug#7367: 24.0.50; change logs in source code

[Glenn Morris]

I see no point in keeping this report open.
The author of the file was the one who removed his own comments.

http://cvs.savannah.gnu.org/viewvc/emacs/lisp/wdired.el?root=emacs&r1=1.8&r2=1.9&pathrev=MAIN

2005-04-11  Juan Leon Lahoz Garcia 

The original comments can be found using VC, and aren't very useful:

http://cvs.savannah.gnu.org/viewvc/emacs/lisp/wdired.el?revision=1.1&root=emacs&view=markup&pathrev=MAIN