From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Ted Zlatanov Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Is it time to drop ChangeLogs? Date: Wed, 06 Jul 2016 10:20:07 -0400 Organization: =?utf-8?B?0KLQtdC+0LTQvtGAINCX0LvQsNGC0LDQvdC+0LI=?= @ Cienfuegos Message-ID: <87twg2g86g.fsf@lifelogs.com> References: <56BE7E37.3090708@cs.ucla.edu> <4hd1rw1ubr.fsf@fencepost.gnu.org> <83vb50wxhv.fsf@gnu.org> <87y49vz4cg.fsf@acer.localhost.com> Reply-To: emacs-devel@gnu.org NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1467814860 32645 80.91.229.3 (6 Jul 2016 14:21:00 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 6 Jul 2016 14:21:00 +0000 (UTC) To: emacs-devel@gnu.org Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Wed Jul 06 16:20:53 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 1bKnh5-0002DY-Vt for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Wed, 06 Jul 2016 16:20:52 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:33764 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1bKnh5-0001RI-9y for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Wed, 06 Jul 2016 10:20:51 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:36922) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1bKngq-00012w-2S for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 06 Jul 2016 10:20:40 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1bKngj-0008Us-LT for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 06 Jul 2016 10:20:34 -0400 Original-Received: from plane.gmane.org ([80.91.229.3]:43671) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1bKngj-0008To-DM for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 06 Jul 2016 10:20:29 -0400 Original-Received: from list by plane.gmane.org with local (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1bKngh-00020W-7X for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 06 Jul 2016 16:20:27 +0200 Original-Received: from c-98-229-60-157.hsd1.ma.comcast.net ([98.229.60.157]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Wed, 06 Jul 2016 16:20:27 +0200 Original-Received: from tzz by c-98-229-60-157.hsd1.ma.comcast.net with local (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Wed, 06 Jul 2016 16:20:27 +0200 X-Injected-Via-Gmane: http://gmane.org/ Mail-Followup-To: emacs-devel@gnu.org Original-Lines: 32 Original-X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org X-Gmane-NNTP-Posting-Host: c-98-229-60-157.hsd1.ma.comcast.net X-Face: bd.DQ~'29fIs`T_%O%C\g%6jW)yi[zuz6; d4V0`@y-~$#3P_Ng{@m+e4o<4P'#(_GJQ%TT= D}[Ep*b!\e,fBZ'j_+#"Ps?s2!4H2-Y"sx" Mail-Copies-To: never User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/25.1.50 (gnu/linux) Cancel-Lock: sha1:Ofh1BLFz4qkW5VS0YO2mp4uGwtY= X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: Genre and OS details not recognized. X-Received-From: 80.91.229.3 X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.21 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" Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:205246 Archived-At: On Sun, 06 Mar 2016 13:52:04 -0800 John Wiegley wrote: JW> I'd like to open this up to discussion on emacs-devel, so that we hear from JW> our other developers. What do you all think about ChangeLogs, and their value JW> to you in your work on Emacs? Currently, I think ChangeLogs are a barrier to contribution. The vast majority of other software projects don't use them. But Emacs doesn't have a pull request contribution system, which makes it hard to review things before they go in, so contributors must know and follow the right format at all times. It's a pain. So I would suggest moving to a pull request system, where code review from a second contributor is required to merge any non-trivial code (exceptions should be granted based on years contributing to Emacs). That also gives *everyone* the opportunity to comment on the code before it's merged, instead of post-facto. Clearly services such as Github and BitBucket and many others have been offering this functionality for a while with good results. A big advantage of pull requests is that they can group commits, so each commit doesn't need the level of detail it does today, and so the evolution of the work is visible to a reviewer. Then ChangeLogs become simply documentation for the merged code, together with actual docs and other notes that are needed. The pull request system can later provide *everything* that a ChangeLog could, and more (such as better searching and cross-referencing) so in the long term the ChangeLog can go away. Ted