From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Richard Stallman Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Commit practices Date: Sun, 30 Dec 2007 09:02:30 -0500 Message-ID: References: <20071229141014.3364A2C83DC@grelber.thyrsus.com> <20071229183244.GA23998@thyrsus.com> <20071230064402.GA26849@thyrsus.com> Reply-To: rms@gnu.org NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-15 X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1199023447 29525 80.91.229.12 (30 Dec 2007 14:04:07 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 30 Dec 2007 14:04:07 +0000 (UTC) Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org To: esr@thyrsus.com Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sun Dec 30 15:04:21 2007 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1J8ym2-0005Km-4F for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sun, 30 Dec 2007 15:04:18 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1J8ylg-0000Sg-OW for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sun, 30 Dec 2007 09:03:56 -0500 Original-Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1J8ykL-0007GT-B8 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 30 Dec 2007 09:02:33 -0500 Original-Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1J8ykJ-0007FE-9s for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 30 Dec 2007 09:02:32 -0500 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.173] (helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1J8ykJ-0007F4-0r for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 30 Dec 2007 09:02:31 -0500 Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([140.186.70.10]) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1J8ykI-0004Vm-Ub for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 30 Dec 2007 09:02:31 -0500 Original-Received: from rms by fencepost.gnu.org with local (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1J8ykI-0006lo-7l; Sun, 30 Dec 2007 09:02:30 -0500 In-reply-to: <20071230064402.GA26849@thyrsus.com> (esr@thyrsus.com) X-detected-kernel: by monty-python.gnu.org: Linux 2.6, seldom 2.4 (older, 4) X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:85679 Archived-At: > In effect, the suggestion here is that we abandon the idea > of useful readable info associated by the VCS with each file. Right. Information about changes is most useful when it has *changeset* granularity, not file granularity. That form is very useful, but we already have it in the ChangeLog file. Having a duplicate of that in the VCS does no harm, but doesn't add anything either. RCS and CVS logs give the information per file. That adds something precisely because it is different: it is convenient for looking at the history of one file. However, if one file's CVS log gets full of change info for other files, then it is harder to use the CVS logs for this purpose, which means they are not as useful. If we switch to maintaining VCS logs in changeset terms, we will entirely lose the feature of convenient presentation of one file's changes. That would mean going back to the situation as it was in 1990, when all we had was ChangeLog. Just ChangeLog was sufficient in 1990, and it would be sufficient again, but it is nonetheless a change for the worse. Perhaps we could substitute for that lost capability with a new feature in Change Log mode to selectively display the items that pertain to a certain file.