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: Is it time to drop ChangeLogs? Date: Fri, 08 Jul 2016 09:38:17 -0400 Message-ID: References: <56BE7E37.3090708@cs.ucla.edu> <4hd1rw1ubr.fsf@fencepost.gnu.org> <83vb50wxhv.fsf@gnu.org> <87y49vz4cg.fsf@acer.localhost.com> <87twg2g86g.fsf@lifelogs.com> <83eg76n5h5.fsf@gnu.org> <87y45eeoor.fsf@lifelogs.com> <8337nmn2pd.fsf@gnu.org> <87shvmem2c.fsf@lifelogs.com> <87oa6adz3w.fsf@lifelogs.com> <577E056B.1060705@cs.ucla.edu> <871t35egck.fsf@lifelogs.com> <577E6697.8090603@cs.ucla.edu> <87furle9tc.fsf@wanadoo.es> Reply-To: rms@gnu.org NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1467985149 2061 80.91.229.3 (8 Jul 2016 13:39:09 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 8 Jul 2016 13:39:09 +0000 (UTC) Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org To: =?utf-8?Q?=C3=93scar?= Fuentes Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Fri Jul 08 15:39:01 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 1bLVzg-0000Yb-K0 for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Fri, 08 Jul 2016 15:39:00 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:45676 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1bLVzf-0006sI-IH for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Fri, 08 Jul 2016 09:38:59 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:37162) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1bLVz9-0006sC-H1 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 08 Jul 2016 09:38:28 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1bLVz7-0007dz-JV for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 08 Jul 2016 09:38:26 -0400 Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::e]:46866) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1bLVz0-0007bn-Vd; Fri, 08 Jul 2016 09:38:19 -0400 Original-Received: from rms by fencepost.gnu.org with local (Exim 4.82) (envelope-from ) id 1bLVyz-0004ls-1U; Fri, 08 Jul 2016 09:38:17 -0400 In-reply-to: <87furle9tc.fsf@wanadoo.es> (message from =?utf-8?Q?=C3=93sca?= =?utf-8?Q?r?= Fuentes on Thu, 07 Jul 2016 17:39:59 +0200) 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: 2.1.21 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:205427 Archived-At: [[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider ]]] [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies, ]]] [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]] > GNU ChangeLogs, as used in practice, are so lame and thin on content > that they certainly can't be taken seriously as a method of documenting > changes. They are good for their purpose, which is to summarize which functions or objects were changed, when, and by whom. That's useful when you want to see which changes to look at to figure out when a bug got introduced. You haven't said what "content" you think is missing, so it is hard for me to respond further than that. However, if you're talking about explanations of the code, those are supposed to go in comments in the code. > GNU ChangeLogs always looked to me as cargo cult and an excuse for not > writing proper commit messages. There was no such thing as a commit message in 1985. -- Dr Richard Stallman President, Free Software Foundation (gnu.org, fsf.org) Internet Hall-of-Famer (internethalloffame.org) Skype: No way! See stallman.org/skype.html.