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: Sun, 10 Jul 2016 10:21:08 -0400 Message-ID: References: <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> <8737nkdy8a.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 1468160589 21363 80.91.229.3 (10 Jul 2016 14:23:09 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 10 Jul 2016 14:23:09 +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 Sun Jul 10 16:23:01 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 1bMFdL-0004Sw-EZ for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sun, 10 Jul 2016 16:22:59 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:55370 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1bMFdK-0007pB-Rn for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sun, 10 Jul 2016 10:22:58 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:57523) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1bMFbi-0007Fz-Ng for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 10 Jul 2016 10:21:19 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1bMFbh-00039G-M8 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 10 Jul 2016 10:21:18 -0400 Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::e]:56234) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1bMFbZ-00033X-Sp; Sun, 10 Jul 2016 10:21:09 -0400 Original-Received: from rms by fencepost.gnu.org with local (Exim 4.82) (envelope-from ) id 1bMFbY-0008OS-6u; Sun, 10 Jul 2016 10:21:08 -0400 In-reply-to: <8737nkdy8a.fsf@wanadoo.es> (message from =?utf-8?Q?=C3=93sca?= =?utf-8?Q?r?= Fuentes on Fri, 08 Jul 2016 16:02:29 +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:205492 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. ]]] > It is true that some hackers write good commit messages *and* > ChangeLogs, but I'm under the impression that most people just write the > changelog and consider that their job is done (after all, current policy > for commit messages is to write a summary line and the There must be some misunderstanding. Nowadays, in Emacs, there is only one log entry. It is supposed to contain an overall summary, followed by the details of which entities were changed and how. > Absolutely agreed. That's about putting each piece where it belongs. > Some times, however, the code is not the best place to put some > explanation (think of an scattered change or why some alternative that, > at first, seems more adequate was discarded) and the commit message > offers an alternative. When I wanted to put an explanation in comments in the code, I could always find a natural place to put it. > > There was no such thing as a commit message in 1985. > Exactly. I'm pretty sure that if you had a good VCS at that time > ChangeLogs would never came into being. We can't tell what _would have_ happened, but all the time I have used a VCS I still wanted changelogs just as much as ever. -- 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.