From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Oleksandr Gavenko Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Why maintain old style ChangeLog? Date: Fri, 17 Sep 2010 19:32:27 +0300 Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: dough.gmane.org 1284741196 31974 80.91.229.12 (17 Sep 2010 16:33:16 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 17 Sep 2010 16:33:16 +0000 (UTC) To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Fri Sep 17 18:33:14 2010 Return-path: Envelope-to: geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1Owds8-0003eH-C9 for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Fri, 17 Sep 2010 18:33:12 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:48620 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1Owds7-0007kp-K5 for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Fri, 17 Sep 2010 12:33:11 -0400 Original-Received: from [140.186.70.92] (port=57051 helo=eggs.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1Owdrh-0007kk-KZ for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Fri, 17 Sep 2010 12:32:46 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1Owdrf-0003nl-SB for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Fri, 17 Sep 2010 12:32:45 -0400 Original-Received: from lo.gmane.org ([80.91.229.12]:42823) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1Owdrf-0003nZ-H4 for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Fri, 17 Sep 2010 12:32:43 -0400 Original-Received: from list by lo.gmane.org with local (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1Owdrd-0003HV-MF for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Fri, 17 Sep 2010 18:32:41 +0200 Original-Received: from 174-5-92-178.pool.ukrtel.net ([178.92.5.174]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Fri, 17 Sep 2010 18:32:41 +0200 Original-Received: from gavenkoa by 174-5-92-178.pool.ukrtel.net with local (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Fri, 17 Sep 2010 18:32:41 +0200 X-Injected-Via-Gmane: http://gmane.org/ Original-Lines: 80 Original-X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org X-Gmane-NNTP-Posting-Host: 174-5-92-178.pool.ukrtel.net User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.2.8) Gecko/20100802 Thunderbird/3.1.2 X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.6 (newer, 3) X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:74982 Archived-At: I also ask similar question at (and not completely satisfied by answers): http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3712969/why-maintain-traditional-detailed-changelog-in-modern-world-with-svn-mercurial I read "Sending Patches for GNU Emacs" section of 'info emacs'. It contains requirement for writing ChangeLog entry to describe your changes. I check emacs/trunk/man/trouble.texi (at oldest available in bzr??) revision: revno: 25830 committer: Dave Love timestamp: Wed 1999-09-29 15:17:24 +0000 From this revision: ================================================================ The purpose of the change log is to show people where to find what was changed. So you need to be specific about what functions you changed; in large functions, it's often helpful to indicate where within the function the change was. On the other hand, once you have shown people where to find the change, you need not explain its purpose in the change log. Thus, if you add a new function, all you need to say about it is that it is new. If you feel that the purpose needs explaining, it probably does---but put the explanation in comments in the code. It will be more useful there. ================================================================ "where to find what was changed" you can easy done by 'bzr log'. Or ever more precisely with "bzr log --show-diff". I think that this statement archaic and search changes from 13.6 MiB spit Emacs ChangeLogs not so convenient as 'bzr log' on source root (and don't forget ability restrict search with date by '-r date1:date2' or dir or fileset). Second paragraph state that you need describe WHAT and not write WHY. For me this is not always right. You can write source in literate programming style, so we get a lot of doc and a few of code. Write comment in code that next line fix behavior on "another dumb OS with gcc 2.x.x and system ld" ugly. Much pretty hold this remark as metadata in VCS. 'bzr annotate' gives revision for line and next you can get log message, full diff. With Emacs VC you can easy jump deep in history to get searched log message (vc-annotate-revision-previous-to-line). I think that commit history is a part of source code. And must be GPLed. And GPL must require availability history of changes not only sources! This make program more easy support and so more free. But back to the original question. Does need prepare ChangeLog entry for patch at current time? And does need maintain ChangeLog at all in view of modern VCS tools? -- Best regards!