From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: ludo@gnu.org (Ludovic =?iso-8859-1?Q?Court=E8s?=) Newsgroups: gmane.lisp.guile.devel Subject: Re: ChangeLog or not? Date: Wed, 07 Mar 2012 00:17:02 +0100 Message-ID: <877gyxnwup.fsf@gnu.org> References: <87ipih8wi1.fsf@gnu.org> <87hay1wqb5.fsf@netris.org> NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Trace: dough.gmane.org 1331075862 16035 80.91.229.3 (6 Mar 2012 23:17:42 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 6 Mar 2012 23:17:42 +0000 (UTC) Cc: Andy Wingo , guile-devel@gnu.org To: Mark H Weaver Original-X-From: guile-devel-bounces+guile-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Wed Mar 07 00:17:41 2012 Return-path: Envelope-to: guile-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 1S53dT-000191-PR for guile-devel@m.gmane.org; Wed, 07 Mar 2012 00:17:39 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:37383 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1S53dT-0004Zt-37 for guile-devel@m.gmane.org; Tue, 06 Mar 2012 18:17:39 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([208.118.235.92]:56182) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1S53d7-0004XP-OQ for guile-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 06 Mar 2012 18:17:37 -0500 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1S53cv-0003Uh-VT for guile-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 06 Mar 2012 18:17:17 -0500 Original-Received: from xanadu.aquilenet.fr ([88.191.123.111]:44397) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1S53cv-0003UV-P2 for guile-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 06 Mar 2012 18:17:05 -0500 Original-Received: from localhost (xanadu.aquilenet.fr [127.0.0.1]) by xanadu.aquilenet.fr (Postfix) with ESMTP id 26AE8DD2; Wed, 7 Mar 2012 00:17:04 +0100 (CET) Original-Received: from xanadu.aquilenet.fr ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (xanadu.aquilenet.fr [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with ESMTP id gjTLaZuq10ED; Wed, 7 Mar 2012 00:17:04 +0100 (CET) Original-Received: from pluto (reverse-83.fdn.fr [80.67.176.83]) by xanadu.aquilenet.fr (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id C728E317; Wed, 7 Mar 2012 00:17:02 +0100 (CET) X-URL: http://www.fdn.fr/~lcourtes/ X-Revolutionary-Date: 18 =?iso-8859-1?Q?Vent=F4se?= an 220 de la =?iso-8859-1?Q?R=E9volution?= X-PGP-Key-ID: 0xEA52ECF4 X-PGP-Key: http://www.fdn.fr/~lcourtes/ludovic.asc X-PGP-Fingerprint: 83C4 F8E5 10A3 3B4C 5BEA D15D 77DD 95E2 EA52 ECF4 X-OS: x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu In-Reply-To: <87hay1wqb5.fsf@netris.org> (Mark H. Weaver's message of "Tue, 06 Mar 2012 13:13:34 -0500") User-Agent: Gnus/5.110018 (No Gnus v0.18) Emacs/24.0.93 (gnu/linux) X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.6 (newer, 3) X-Received-From: 88.191.123.111 X-BeenThere: guile-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: "Developers list for Guile, the GNU extensibility library" List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: guile-devel-bounces+guile-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: guile-devel-bounces+guile-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.lisp.guile.devel:14033 Archived-At: Hi! Mark H Weaver skribis: > I agree with you. While I see nothing inherently wrong with verbose > commit logs, in practice this tends to come at the expense of comments > in the code itself, and that is a very serious problem. Yes, exactly. In addition, there=E2=80=99s value IMO in having change logs be exactly tha= t: a log of changes made to the source code=E2=80=99s AST. This tells how the changes were implemented (useful when reviewing), while the comments and/or posts would explain why. Andy Wingo skribis: > I wonder though about some specific cases. For example, > performance-related changes. Justifying performance improvements > necessarily depends on a description of two different revisions of a > piece of functionality Not necessarily. The source code could have a comment close to the data structure, algorithm, etc. that would say =E2=80=9Cthis is done this way be= cause it has such and such nice performance characteristics.=E2=80=9D The advantage is that future readers would notice and have those concerns in mind when touching the code. [...] > Similarly for "X is temporarily moved to Y but will be moved to Z in a > future commit". I can=E2=80=99t really see what that pattern would be. Anyway, there are surely exceptions, but I think the basic rationale holds most of the time. > There are probably other cases. Dunno, perhaps I have not yet been > fully indoctrinated :-) I actually view the change log chapter of the GCS as a rational justification of the practice, more than as a a doctrine. :-) Thanks, Ludo=E2=80=99.