Re: [PATCH 4/6] gnu: linux-libre-beagle-bone-black: Remove kernel variant.

[ludo@gnu.org (Ludovic Courtès)]

Hi,

Vincent Legoll <vincent.legoll@gmail.com> skribis:

> On Wed, Sep 28, 2016 at 11:11 PM, Ludovic Courtès <ludo@gnu.org> wrote:
>> <https://www.gnu.org/prep/standards/html_node/Change-Log-Concepts.html>
>
> I read this and still am on the opposite side.
>
> The "changelog entries are like an undo list" is a WTF, to me this is what
> `patch -R` is for...

Not quite, because the change log shows the language-level view of the
changes, which can be hard to infer by looking at a diff.  It makes it
easy to answer questions such as “when did we change this function?”,
“when did we introduce that variable”, etc.

> My take on that (the newbie wanting to grasp it) is that I do the following:
> - read git changelog entries titles in gitk (or a ML, or a gitweb)
> - if oneliner title looks interesting for a subject I'm currently
> trying to learn
> - I read the full changelog entry
> - if that is still interesting me, then I go read the code

I see.  The commit title is definitely what you’re interested in here.
I understand it can be frustratingly short, but then again it’s no
substitute for the full discussions or code explanations, IMO.

> Is there something equivalent with the GNU-styled CLs, that does not require
> me to read every patch ? Because that's not scaling very well, especially in
> languages that I'm not proficient in.
>
> My example is LKML, the changelogs are an extremely valuable tool to understand
> things, to debug, etc... I just love this level of details put into changelogs.

AIUI Linux-style commit logs are not change logs, but explanations.  I
still strongly believe that explanations believe in code.

Ludo’.