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Re: Using VC for change descriptions
From: |
Joseph Myers |
Subject: |
Re: Using VC for change descriptions |
Date: |
Mon, 15 Jan 2018 13:53:26 +0000 |
User-agent: |
Alpine 2.20 (DEB 67 2015-01-07) |
On Sun, 14 Jan 2018, Richard Stallman wrote:
> I emphasize _see and judge_ because this has to be the conclusion of
> my own judgment. You can't convince me by arguing, but my own
> experience might.
By far the best way of getting that experience is through deliberately
using git instead of ChangeLog entries for some time when looking at
software history (asking other people in any case where you don't see how
to address your problem using git).
But another approach is to look at the development of a large, complicated
non-GNU free software project that does not use ChangeLogs, such as the
Linux kernel, and look for any cases where developers are finding they
have difficulty in adding a feature or fixing a bug because of the lack of
lists of changed entities for past changes. If git-based workflows work
well for such a project with hundreds of thousands of commits, that is
very strong evidence of their suitability.
> It might be necessary to improve the tools so that they are adequate
> in _all_ cases, not just usually.
"adequate" should mean adequate for solving the underlying problems - for
fixing bugs and adding features to GNU software, and for investigating the
history when that's relevant to doing so - not for a particular
intermediate step in a particular workflow. I think the git-based
workflow is indeed fully adequate (and that deliberately making use of it
for some time would provide experience of how it's fully adequate).
ChangeLogs are far from adequate in all cases - in many cases you need the
actual diffs for individual changes and the exact sources of past versions
for bisection. I think the relevant question should be what is on balance
better for GNU package development (taking into account opportunity costs,
such as the improvements to GNU packages that are not made because of the
time spent writing ChangeLog entries for other patches).
--
Joseph S. Myers
address@hidden
- Re: Using VC for change descriptions, (continued)
- Re: Using VC for change descriptions, Richard Stallman, 2018/01/07
- Re: Using VC for change descriptions, Paul Eggert, 2018/01/07
- Re: Using VC for change descriptions, Richard Stallman, 2018/01/08
- Re: Using VC for change descriptions, Richard Stallman, 2018/01/07
- Re: Using VC for change descriptions, Joseph Myers, 2018/01/09
- Re: Using VC for change descriptions, Richard Stallman, 2018/01/14
- Re: Using VC for change descriptions, Joseph Myers, 2018/01/15
- Re: Using VC for change descriptions,
Joseph Myers <=
Re: Using VC for change descriptions, Richard Stallman, 2018/01/07