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Re: How much explanation to include in change descriptions
From: |
Joseph Myers |
Subject: |
Re: How much explanation to include in change descriptions |
Date: |
Tue, 16 Jan 2018 13:42:47 +0000 |
User-agent: |
Alpine 2.20 (DEB 67 2015-01-07) |
On Tue, 16 Jan 2018, Paul Eggert wrote:
> Richard Stallman wrote:
>
> > It is useful to include a reference to the bug data base.
> > But don't omit anything on the assumption that people have access to
> > that data base.
>
> That's asking for too much, and in practice developers typically don't do
> what's being asked for. Many bug reports are complex, and one must read them
> carefully to understand the bugs. We can't reasonably ask developers to write
> and read commit messages containing every detail of every report of a bug that
> was fixed. On the contrary: the GNU bug database is a useful tool for
> simplifying maintenance, and we should take advantage of it when that is a
> win.
*But* it's also the case that the bug report may well contain discussion
of ideas for fixes or speculation about the cause that's not actually
relevant to the final fix. In such cases, it's very helpful for the
developer fixing the bug to write up a description of only those parts
that are relevant, omitting all the false trails and other ideas.
In some cases, the description in the original bug report can be reused in
the commit message - that's what I often do when fixing bugs I reported
myself.
--
Joseph S. Myers
address@hidden
- Re: Using VC for change descriptions, (continued)
- Re: Using VC for change descriptions, Alfred M. Szmidt, 2018/01/03
- Re: Using VC for change descriptions, Joseph Myers, 2018/01/03
- Re: Using VC for change descriptions, Paul Eggert, 2018/01/03
- Re: Using VC for change descriptions, John Darrington, 2018/01/04
- Re: Using VC for change descriptions, Richard Stallman, 2018/01/08
- Re: Using VC for change descriptions, Paul Eggert, 2018/01/09
- Re: Using VC for change descriptions, Richard Stallman, 2018/01/09
- Re: Using VC for change descriptions, Paul Eggert, 2018/01/10
- How much explanation to include in change descriptions, Richard Stallman, 2018/01/15
- Re: How much explanation to include in change descriptions, Paul Eggert, 2018/01/16
- Re: How much explanation to include in change descriptions,
Joseph Myers <=
- Re: How much explanation to include in change descriptions, Richard Stallman, 2018/01/16
- Re: How much explanation to include in change descriptions, Paul Eggert, 2018/01/17
- Re: How much explanation to include in change descriptions, Richard Stallman, 2018/01/17
- Re: How much explanation to include in change descriptions, Richard Stallman, 2018/01/16
- Re: How much explanation to include in change descriptions, John Darrington, 2018/01/17
- Re: Using VC for change descriptions, Rical Jasan, 2018/01/04
- 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, 2018/01/09
- Re: Using VC for change descriptions, Joseph Myers, 2018/01/10