From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 5897 invoked by alias); 2 Dec 2007 12:28:28 -0000 Received: (qmail 5889 invoked by uid 22791); 2 Dec 2007 12:28:28 -0000 X-Spam-Check-By: sourceware.org Received: from VLSI1.ULTRA.NYU.EDU (HELO vlsi1.ultra.nyu.edu) (128.122.140.213) by sourceware.org (qpsmtpd/0.31) with SMTP; Sun, 02 Dec 2007 12:28:18 +0000 Received: by vlsi1.ultra.nyu.edu (4.1/1.34) id AA23790; Sun, 2 Dec 07 07:28:11 EST From: kenner@vlsi1.ultra.nyu.edu (Richard Kenner) Message-Id: <10712021228.AA23790@vlsi1.ultra.nyu.edu> Date: Sun, 02 Dec 2007 12:28:00 -0000 To: schwab@suse.de Subject: Re: Rant about ChangeLog entries and commit messages Cc: gcc@gcc.gnu.org, sam@rfc1149.net In-Reply-To: References: <2007-12-02-11-05-39+trackit+sam@rfc1149.net> X-IsSubscribed: yes Mailing-List: contact gcc-help@gcc.gnu.org; run by ezmlm Precedence: bulk List-Id: List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: Sender: gcc-owner@gcc.gnu.org X-SW-Source: 2007-12/txt/msg00028.txt.bz2 > > How could a newcomer guess why the gcc_force_collect flag needs to be > > reset? > > That is supposed to be written in a comment. The change log entry > should describe _what_ is being changed, so that you can find out when a > particular change was made. Not quite. The comments are supposed to say why the code is doing what it's doing (and, where it's helpful, why it ISN'T doing something else). Purely historical references in the comments that don't serve to clarify the present code are discouraged. (We don't want comments turning in a blog, for example.) I view the description in the gcc-patches message as PART of the CM history of GCC in that IT'S the place to go to get this information. What's unfortunate, I think, is that there's no easy way to find this message from the CM revision number.