From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 21781 invoked by alias); 3 Dec 2007 17:37:05 -0000 Received: (qmail 21773 invoked by uid 22791); 3 Dec 2007 17:37:04 -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; Mon, 03 Dec 2007 17:37:00 +0000 Received: by vlsi1.ultra.nyu.edu (4.1/1.34) id AA29226; Mon, 3 Dec 07 12:36:51 EST From: kenner@vlsi1.ultra.nyu.edu (Richard Kenner) Message-Id: <10712031736.AA29226@vlsi1.ultra.nyu.edu> Date: Mon, 03 Dec 2007 17:37:00 -0000 To: dnovillo@google.com Subject: Re: Rant about ChangeLog entries and commit messages Cc: dannyb@google.com, gcc@gcc.gnu.org, sam@rfc1149.net In-Reply-To: <47543DE8.3010003@google.com> References: <2007-12-02-11-05-39+trackit+sam@rfc1149.net> <47543DE8.3010003@google.com> 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/msg00081.txt.bz2 > I'm not sure people will want to drop ChangeLogs anytime soon. I don't > find them all that useful, but I *have* used them extensively when doing > archeology. It gives you the initial thread to pull when finding out > about changes. > > What I *do* miss a lot is a an easier way to link from the ChangeLog > entry into the email message explaining the whys and hows of a change. > In this respect, the comment in the code is not enough. The comment > explains what the code does today, it does not (and should not) explain > the history of that piece of code. Otherwise, comments would soon grow > to useless proportions. I agree completely with all of that.