Re: Rant about ChangeLog entries and commit messages

[Bernd Schmidt <bernds_cb1@t-online.de>]

Richard Kenner wrote:
>>> 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 Purely historical references in the comments that don't serve to clarify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.

I think that's Samuel's point - it would be much better to have them in
the commit log.  FWIW, I agree completely - I've never found ChangeLogs
useful, I hate writing them, and I think the linux-kernel guys these
days generally have much better checkin messages than we do.


Bernd
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