From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 17996 invoked by alias); 3 Dec 2007 17:33:54 -0000 Received: (qmail 17987 invoked by uid 22791); 3 Dec 2007 17:33:54 -0000 X-Spam-Check-By: sourceware.org Received: from smtp-out.google.com (HELO smtp-out.google.com) (216.239.45.13) by sourceware.org (qpsmtpd/0.31) with ESMTP; Mon, 03 Dec 2007 17:33:42 +0000 Received: from zps76.corp.google.com (zps76.corp.google.com [172.25.146.76]) by smtp-out.google.com with ESMTP id lB3HXaju021025 for ; Mon, 3 Dec 2007 09:33:36 -0800 Received: from py-out-1112.google.com (pyia25.prod.google.com [10.34.253.25]) by zps76.corp.google.com with ESMTP id lB3HWYJ1013970 for ; Mon, 3 Dec 2007 09:33:35 -0800 Received: by py-out-1112.google.com with SMTP id a25so7258414pyi for ; Mon, 03 Dec 2007 09:33:35 -0800 (PST) Received: by 10.65.95.12 with SMTP id x12mr12406429qbl.1196703215039; Mon, 03 Dec 2007 09:33:35 -0800 (PST) Received: from legolas.novillo.homelinux.org ( [99.229.48.247]) by mx.google.com with ESMTPS id e13sm7069976qbe.2007.12.03.09.33.32 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=RC4-MD5); Mon, 03 Dec 2007 09:33:34 -0800 (PST) Message-ID: <47543DE8.3010003@google.com> Date: Mon, 03 Dec 2007 17:33:00 -0000 From: Diego Novillo User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.9 (X11/20071115) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Samuel Tardieu CC: gcc@gcc.gnu.org, Daniel Berlin Subject: Re: Rant about ChangeLog entries and commit messages References: <2007-12-02-11-05-39+trackit+sam@rfc1149.net> In-Reply-To: <2007-12-02-11-05-39+trackit+sam@rfc1149.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit 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/msg00079.txt.bz2 On 12/02/07 05:05, Samuel Tardieu wrote: > Maybe we should consider dropping ChangeLogs and using better checkin > messages. 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. The history is something one finds on the mailing lists. So, my proposal is to add a commit-time check that makes sure that the commit message contains a URL to the message describing the change. IIUC, such check shouldn't be hard to implement (Dan?) I try to do that with fixed PRs. When closing one, I usually add a link to the message explaining the fix. The only annoying issue with this proposal is that it forces the committer to fish out the message URL from the mailing lists, so perhaps we could make the check a warning instead of an error. Thoughts? Diego.