This is the mail archive of the
gcc@gcc.gnu.org
mailing list for the GCC project.
Re: Rant about ChangeLog entries and commit messages
On Sat, 2007-12-15 at 20:54 -0200, Alexandre Oliva wrote:
> On Dec 3, 2007, kenner@vlsi1.ultra.nyu.edu (Richard Kenner) wrote:
>
> > In my view, ChangeLog is mostly "write-only" from a developer's
> > perspective. It's a document that the GNU project requires us to
> produce
> > for
>
> ... a good example of compliance with the GPL:
>
> 5. Conveying Modified Source Versions.
>
> a) The work must carry prominent notices stating that you modified
> it, and giving a relevant date.
>
(Minor quibble) As copyright owner of GCC, the FSF is not bound by the
conditions of the licence it grants in the same way as licencees are
bound. So I don't think this provision in itself would mandate that
those who have copyright assignments to the FSF record their changes.
I don't hear anyone arguing that people should not record what they
changes and when. The question is whether it is sufficient.
I just started using git locally, and I keep thinking it would be really
great to have something like "git blame" for gcc. The command "git
blame" gives you a listing of who changed each line of the file and
when, and also gives the commit id. From that all can be revealed.
>
> FWIW, I've used ChangeLogs to find problems a number of times in my 14
> years of work in GCC, and I find them very useful. When I need more
> details, web-searching for the author of the patch and some relevant
> keywords in the ChangeLog will often point at the relevant e-mail, so
> burdening people with adding a direct URL seems pointless to me. It's
> pessimizing the common case for a small optimization in far less
> common cases.
>
This may possibly work when the mailing list entries exist and are
accessible.
However they are only available AFAIK from 1998. GCC has been going for
2-3 times as long as that. And there is at least one significant gap:
February 2004 up to and including this message
http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc-patches/2004-02/msg02288.html.
In my experience, when documentation is not stored with the source code,
it often gets lost.
When a person is offline the mailing list htmls are not available.
I have an idea to resolve this that I am working on... more in due
course if it comes to anything.
Tim Josling