RE: [Axiom-developer] patches

[Page, Bill]

On Thursday, August 10, 2006 10:23 AM Ralf Hemmecke wrote:
> 
> Are the modifications that Frithjof is going to make to 
> http://wiki.axiom-developer.org/axiom--test--1 also sent
> to the axiom-developer mailing list so that we all can
> watch?

Actually, the up-to-date book volumes are in

http://wiki.axiom-developer.org/book--main--1

But no the modifications to these files will not be
automatically sent to the axiom-developer list - for two
reasons:

First. The Axiom Wiki is no longer directly connected to the
axiom-developer list. The wiki used to be subscribed to
the axiom-developer list so that all postings and changes
on the wiki were distributed to all subscribers to axiom-
developer. Doing this has always been a bit controversial...
The Wiki is capable of operating like an email list without
connection to axiom-developer. Starting a few months ago
(when we had some technical problems with the Savannah email
lists) I copied all the current axiom-developer subscribers
as subscribers to the Axiom Wiki and then I disabled the
Axiom Wiki subscription to axiom-developer. Since that time,
those people who still receive notices of changes on Axiom
Wiki are receiving these because they were automatically
subscribed to Axiom Wiki at that time.

Because the axiom-developer list and Axiom Wiki are no
longer directly connected, it is possible for a subscriber
to unsubscribe and for new users to subscribe to the wiki
without changing their subscription to axiom-developer.
Just click on the 'Subscribe' link in the This Site box
at the upper right corner of FrontPage

http://wiki.axiom-developer.org

Or at the right of the top menu line on other pages.

Second reason.

http://wiki.axiom-developer.org/book--main--1

is a "sub-folder wiki" of the Axiom Wiki. This means that
although it is contained in Axiom Wiki, it has it's own subset
of wiki pages - just like a folder or subdirectory. In this
case it has one "wiki page" per pamphlet file i.e. one for
each book volume. At the present time (this feature could
change in the future), sub-folder wikis behave almost
independently of the wiki in which they are contained. In
particular sub-folder wikis do not inherit the subscriber
lists of their container.

http://wiki.axiom-developer.org/axiom--test--1 is also a sub-
folder wiki. In fact it consists of several nested sub-folders
corresponding to the directory structure of the Axiom source
code distribution. Subscription to each of these sub-folders
is independent of the others.

So to receive notices of changes made by Frithjof and others
to the volumes at

http://wiki.axiom-developer.org/book--main--1

It is necessary to click the subscribe link at the right of
the top menu line.

> 
> I still don't like the diff-format. So all those mathaction mails
> are actually nearly like spam to me.

'diff -au' format is pretty near universal isn't it?

> (But don't care to change it, it's currently not so frequent
> anyway.)

If it gets to be too much you can control your own subscriptions
as I described above.

> If I am interested in the topic I just click on the link at
> the bottom of the mail. (BTW, could the
> 
>    forwarded from ...
> 
> stuff be moved to the top of the mail?)

This is easily changed.

Do you think the first line of the email, e.g.

  Changes http://wiki.axiom-developer.org/FrontPage/diff

should be removed? Do you like the 'diff' web page any
better than the diff content of the email? Should both
the forwarded from and diff links be at the top of the
email?

> 
> Somehow instead of
> http://wiki.axiom-developer.org/HowToSubmitPatches/diff
> I would like to see something like an ediff in emacs.
> Can that be easily achieved?
> 

I don't know anything about ediff. Do you have some
examples?

The contents of the diff web page is generated by a
function within the Python 'differ' library module which
is quite flexible. It is possible that it might be able
to generate 'ediff' format - in that case the change
would be quite easy. But email is more limiting than
web-page or emacs the screen, so I think we have to choose
carefully.

Regards,
Bill Page.