Re: Using VC for change descriptions

[Richard Stallman]

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      > > This is what I would have done, you have only 8 specific
      > > changes touching multiple files, there is no need to repeat
      > > them several times and one could even reduce this a bit
      > > further by merging the file lines into one.  You can even
      > > skip the "Likewise." part completely.

      > I don't think this is any better.  If anything it obscures the
      > essential nature of the change, which is very much "take each
      > relevant file, apply this class of fixes to it", where links
      > between identifiers of the same name in different files are
      > entirely incidental.

I agree that the higher-level description of the change is a useful
thing to put in.  Perhaps I should change the coding standards
to make that clearer.  Do you think it currently appears to say
not to do that?

But there's another question at hand: whether to STOP including lists
of files (and in most cases, entities) that were changed.  That is the
main disagreement.

If people can show me tools that use a local Git repository and
substitute for the list of files and entities change, and work so
reliably and well that I _see and judge_ that it eliminates the need
to list those things in ChangeLog, I will decide they are an adequate
substitute.

I emphasize _see and judge_ because this has to be the conclusion of
my own judgment.  You can't convince me by arguing, but my own
experience might.

It might be necessary to improve the tools so that they are adequate
in _all_ cases, not just usually.

        * sysdeps/**/sys/ucontext.h [!__USE_MISC] (*): Rename to __* where 
        original name not reserved by POSIX, and update users of the 
        original identifiers.

That description is clear and precise, but if you search for the name
of one of the entities changed, you won't find this.  In effect, it's
a form of higher-level description, so I said above applies to this
case too.

-- 
Dr Richard Stallman
President, Free Software Foundation (https://gnu.org, https://fsf.org)
Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org)
Skype: No way! See https://stallman.org/skype.html.