Re: Is it time to drop ChangeLogs?

[Nikolaus Rath]

On Mar 08 2016, Eli Zaretskii <address@hidden> wrote:
>> From: Nikolaus Rath <address@hidden>
>> Cc: address@hidden
>> Date: Mon, 07 Mar 2016 13:28:21 -0800
>> 
>> Asking me to walk three times around my chair before making the commit
>> is also a simple request that's easily accomplished. That doesn't make
>> it any less astonishing. There is just no apparent good reason for this
>> duplication. Thus it astonishes.
>
> The reasons exist, and has been described.  You may not agree with
> them, perhaps due to different experience, but that doesn't mean they
> aren't valid.

Yeah, but what exactly is your point here? I was pointing out that this
practice is astonishing for new contributors. You didn't understand why,
so I explained that it's astonishing because to a new contributor it
seems pointless. Now you assert that there are good reasons for it, but
that really doesn't change that, to new contributors, it appears
pointless and is astonishing.

The only way to change that is probably to come up with a well-written,
concise summary of these reasons and include it whenever a submitted
patch has to be refused due to a missing changelog entry.

>>> You didn't read what I wrote about the current system.  If we stop
>>> producing ChangeLog files, there will be no reason for having detailed
>>> enough commit log messages, and soon enough there will be no
>>> summaries.
>> 
>> I don't see how one follows from the other. Why isn't whatever measure
>> you are currently take to ensure detailed ChangeLog files equally
>> suitable to ensure detailed commit messages?
>
> Because if we continue going the way we do, we are sending a very
> specific message to the future contributors.

Sorry, I still don't follow your reasoning. I still consider myself a
potential contributor (I didn't contribute much beyond that first little
foray), and not requiring me to copy my commit message into the
ChangeLog is not going to affect the quality of the commit measures in
any way. The only "message" that I get from this is "Great, sending
patches for Emacs doesn't require me to do a copy & paste anymore".

Best,
-Nikolaus

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