Re: please make the commit log clean

[Martin D Kealey]

On Mon, 19 Aug 2024 at 06:45, shynur . <one.last.kiss@outlook.com> wrote:

> I believe these output files should be added to `.gitignore` and generated
> during the `make` process.


Not doing so is deliberate in some cases.

In an ideal world, yes they should be generated during `make`, but that
would increase the "build toolset" that everyone would have to install,
including people who are writing code patches rather than documentation.

Otherwise, they will severely pollute the commit history, making it much
> harder for future maintainers to understand and manage the repository.
>

As long as the generated files start with a "generated from" comment, it's
not really a great imposition on developers.
There are much bigger learning issues than managing the documentation.

Perhaps a compromise would be to put the documentation in a directory
that's not inside the source code directory, so it's easier to `git diff`
just one or the other.  (In practice, that would mean moving some of the
code into a new subdirectory.)

-Martin