Re: Is it time to drop ChangeLogs?

[Nikolaus Rath]

On Mar 08 2016, Eric Abrahamsen <address@hidden> wrote:
> Nikolaus Rath <address@hidden> writes:
>
>> On Mar 07 2016, Stefan Monnier <address@hidden> wrote:
>>>> When I submitted my first Emacs patch, I was astonished when I was asked
>>>> to re-submit with my commit message essentially duplicated in the
>>>> ChangeLog.
>>>
>>> I can't remember ever asking this kind of duplication.  We used to
>>> duplicate the ChangeLog-info in the ChangeLog file and in the commit
>>> message (tho we stopped doing it a year ago), but we never asked for it
>>> to be duplicated in the email messages that submits a patch.
>>>
>>> So I have the impression that I'm misunderstanding you.  Could you
>>> describe more precisely the kind of duplication you're talking about?
>>
>> No, you understood me correctly. However, I've just looked this up again
>> and it turns out I was actually submitting a patch to Gnus, not
>> Emacs. It was eventually committed by Eric Abrahamsen to the Gnus git
>> repo, who first asked me to re-submit my patch with a commit message
>> that was formatted like a Changelog entry, and to duplicate the message
>> in the ChangeLog itself. It seemed to me that he considered that a
>> questionable practice himself, but said it was obligatory because Gnus
>> closely followed the Emacs standards here.
>>
>>
>> Unfortunately that discussion never made it into the bug
>> (http://debbugs.gnu.org/cgi/bugreport.cgi?bug=20956), so I'm
>> paraphrasing from memory. But I'm pretty sure I'm remembering correctly,
>> because I was so surprised by this.
>
> Not duplicating it in the email, just commit message + ChangeLog
> duplication. This may be getting conflated with me asking for the commit
> to be emailed as a git-format-patch attachment, which was just because I
> was lazy (and it also preserves the author/committer distinction).

Actually, I was quite happy about that. I very much prefer if patches
that I submit also have me as the author of the commit.

(Eric, I think my last email sounded a bit like telling on you. I'm
sorry about that, I think I should have written it differently (or asked
you first). I'm very grateful for the time you took to help me with
those patches, and for patiently explaining the rationale for the
format).

Best,
-Nikolaus

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