Re: Organizing the NEWS file a bit better

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Stefan Kangas <stefan@marxist.se>
> Date: Mon, 6 Sep 2021 20:57:43 +0200
> Cc: Lars Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org>, Juri Linkov <juri@linkov.net>, 
>       Emacs developers <emacs-devel@gnu.org>
> 
> > I use VC archeology on NEWS all the time.  It is handy when I need to
> > know who and when added some new feature.
> 
> In NEWS, I'm pretty sure that most of us do.
> 
> Lars' point was that it's nice that file history is preserved when the
> markers are removed.  But those markers are only removed on the
> release branch, in preparation of a release.  On master, the file is
> moved to make way for a new NEWS file.  This breaks archeology
> anyways.

It doesn't break it for me (though I don't think I understand what you
are describing: the archeology on the branch and on master are
separate and independent).

> I've never used vc-region-history, but it is pretty neat.  If I
> understand correctly, it breaks when lines are moved?

If they are moved far away, and if you didn't include that place in
the range, then yes, but you can always see where they were moved and
retry.

> I think the better tool to use for archeology in NEWS, where lines are
> frequently moved, is vc-annotate.

vc-region-history builds _upon_ annotate, and saves you the trouble of
invoking annotate many times, each time specifying the commit SHA.