Re: RFC: Superseded-by: follow-up trailer

From: Jason Gunthorpe <jgg@ziepe.ca>
To: Peter Zijlstra <peterz@infradead.org>
Cc: Steven Rostedt <rostedt@goodmis.org>,
	"Jason A. Donenfeld" <Jason@zx2c4.com>,
	Alex Elder <elder@ieee.org>,
	users@linux.kernel.org, tools@linux.kernel.org
Subject: Re: RFC: Superseded-by: follow-up trailer
Date: Wed, 14 Apr 2021 08:49:50 -0300	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <20210414114950.GM227011@ziepe.ca> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <YHaaMaa2uaa6HM9c@hirez.programming.kicks-ass.net>

On Wed, Apr 14, 2021 at 09:30:57AM +0200, Peter Zijlstra wrote:
> On Tue, Apr 13, 2021 at 05:40:31PM -0400, Konstantin Ryabitsev wrote:
> > On Tue, Apr 13, 2021 at 05:29:01PM -0400, Steven Rostedt wrote:
> > > Now, I would really like the Supercedes: tag, as its just a link you need,
> > > and not a email sent. Ideally this would be in all the patches (with a
> > > direct link to what it Supercedes. I may update my scripts to do exactly
> > > this, as I always add a "Link: " to the last version, and that's in my
> > > repo. Or perhaps b4 could add this too!
> > 
> > I'd rather folks used the following notation in the cover letter/patch
> > basement:
> > 
> >     Previous versions:
> > 
> >     Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/foo # v2
> >     Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/bar # v1
> > 
> > This is much more succinct, indicates the version number in the trailer, and
> > removes the need to remember how to spell "Superseded", as there seems to be
> > little consensus. :)
> 
> How would you handle the difference between the above and:
> 
> Depends on:
> 
> Link: https://lkml.kernel.org/r/foo
> 
> Which is also a semi common thing to do with larger work that comes in
> multiple dependent series.
> 
> That is; I supppse; a long winded way of saying that for parsing (both
> human and machine) it might be useful to have distinct tag names. Now I
> agree with you that Supersedes is a crap word to spell, but it has the
> distinction of being clear on intent.

Most people I see already providing the above links in their cover
letters are integrating it in the change log, something like:

v3:
  - blah blah
v2: https://lore.kernel.org/r/foo
  - blah blah
v1: https://lore.kernel.org/r/bar

Which is pleasingly readable but probably not precise enough to
mechanically parse.

As getting the links back is somewhat annoying I don't see people do
it so often :(

b4 does a nice job helping the maintainer, but the submitter has no
helpful common tooling currently.

Jason