From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Junio C Hamano Subject: Re: What's cooking in git.git (Apr 2013, #05; Mon, 15) Date: Wed, 17 Apr 2013 16:56:30 -0700 Message-ID: <7vsj2od841.fsf@alter.siamese.dyndns.org> References: <7vhaj7r116.fsf@alter.siamese.dyndns.org> <7vip3npet0.fsf@alter.siamese.dyndns.org> <8761zm4wzg.fsf@linux-k42r.v.cablecom.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Cc: Phil Hord , Thomas Rast , "git\@vger.kernel.org" To: Felipe Contreras X-From: git-owner@vger.kernel.org Thu Apr 18 01:56:48 2013 Return-path: Envelope-to: gcvg-git-2@plane.gmane.org Received: from vger.kernel.org ([209.132.180.67]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1UScDT-0002oC-DG for gcvg-git-2@plane.gmane.org; Thu, 18 Apr 2013 01:56:43 +0200 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1753668Ab3DQX4f (ORCPT ); Wed, 17 Apr 2013 19:56:35 -0400 Received: from b-pb-sasl-quonix.pobox.com ([208.72.237.35]:63871 "EHLO smtp.pobox.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1751585Ab3DQX4e (ORCPT ); Wed, 17 Apr 2013 19:56:34 -0400 Received: from smtp.pobox.com (unknown [127.0.0.1]) by b-sasl-quonix.pobox.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 236021716A; Wed, 17 Apr 2013 23:56:33 +0000 (UTC) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha1; c=relaxed; d=pobox.com; h=from:to:cc :subject:references:date:in-reply-to:message-id:mime-version :content-type; s=sasl; bh=ylgSs871aliYNEeaOPBCbbbDlwI=; b=FJNrtE J2CKWt8/XW/gTD9srmcslliE8AgLwsiFiLNLsSyIjngxa3k/gnXQUqUt0PEHusmL 2Xl2C26CA4sRQ3ZGFE3Xvt1CoBh74WZaynBHr3sRre0Bvf0SseUCy94jbgoHV1WY jhqzPROxRF6whY6z2IuOCGuNqDhj5Nhp/NJ5s= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=pobox.com; h=from:to:cc :subject:references:date:in-reply-to:message-id:mime-version :content-type; q=dns; s=sasl; b=oHudHqyRfyUqOEbi+DTUWBJyTFVf1W/Z AztIqUBGdZzADxn1VdvkfJRTdtANN3Yy7W65JSvw5ClJTI1nLlpdbbO6Y70BG5yt nhItynY4uMb9snWvYZrHDaYIL7kzATtOpfHjOo2leY1nhBKyEIEZ07dDGgAFJdaH o6GQ0vIHZFA= Received: from b-pb-sasl-quonix.pobox.com (unknown [127.0.0.1]) by b-sasl-quonix.pobox.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 179A617168; Wed, 17 Apr 2013 23:56:33 +0000 (UTC) Received: from pobox.com (unknown [24.4.35.13]) (using TLSv1 with cipher DHE-RSA-AES128-SHA (128/128 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by b-sasl-quonix.pobox.com (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id 6284C17166; Wed, 17 Apr 2013 23:56:32 +0000 (UTC) In-Reply-To: (Felipe Contreras's message of "Wed, 17 Apr 2013 13:50:50 -0500") User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/23.2 (gnu/linux) X-Pobox-Relay-ID: 6DE7283C-A7BA-11E2-87FD-BCFF4146488D-77302942!b-pb-sasl-quonix.pobox.com Sender: git-owner@vger.kernel.org Precedence: bulk List-ID: X-Mailing-List: git@vger.kernel.org Archived-At: Felipe Contreras writes: > And how do you know this will be part of the 1%? You don't. How many > times have you tracked regressions in transport helper's import/export > functionality? How many times in remote-hg? How many times has > *anybody* done so? The last point makes it all the more important to have a good history [*1*]. An area that no developer rarely touches with a little user base can stay dormant for a long time, and when people do need to hunt for an ancient bug or to enhance the existing feature to support a new use case without breaking the old use case, the original author may not be around, lost interest, or no longer uses his own creation. The code left behind tells us what the author thought was the best way to solve his problem, but it does not clearly define what the problem he tried to solve was, within what constraint he had to find a solution for it, and why he thought that the solution was the best (or sometimes "only") one. Log and in-code comments are to explain such things that are beyond how the code works and what it does. [Footnote] *1* In this message, I am not judging if the depth of your writing for the particular change is deep enough. It depends on how well the reader knows the area, and there is no single right answer to that question. Incidentally that is why we tend to err on the more descriptive side. The next person your commit will help may not know the area as well as you do and has to figure things out on his own. You are helping him by being descriptive.