bug#23945: 25.1.50; Request for review: Gnus Cloud work in scratch/gnus-cloud

[Ted Zlatanov]

On Mon, 18 Jul 2016 19:18:09 -0400 npostavs@users.sourceforge.net wrote: 

>> I converted `gnus-cloud-method' to a defcustom and added the necessary
>> code to set it, resolving this question.
>> 
>> Since no one has been interested in reviewing this code, I will merge it
>> tomorrow.

n> Perhaps this is partly because I'm not familiar with the code (or what
n> "Gnus Cloud" is), but it seems to me that you're missing a good summary
n> line explaining what any of these changes are for.  The bug title and
n> commit message summary line mentions only "Gnus Cloud work".  What
n> "work"?  This feels actively reviewer-hostile.

You're right. The history of this work goes back at least 4 years in the
Gnus mailing list so I was hoping Lars or someone else familiar with
that history would jump in. You can start with the most recent log of
work I did:

http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.gnus.general/85543/focus=87091

I will write docs for the feature, but simply wasn't sure about some key
aspects of it that depended on the code.

Please note I did add docstrings for most of the functions, especially
the interactive ones. But I agree that's no excuse for a lack of good
commit messages.

n> The 2nd commit titled "Minor gnus-cloud UI improvements" is a bit better
n> (at least we can tell it's about UI), though adding 20 or so "Merge
n> branch 'master' of git.sv.gnu.org:/srv/git/emacs" in between doesn't
n> help much either.

Well, that's an issue with the source code repo. I've mentioned it
before. Here's my rant:

I merge the master branch often because I have been using the gnus-cloud
branch and want to make sure it's not broken against master. I also test
and use many other new features. I really don't want to start working
outside the master branch.

But I can't rebase and push again, because the repo doesn't support
non-fast-forward pushes. I have to delete and recreate the branch
(notification emails x2, and a little bit of manual labor). But also
every time I do a push with merges, notification e-mails come out for my
changes plus everything merged. I can't win either way.

So the bottom line for me is, I'd really like notification e-mails not
to go out for "scratch/*" branches, or to be able to do a
non-fast-forward push to my scratch branch. Since neither is possible,
I'm doing the best I can for now. I am strongly considering using Github
next time (Git supports multiple remotes for a branch, so this is not
too hard) and saving myself all this trouble.

You can use `git log --no-merges' meanwhile to filter out those merge
commits. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Ted