[Nmh-workers] Re: Refactoring the nmh source

[Bill Wohler]

Joel Reicher <address@hidden> writes:

> I have three questions for the list. Firstly, are there any objections to
> the basic idea of doing this?

I haven't mucked enough with the code to form a first opinion, but
from what I've read here, it is in need.

> Secondly, do you want a new branch for this work? I'm hoping the answer
> to this question is "no", partly because I'm aiming for the refactoring to
> be modest/trivial to begin with.

Since I'm not actively developing nmh (MH-E and Emacs keeps me busy
enough ;-), I'm not sure how much work this might impact, but it would
certainly be easier, especially with CVS, to keep the work on the
trunk.

> Lastly, what's the policy with commits and ChangeLog? I'd prefer to do
> frequent and small commits, but that may annoy some people. I also wouldn't
> put most of what I'm planning to do into the ChangeLog.

I heavily use ChangeLogs to see what and when changes were made to
functions and variables and their relationships to other functions and
variables. I therefore never use wildcards and mention every function
and variable names, even when touching hundreds of them, since a grep
would miss those changes.

I use Emacs to add ChangeLog comments easily, and then use those
comments for CVS check-ins (automatically via Emacs per PMM's
observation) so that the CVS logs are useful as well.

However, since "svn -v log" gives you the equivalent of the ChangeLog
file, I've stopped creating ChangeLog files in Subversion
environments. However, I still haven't implemented the ChangeLog
commands for automatically creating Subversion log entries so creating
log entries is more manual than I'd like.

To summarize my 2cents: as long as we're using CVS, put gory detail in
the ChangeLog. When we switch to Subversion, put the gory detail in
the check-in log, and maybe include a ChangeLog in the releases which
has been generated automatically for the benefit of people who don't
have Subversion.

And thanks!

-- 
Bill Wohler <address@hidden>  http://www.newt.com/wohler/  GnuPG ID:610BD9AD
Maintainer of comp.mail.mh FAQ and MH-E. Vote Libertarian!
If you're passed on the right, you're in the wrong lane.