On 19/01/2020 14:09, Gerald Pfeifer wrote:
Hi Richard,
On Thu, 9 Jan 2020, Richard Earnshaw (lists) wrote:
The thread on gcc@ is now so long and complicated that this proposal
back at the start has dropped off the radar. With the switch now
imminent I'd like to re-propose this change, this time more formally.
I wasn't sure *who* would best approve this since it's more a policy
question than anything else, but let's unstall this...
There's a general note I'd make, partly based on my going through
some of our older web contents recently (and "decluttering" some
of it), and some specific feedback.
The general note is that we've had a tendency to be very specific
in some of our policies (see the last hunk of
https://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc-patches/2020-01/msg01064.html for an
example) which can make appear us not very inviting to new blood.
That is, if all I wanted is to submit a simple patch for a typo
somewhere, how would I feel about our set of instructions, and
now this addition?
Is there a way to make this more light weight or less complex/
optional for simple contributions?
The more we make the process lightweight for contributors, the more work
we make for maintainers. If the contribution is sent correctly, then
ideally, the patch can be applied with just 'git am' by the maintainer.
So while we shouldn't overburden things, we shouldn't go too far. I
don't think we've added anything that glibc don't already require, for
example, or many other git-based development communities.
+<h3>Email subject lines</h3>
If I interpret both Merriam-Webster and the OED correctly, "e-mail"
is the preferrable spelling?
+Your contribution email subject line will become the first line of the
+commit message for your patch.
Changed - I note that there are some other uses of 'email' on the web
pages. I'm not fixing those.
<p> ... </p> around paragraphs (throughout).
Done.
+<h4>Classifier</h4>
+
+The classifier identifies the type of contribution, for example a
+patch, an RFC (request for comments) or a committed patch (where
+approval is not necessary. The classifier should be written in upper
+case and surrounded with square brackets. This is the only component
+of the email subject line that will not appear in the commit itself.
+The classifier may optionally contain a version number (v<i>N</i>) and
+a series marker (<i>N/M</i>). Examples are:
+
+<ul>
+ <li><code>[PATCH]</code> - a single patch</li>
+ <li><code>[PATCH v2]</code> - the second version of a single patch</li>
+ <li><code>[PATCH 3/7]</code> - the third patch in a series of seven
+ patches</li>
+ <li><code>[RFC]</code> - a point of discussion, may contain a patch</li>
+ <li><code>[COMMITTED]</code> - a patch that has already been committed.</li>
+</ul>
I see a lot of [C++], [aarch64], [fortran], [wwwdocs] ;-),... in
our archives.
the [] annotation makes life harder for 'git am' as it automatically
strips such prefixes when applying the patch. 'git am --keep-non-patch'
can avoid stripping such tags, but it's a bit of a mouthful to keep
typing it. Git communities (including glibc) generally use <topic>:
these days, so this aligns with that.
Should this all really move into the remainder of the subject line/
first line of the commit message? I guess this is a key part change
as part of your proposal?
The point is to get a good, concise summary that appears in "git log
--oneline" showing the history of commits. Moving it to the body breaks
that.
+<h4>Component tags</h4>
Alternately we could use [PATCH,fortran], [committed,C++],... ?
Please, no. See comment about stripping above.
Actually, if we use PATCH, RFC,... for everything else, could
COMMITTED be omitted? That feels like a bit of shouting (so if
we keep that, at least make it lower case)?
This is about consistency across the communities that use git.
+A component tag is a short identifier that identifies the part of the
+compiler being modified, this is important as it highlights to
Full stop: "...modified. This is..." or, better "...modified. This
highlights..." which is shorter.
Fixed.
I believe this could benefit from some examples of overall subject
lines. In fact, perhaps start with examples and describe the individual
components?
As for next steps, can you please mail the (updated) proposal to
the gcc@ list? Some, even quite prominent contributors, do not
follow gcc-patches at all (or not close) and this is bigger policy
question that will be interesting to the broad group.
I sent the proposal to gcc@ last year on the basis that this was policy
rather than a simple technical change, but it didn't make any progress
(the thread got rather bogged down with other unrelated discussions).
Anyway, patches are supposed to go to gcc-patches, even for the web
pages, aren't they?
I'll send the update to both lists...
R.
Hope this helps,
Gerald
