Re: Non-unified patches and dpkg source format ‘3.0 (quilt)’.
On Thu, Aug 06 2009, Charles Plessy wrote:
> This said, if there were a project-wide momentum for standardising on one patch
> format, I would not oppose. This would probably be a release goal, a
> preparation for a Policy change, or a demand from the security team to the
> package manintainers. Something with a motivation, a plan, some facts and some
> volunteers to get things done.
Why would we want to add that to policy? It seems like that both
the context diff and the unified diffs offer the same information (ie,
the change, and the context), and that each format can be mechanically
transformed from one to the other, and that which form one uses depends
on the individual.
I find that chunks with small changed grouped close together
read better in unified format, but if the chunk is long, with lots of
smallish changes interspersed with common context, then following the
logic of the old code versus the new code is better using context diffs
(you do not have to mentally keep track of two different flows).
This is mostly subjective, I know.
So policy should never promote one personal preference over
another, given that the formats convey the same information, and can be
transformed by tools, and are equally easily applied.
I mean, really, people, we are not the Borg. Why should dpkg
care, as long as the patch applies?
manoj
not inclined to pander to the hobgoblin of small minds
--
Save yourself from the 'Gates' of hell, use Linux." -- like that
one. The_Kind @ LinuxNet
Manoj Srivastava <srivasta@debian.org> <http://www.debian.org/~srivasta/>
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