Re: changelog bug-closing should not be used unless the code changes
On Tue, Jan 02, 2001 at 01:23:15PM -0600, Adam Heath wrote:
> I disagree with an entry of "Bugs closes previously: CLoses: #nnnnn". It
> gives no indication of when, how, or why a bug was fixed.
Being unnecessarily terse, whether in a changelog entry or in an
email, is obviously a Bad Thing. I do really dislike chnagelog
entries that give no hint about what the bug was. On the other hand,
it's not always easy to figure out when a bug disappeared, if you
didn't notice at the time (if, say, you weren't the maintainer yet).
I try to use something like:
* Verified that such-and-such no longer occurs. This has been fixed
since at least version x.x-y. (Closes: #nnnnn)
This clarifies why the bug is only being closed now (I just got around
to verifying it), and gives some hint of how long it may have been
closed. (If you really want to know if it was closed before that, I'll
invite you to investigate for yourself.)
> When I was going thru the dpkg bug list, I sent lots of emails of
> the form: "This was fixed in dpkg x.x.x". If I was bored, I
> included the time the version was uploaded.
I applaud this (though, in most cases, I'd ignore the time info).
With more obscure packages, though, it may not be possible to
determine exactly when the bug disappeared. Intermediate versions
often vanish completely.
> It's not that much more difficult to send individual emails, then it
> is to write an entry in a changelog. And it is much more friendly.
It is a fair bit more difficult to write individual emails, and it's
more error prone, and it's less visible to third parties. If the
entry is in the changelog, then *everybody* gets a copy.
I'm not sure I agree with the much-more-friendly part. I'd rather see
a descriptive changelog entry than a terse and uninformative separate
email. Basically, I'd say friendliness has more to do with style than
with delivery mechanism.
Now, if I have information that doesn't seem appropriate to the
changelog, but does seem like it might be interesting to the original
submitter, I'll send that in a separate email, but in that mail, I
usually say that I'm *going* to close the bug, and I still use a
changelog entry to do the actual closing.
In summary, I strongly disagree with Ian's idea, as found in the
subject line. It should be possible to close all bugs with nothing
but changelog entries. However, maintainers should strive to be
informative when they close bugs, no matter *how* they close them.
I might even go so far as to suggest that we should deprecate all
other methods of closing bugs, and use the changelog entries as our
*preferred* bug-closing mechanism. Therefore, if Ian is making a
policy proposal, I firmly oppose it.
cheers
--
Chris Waters | Pneumonoultra- osis is too long
xtifr@debian.org | microscopicsilico- to fit into a single
or xtifr@dsp.net | volcaniconi- standalone haiku
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