[python-committers] what's going on with Misc/NEWS?

[Antoine Pitrou]

Le vendredi 24 mai 2013 à 14:23 -0400, Brett Cannon a écrit :
> > You'll have to copy stuff by hand, though, if you don't want to rely on the
> > merge machinery. So we have two possible file layouts:
> >
> > * (current) a single Misc/NEWS is merged from branch to branch. Pro: hg merge
> > copies the text for you. Con: hg merge sometimes screws up and you have to
> > clean up a large conflict.
> 
> But hg won't let you simply revert;

hg rev -r <branch name> Misc/NEWS

> > * a dedicated Misc/NEWS-x.y per major version. Pro: no merge conflicts ever.
> > Con: you have to copy the message by hand when merging a bug fix to the upper
> > branch. Con: it's easy to forget to copy the message (hg won't yell if you
> > don't
> > do it), so people *will* forget (and it's annoying grunt work for those who
> > notice it).
> 
> So the question becomes do we really need to copy every entry? Beyond
> simply being redundant, it's annoying when doing merges because of the
> constant conflicts. I would argue that in bugfix releases we could say
> in the issue whether it stops there or propagates into the next
> feature release (e.g. [regression] or [bugfix]). Then it becomes habit
> to always specify that (and maybe even have a Mercurial extension that
> detects when neither is specified and throws a fit).

Then Misc/NEWS* become harder to read for third parties, since reading
Misc/NEWS-3.4 won't tell you everything that happened in 3.4.

> Either way the status quo makes me not want to fix small doc typos
> like a missing parenthesis since this is enough of a hassle to not
> make it worth it.

Do you mean Mics/NEWS doc typos?

> > The major con with the current scheme *might* be solved by a dedicated hg
> > extension, but someone needs to have enough free time and passion to try and
> > write it :-)
> 
> Wouldn't an extension that does the copying be easier than resolving
> the conflict?

Sure, it would be. Like Nick said: if you are motivated enough to write
the extension... :-)

Regards

Antoine.