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

[Brett Cannon]

On Fri, May 24, 2013 at 3:54 PM, Antoine Pitrou <solipsis at pitrou.net> wrote:
> Le vendredi 24 mai 2013 à 15:26 -0400, Brett Cannon a écrit :
>> >> 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?
>>
>> No I mean typos in the docs. For instance, I found a missing
>> parenthesis in the docs for some module, but backporting it is enough
>> of a pain that I don't want to bother.
>
> I don't understand why it's painful to backport. Can you explain?

If I make a very minor fix to the docs I have to:

# In a 3.3 checkout
Fix docs
Compile docs
Add Misc/NEWS entry
hg ci -m "repeat what I just said in Misc/NEWS"
hg push
cd ../default
hg merge 3.3
Fix/revert Misc/NEWS (at least)
Compile docs (if fix is needed)
hg ci
hg push

If you look at that process, it's a lot of VCS stuff to keep history,
which I understand. But there are at least two steps that directly
involve Misc/NEWS which could be automated/skipped if we used the
commit message somehow. And the fixing of Misc/NEWS I irrationally
hate since it happens every single time and could go away somehow if
we chose to make it go away even if people continue to hate on commit
messages as a solution.