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Re: patch for binutils include/ansidecl.h.
On Sun, Sep 22, 2002 at 09:34:07PM -0700, Doug Evans wrote:
> > That is a real limitation and annoying rule. It is often impossible to
> > find out *WHY* a change was done. Which is a Bad Thing. I can read the
> > "cvs diff -r X -r X+1" to see the what. I really wish GNU ChangeLog
> > entries would grow the *WHY*, or the culture be changed to tell the *WHY*
> > rather than just repleat the ChangeLog entry in the CVS commit log.
>
> fwiw, from http://www.gnu.org/software/guile/changelogs/guile-changelogs_3.html
>
> One should never need the ChangeLog to understand the current
> code. If you find yourself writing a significant explanation in the
> ChangeLog, you should consider carefully whether your text doesn't
> actually belong in a comment, alongside the code it explains. Here's an
> example of doing it right:
The example you show isn't a good one -- it obviously fixes a bug. Often
GCC changes seem to be purely for change sake. An explanation of why
such changes are a Good Thing would be nice. Examples:
2002-09-17 Dale Johannesen <dalej@apple.com>
* cfgcleanup.c (try_forward_edges): Do not forward a
branch to just after a loop exit before loop optimization;
this interfered with doloop detection.
Actually this is actually a good example of a useful change -- it does
include *why* the change was needed.
2002-09-17 Steve Ellcey <sje@cup.hp.com>
* config/ia64/elf.h: Remove CPP_PREDEFINES.
Why?? It certainly had a value ("-Dia64 -Amachine=ia64"), where are
these getting defined now? Grepping for ``-Dia64'' doesn't show
anything, greping for ``ia64'' gives too many hits to be useful. So I
can't eyeball where this is now being defined. Now maybe it isn't as it
is in the application name space and that is bad and being a new
platform, that define wasn't ingraned yet. But the ``-Amachine=ia64''
should still apply. I now have to scan the mailing lists to see where
this was discussed, or build the compiler myself to ensure no
functionality has been lost for the FreeBSD/ia64 compiler.