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Re: New release manager needed.

From: Ben Collins-Sussman <sussman_at_collab.net>
Date: 2003-07-02 22:44:14 CEST

pll@lanminds.com writes:

> >>>>> On 2 Jul 2003, "Ben" == Ben Collins-Sussman wrote:
>
> +> Okay, I'll take a stab at it. Would it be helpful if I sent my
> +> proposed CHANGES additions to the list for comment?
>
> Ben> Sure, that'd be great.
>
> Okay, here's my first stab at it. I've got my asbestos undies on :)

It's good that you can summarize each change in one line. Nice job!

But I think you need to clamp down your filter just a wee bit. It
looks like you documented *every* change in the last two weeks; as a
result, the list is longer than the 0.24 list, which was a six-week
development period! Let me constructively nitpick. :-)

It looks like you tried to create a bullet for each revision... or
something close to that. Way too much! Your job is to *condense*
this stuff... 8 different revisions may all be related to
accomplishing a single task. Make them into a single bullet.

A general note: there's no need to *force* a prefix to the front of
each line. When you forcibly put "fixed -" before everything, it
sometimes makes the idea harder to understand. It's a nice
convention, but not a permanent rule. Don't be constrained by it.

> User-visible changes:

Start with the most important stuff first... the stuff most incredibly
obvious to svn users.

For example, I'd imagine that completely new commands ('svnadmin
archive') or total syntax changes ('svn import') are candidates for
the top of the list.

> * changed - cvs2svn usage() Excessively long output.

As another poster said, "not interesting to the general public". :-)

> * fixed - copyright messages

Huh? Either not interesting, or not explanatory enough.

> * fixed - memory bug seen with svn switch

* fixed - 'svn switch' memory bug

> * fixed - parent-into-child copies provided they are not WC-to-WC. (r6348)

The "fixed -" prefix obfuscates the description. Try something
simpler like "allow parent-into-child copies, provided it's not wc->wc".
The word "allow" is the key idea here, not "fixed".

> * fixed - svn mkdir URL URL/subdir no longer dumps core (r6338)

* fixed - 'svn mkdir' coredump.

No need to describe the exact recipe, unless it's really interesting.
Coredumps, in general, tend to be tiny little booboos with tiny
patches, not large redesigns that affect people.

> * removed - bogus python package

Huh? Why was it bogus? Too little information.

> Developer-visible changes:

> * changed - paths array is now a constant (r6301)
> * changed - renamed strintest to string-test for consistency (r6322)
> * fixed - line wrapping now within 80-columns (r6363)

These things aren't very interesting, even to developers. Screen them out.

> * fixed - copied subtree problem (r6365)
> * fixed - problems 2 & 3 mentioned in (r6365)
> * new - code to emit branch creations to dumpfile (r6336)
> * fixed - branch path creation (r6358)

Huh? I read this and have no idea what you're talking about. I
shouldn't have to go look up revision logs to understand; a quick
glance should at least give a vague overview. You fail to point out
that this is *all* about the cvs2svn repository converter, not svn
itself. That's the "big idea" here. In fact, I'd probably lump all
of the cvs2svn.py commits into one big bullet point, or a bullet point
of the form

   * many cvs2svn.py changes:
        - work on branches
        - blah
        - blah

Notice that we have subsections in earlier CHANGES entries.
Indentation/sectioning is very useful for someone just "glancing" over
the list. Many folks will just want to skip over a list of cvs2svn
changes.

> * new - XFail test (r6333)

Test for *what*? Don't make me look up the revision.

> * updated - vcproj generator now works (r6316)
> * changed - code common to dsp & vcproj refactored into gen_win.py (r6328)
> * changed - make swig's generated .c files dependent on headers in .i files
> * fixed - SWIG bindings for Win32 (r6304)
> * new - .vcproj files for svn_config project and APR

Another "category" here. A zillion changes were made to the win32
build system, both for vcproj creation and swig-binding compilation.
Make an indentation, or even better, try to smoosh them together into
fewer bullets. There's no need to document each commit.

> * poem - "Dinner is served" by cmpilato (r6313)

Funny. :-)

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Received on Wed Jul 2 22:45:55 2003

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