On Tue, Jan 16, 2018 at 08:11:11PM -0500, Richard Stallman wrote:
> > > Fix .gdbinit to work with Lisp_Word (Bug#29957)
> >
> > is unhelpfully terse: it makes people work harder to understand the
change.
I firmly believe that if something is needed to help people understand how the
code works, then either the code needs rewriting or it needs a comment (or
both).
> We could change the line to:
> Fix .gdbinit when Lisp_Word is pointer (Bug#29957)
> as this captures the detail that was missing in the too-terse version.
I agree that would be better. But
> Cast Lisp_Word value to EMACS_INT, since it might be a pointer
(Bug#29957)
seems even better.
I agree that this version is better than the others previously suggested, and it
emphasises a point I have raised on several occasions, but unfortunately many
still don't seem to grasp:
The purpose of the change log is to explain *why* a change was made, not to
explain how the code works. Obviously this tenet must be applied with
common sense - for reference and orientation it is also useful to give a brief
summary of the change. Similarly, if the reason is blindingly obvious (for
example, the change corrects a typo which prevented compilation) then it is
acceptable to omit the reason.
J'
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