Format for JDK 6/7 changeset comments?

[Mark Reinhold]

> Date: Wed, 07 Nov 2007 15:51:56 +1000
> From: david.holmes at sun.com

> ...
> 
> Are you suggesting that once the cause of a bug is determined then the
> synopsis should be changed to reflect that? I've updated a few "bad"
> synopses in my time too, but not generally to the extent of changing
> them from being failure oriented to being cause oriented.

It's a judgement call.  In most cases I agree that a bug's synopsis
should reflect the symptom rather than the underlying cause.  In some
cases, however, the cause turns out to be something that can trigger
a wide variety of different symptoms, so it makes more sense to change
the synopsis to describe the cause, or a common aspect of all the known
symptoms.

My enthusiasm for rewriting synopses is more a reaction to the practice
of some engineers of slavishly preserving the exact text of a bug's
original synopsis, regardless of how poorly written it may be.  That
does nothing but slowly degrade the overall utility of the bug database.

- Mark