Format for JDK 6/7 changeset comments?

[Mark Reinhold]

> Date: Wed, 07 Nov 2007 11:47:35 +0000
> From: Andrew Haley <aph at redhat.com>

> ...
> 
> I am trying to make sure that all the information about every change
> is in a searchable form that doesn't require special software.  I'm
> trying to make sure that if (God forbid) a nuke fell on Sun central,
> everyone else would just carry on with their work, with all of the
> information they need easily to have.

In general I think this is a good principle.

> I'll explain what we do at GNU, and why I think it's a good thing.
> 
> The comment we write for a change is written and submitted for review
> along with the patch.  When the patch is approved, this pre-written
> comment is used for the version control commit.  So, when you look at
> a patch submission you can immediately tie it with the commit.

So does the comment describing the technical nature of the change ever
wind up anywhere else -- e.g., in a Bugzilla entry?

The usual practice at Sun has been to put that kind of information into
the evaluation section of the bug report.  Some teams have also put that
information, or a variant of it, into TeamWare delta or putback comments.
That's always struck me as busywork, however, and it has all the other
disadvantages that've already been mentioned, in particular immutability.

If bug updates are also always made available in e-mail, isn't this
sufficient?  We can do other things to cross-link the information too;
e.g., change notifications could include the URLs of all the related
bug-database entries.

- Mark