Format for JDK 6/7 changeset comments?

[Andreas Sterbenz]

Mark Reinhold wrote:
>> Date: Thu, 08 Nov 2007 17:12:08 -0800
>> From: andreas.sterbenz at sun.com
> 
>> Mark Reinhold wrote:
>>> No.  Authorship information should go with the code.
>> Exactly because that information is important it should be stored in the
>> bug database, where all other information about the bug is stored [*], the
>> location of which is well known to everyone and not just the developers
>> working on the JDK,
> 
> Why does anyone who doesn't know how to navigate the Mercurial web
> interface need to find this information?
> 
> In what sense is the location of the bug database better known than that
> of the Mercurial repositories?

Just thinking of Sun employees for now: management, support and services 
people, developers for other products that use the JDK, e.g. App Server or 
Access Manager.

Any of them may need to get in touch with the code reviewers in case the 
primary author of the fix is unavailable. All of them know where to find 
the bug database but probably won't know the magic URL for the correct JDK 
repository.

>> Capturing everything in the bug database except code reviewers does not
>> seem like a good idea to me.
> 
> The logical conclusion of this line of reasoning is that a changeset
> shouldn't even carry an author name or a bug number or a comment; we
> should just put the changeset hash into the relevant bug-database
> records.
> 
> That seems wrong.

There is clearly some information that should be in the changeset comments 
  because that can make life more efficient for us JDK developers when we 
crawl around in the repository. Primary author, bug number, and synopsis - 
as we have in the SCCS comments today - seems sufficient to me. As long as 
I can find everything else in the bug database, if I need it.

Anyway, the main issue is that there is a lot of value in having all 
relevant information about a bug stored in ONE central place, which is the 
bug database. If you feel differently, then we'll have to agree to disagree.

Andreas.