Hi all!


@frank


> Chris wants a clean history with _meaningful_ chunks of changes.

> Other people want commits to be discrete/isolated changes, where "fixing typos" is one kind of change. (*)
> Everyone wants an efficient version control system.
>
> Also: code is easy to change, while people are very hard to change.


Great analysis! :-)


> ... "minor edit" flag ...


Sounds interesting to me, +1!


@Chris


> Your example has nothing to do with scaling.  There's no "time-limit" for committing.  All that matters is, either the cumulative changes you have waiting on a package have exceeded a threshold of "meaningful" or they haven't.  A single one character change to a literal isn't meaningful enough, no matter how long ago it was done.  And, I don't buy that there aren't plenty more improvements to be made, like comments and categorizations, within the same package, which could be committed a "fix pack".

Of course, there may be plenty more improvements to make, but I dispute that I or any other occasional committer will come across these other improvements in the near future.
I like the idea that "every small step counts" which allows everyone to contribute a tiny improvement to any system, without the need to understand or to read the whole project. If I look once in my life into the BitBlt class and find a typo in the class comment, why shouldn't I fix it?

> Interesting.  Something like that could be helpful.  Maybe even, "fix" or "feature", that way it's less

We could add something like a simple drop-down menu to the save version dialog for choosing an appropriate category. But we should be careful not to make the committing process too complicated by requiring everyone to fill in a long form :)


Best,

Christoph

________________________________
Von: Squeak-dev <squeak-dev-bounces at lists.squeakfoundation.org> im Auftrag von Chris Muller <asqueaker at gmail.com>
Gesendet: Samstag, 21. Dezember 2019 01:18:40
An: The general-purpose Squeak developers list
Betreff: Re: [squeak-dev] The Inbox: PreferenceBrowser-ck.85.mcz

On Fri, Dec 20, 2019 at 6:15 PM Chris Muller <asqueaker at gmail.com<mailto:asqueaker at gmail.com>> wrote:
On Thu, Dec 19, 2019 at 10:38 AM Frank Shearar <frank.shearar at gmail.com<mailto:frank.shearar at gmail.com>> wrote:
Chris wants a clean history with _meaningful_ chunks of changes.
Other people want commits to be discrete/isolated changes, where "fixing typos" is one kind of change. (*)

I want that too, just not micro-sized singles.  **There's plenty to do** in every package, please include a couple more non-critical typo's, categorizations, comments, or obvious bug-fixes, and submit it as a "fix pack".  The contents should be more significant than the packaging that wraps it, not less.

Everyone wants an efficient version control system.

Also: code is easy to change, while people are very hard to change.

Wikis have handled this for decades with a "minor edit" flag. (PhpWiki certainly had it in the last century.)

If Monticello commits had such a concept, Chris could say "please don't show me dust" and other reviewers could demand "separate out the typo fixes from the interesting changes". I'm sure there are interesting technical discussions to be had, but my meta-point is this: quit arguing about process and invest in the tools and everyone can get what they want.

Interesting.  Something like that could be helpful.  Maybe even, "fix" or "feature", that way it's less

of a judgement call, like "interesting"...


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