cvs commit: ports/devel/libvanessa_adt Makefile pkg-plist ports/devel/libvanessa_adt/files patch-ltmain.sh

[Doug Barton]

On Tue, 23 Mar 2004, Mark Linimon wrote:

> In cvs-ports at FreeBSD.org (and Cc:ed to cvs-all at FreeBSD.org and
> ports-committers at FreeBSD.org), Doug Barton <DougB at dougbarton.net>
> wrote in response to the above commit:
>
> > > clement     2004/03/23 08:08:33 PST
> > >
> > >   Log:
> > >   - kill .la files
>
> > I object to both of the stated purposes for this commit. First,
> > it's been discussed to death that 1. .la files sometimes serve
> > a useful purpose, and 2. deleting them does not serve a useful
> > purpose.
>
> Although it has indeed been discussed to death, it has never made
> it into the Porter's Handbook.  Since you are familiar with the
> rationale (I, personally, do not remember), could you possibly
> summarize the purpose that they serve so that I can write up a PR
> against the Handbook?  In that way, perhaps we can avoid further
> iterations of this topic.  (I think we can all agree that that
> would be a good thing?)

I just asked Michael to do that, since he understands the problem much
better than I do. If he can't, I'll be glad to take a shot at it.

> > I suggest that you avoid all such commits in the future.
>
> This is the second email that I have seen in the past few weeks with
> almost exactly the same wording.

It's an ongoing problem, and it's getting worse instead of better.
Hopefully the discussion that was generated by my message will help to
improve the situation.

> While objecting to any commit is certainly your right, I think you
> underestimate how demoralizing it is to pick one of these messages out
> of your mbox.

Well, you and I have discussed this topic at length on other forums, and
we disagree fundamentally about it. While I think eveyrone here
recognizes and appreciates the hard work that goes into this kind of
stuff, the fact that you worked hard on something doesn't mean that
there isn't room to improve. I didn't call the person names, or suggest
that they were a bad person. I simply said, "What you did was wrong,
here's why." Please note, I put myself squarely in the category of "has
lots of room to improve," and I have benefitted greatly from suggestions
by those who know more about this stuff than I do. I feel like it's part
of my job as a committer to continue contributing to the dissemination
of knowledge.

> I would prefer if we could keep our criticism on the constructive
> side.  Thanks.

This was not a criticism, and I hope it was not read as such. The simple
fact is, the commit was inappropriate, and now that we've all discussed
why, hopefully everyone learned something from the exercise. In my book,
that's "constructive."

Doug

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