Re: [PATCH 0/5] Add some missing Documentation/*/00-INDEX files

From: Stefan Richter
Date: Sun Aug 12 2007 - 16:18:18 EST


Rob Landley wrote:
> On Sunday 12 August 2007 12:34:30 pm Stefan Richter wrote:
>> Or use the first line of each text file to describe what the file is about.
...
> This heuristic seems to need about as much cleanup as just fixing 00-INDEX.txt
> in all the directories.

I didn't think of heuristics but rather of a style guideline. Maybe
prepend this metadata line with "Subject: " or so to distinguish it from
data.

What's the difference to 00-INDEX? It's inline. Hence,
- as soon as a majority of files have that header, authors of new
files will start to provide that header automatically. Or am I too
optimistic?
- it's a little bit faster to create these headers than to add them
to 00-INDEX: Just move the existing title to the top.

There could also be "From: " and/or "Cc: " headers for authorship and
maintainership metadata. (Of course maintainership metadata could also
go into extra files like 00-INDEX or MAINTAINERS. Authorship metadata
of more recent documentation files is actually available in the source
control system.)

>> And BTW, if authors insist on "Last Updated:", make it a header rather
>> than a footer. Increases the chance that submitters remember to update it.
>
> Why not just use the source control system to review the actual revision
> history of the file?

Just to clarify: I'm *not* one of those who want the date in there.
--
Stefan Richter
-=====-=-=== =--- -==--
http://arcgraph.de/sr/
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