Re: [patch/5.1] Doco z8k problem

[Andrew Cagney <ac131313@cygnus.com>]

Andrew Cagney wrote:
> 
> Just FYI,
> 
> I've checked in the attatched - the z8k is known to be broken.
> If someone pings me after the opcode problem has been fixed, I'll have
> another go at building it.
> 
>         Andrew
2001-03-05  Andrew Cagney  <ac131313@redhat.com>

	* TODO (GDB 5.1 Known Problems): Document z8k as broken.

Index: TODO
===================================================================
RCS file: /cvs/src/src/gdb/TODO,v
retrieving revision 1.61
diff -p -r1.61 TODO
*** TODO	2001/02/23 22:20:38	1.61
--- TODO	2001/03/05 17:07:32
*************** http://sourceware.cygnus.com/ml/gdb/2000
*** 240,245 ****
--- 240,257 ----
  
  --
  
+ 		GDB 5.1 Known Problems
+ 		======================
+ 
+ --
+ 
+ z8k
+ 
+ The z8k has suffered bit rot and is known to not build.  The problem
+ was occuring in the opcodes directory.
+ 
+ --
+ 
  		GDB 5.2 - Fixes
  		===============
  
From kevinb@cygnus.com Mon Mar 05 14:28:00 2001
From: Kevin Buettner <kevinb@cygnus.com>
To: Andrew Cagney <ac131313@cygnus.com>, Michael Elizabeth Chastain <chastain@cygnus.com>
Cc: gdb-patches@sources.redhat.com
Subject: Re: ChangeLog fixes
Date: Mon, 05 Mar 2001 14:28:00 -0000
Message-id: <1010305222742.ZM5518@ocotillo.lan>
References: <200103050438.UAA17645@bosch.cygnus.com> <3AA3F7CF.B3A6B781@cygnus.com> <ac131313@cygnus.com>
X-SW-Source: 2001-03/msg00088.html
Content-length: 1890

On Mar 5,  3:32pm, Andrew Cagney wrote:

> I look on this as rewriting history.
> 
> Fixing, very recent ChangeLog entries to comply with current norms makes
> sense.  However, rewriting very old change logs that date back to a time
> when current standards didn't apply or were applied far more loosely
> looks like rewriting history.

It does have that feel to it, but I don't think this is necessarily a
bad thing.  Normally, when we think about the rewriting of history it
is often in the context of making someone or some group appear in a
better or worse light.  This is certainly wrong.  OTOH, we all know
that there are errors and inaccuracies in historical texts and I don't
think that most of us feel outraged when someone makes an honest
effort to correct these.

For real historians, I would imagine that it's incredibly tricky to
figure out whether such corrections are a rewriting of history in the
pejorative sense or are truly accurate corrections.  Our historical
texts are the ChangeLog entries, and for these, we (or some of us
anyway) have the luxury of being able to check the veracity of the
ChangeLog entries by means of the CVS repositories.

Now to specifics...  The bulk of Michael's ChangeLog fixes concern the
use of the ``*'' wildcard.  He left the original author's comment the
same; all he did was expand the ``*'' to list all of those files which
were actually affected.  As I understand it, he verified the accuracy
of his rewrites by checking against CVS.

I think Michael's changes are incredibly useful to have, not only for
my script, but also for those of us who use the ChangeLog files for
research.  And it may prove to be especially useful to those who do
not have access to the Red Hat's internal CVS respository.

However, we may want to agree that future changes to old ChangeLog
files be submitted to gdb-patches for discussion first...

Kevin