Re: CLI and GDB/MI documentation patch

[Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>]

> Date: Fri, 12 May 2006 09:58:02 -0400
> From: Daniel Jacobowitz <drow@false.org>
> 
> On Fri, May 12, 2006 at 04:53:28PM +0300, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
> > In general, if some external package needs to support multiple GDB
> > versions, their authors will need to look in the manuals of those
> > older versions.
> 
> Is there somewhere appropriate to record this sort of change, in
> more detail than would fit in NEWS, if you think that the manual is not
> the place for it?

NEWS is the best place, IMO.  It can list the incompatible changes,
and point to the sections in the manual which describe the new
behavior in detail.  If you think this will not be good enough, please
tell why.

As a data point, the Emacs NEWS has special sections for incompatible
changes.  Emacs is a much larger package than GDB, and with much
slower release rate, the amount of incompatible changes is also much
larger.  And yet this scheme works well for many years, and users came
to depend on it and demand that any incompatible changes be mentioned.

> This sort of information is incredibly useful when e.g. upgrading;
> there's no easy way for users to "diff" the manual.

Sure; that's the main purpose of having NEWS in the first place.