[petsc-dev] Old docs for petsc-dev

[Barry Smith]

   Toby,

     Yes, hg comments too terse.

     Barry

    My problem is that hg commit doesn't show my changes and so  
sometimes I don't have a clue what I changed and hence write a poor  
comment. We need a technical solution that somehow forces and helps  
useful comments.

On Jan 8, 2010, at 10:50 AM, Toby D. Young wrote:

>
>> Thanks.  I was confused by the directory layout because if I read the
>> man pages at
>>  http://www.mcs.anl.gov/petsc/petsc-as/documentation
>> they are all from the release.  I can browse development docs at
>>  http://www.mcs.anl.gov/petsc/petsc-as/snapshots/petsc-dev/docs/
>> but the changes at
>>  http://www.mcs.anl.gov/petsc/petsc-as/snapshots/petsc-dev/docs/changes/index.html
>> are from the release, and in particular
>>  http://www.mcs.anl.gov/petsc/petsc-as/snapshots/petsc-dev/docs/changes/dev.html
>> does not exist.
>
> What really pisses me off, is that the comments in the petsc-dev hg  
> log,
> often don't adequately describe why something is changed. Sometimes  
> I find
> some critcal change, like "ThisFunction has been removed"; but no  
> note,
> reference, or hint as to why or where to go from there... This just  
> makes
> using petsc-dev hard if you are not paying *very* careful attention to
> the mailing list and thus know why these (often important, sometimes
> inexplicable without documentation) changes take place.
>
> While I do somewhat agree with, for example, "Barry's law of  
> development",
> that, "PETSc developers should not pander PETSc users", I also very
> strongly believe that "PETSc users should not have to pander the  
> whims of
> the PETSc devlopers". A decent documentation of changes in petsc-dev  
> (say
> in hg at least!) would very much help remedy that situation from an
> outsiders (my) point-of-view!
>
> Possibly I've gone off on a tangent in this thread...
>
> With best intentions,
> 	Toby
>
>
> -----
>
> Toby D. Young
> Assistant Professor
> Philosophy-Physics
> Polish Academy of Sciences
> Warszawa, Polska
>
> www:   http://www.ippt.gov.pl/~tyoung
> skype: stenografia
>