[PATCH] advice to use good patch subject, for SubmittingPatches

[Tim Bird]

Andrew Morton wrote:
> I'd prefer it if you (and everyone else) could give a meaningful
> English-language Subject: to patches, please.
>
> A well-chosen patch Subject: becomes a sort of globally-unique key by which
> the patch is tracked - I munge it into a patch filename and it propagates
> all the way into bitkeeper.  It can be used for searching email folders,
> googling, inter-developer discussion, etc, etc.

I think this is great advice that should be canonized... :-)

diffstat good-subject-advice.patch:
 Documentation/SubmittingPatches |   11 ++++++++++-


diff -u -X /home/tbird/dontdiff -pruN alp1.orig/Documentation/SubmittingPatches alp1/Documentation/SubmittingPatches
--- alp1.orig/Documentation/SubmittingPatches	2004-08-14 03:54:47.000000000 -0700
+++ alp1/Documentation/SubmittingPatches	2004-08-24 16:52:32.957986032 -0700
@@ -77,7 +80,7 @@
 http://developer.osdl.org/rddunlap/scripts/patching-scripts.tgz

 Andrew Morton's patch scripts:
-http://www.zip.com.au/~akpm/linux/patches/patch-scripts-0.16
+http://www.zip.com.au/~akpm/linux/patches/patch-scripts-0.18

 2) Describe your changes.

@@ -257,7 +260,16 @@
 and other kernel developers more easily distinguish patches from other
 e-mail discussions.

+Also, provide a useful (but short) description in the subject line:
+Andrew Morton once said:

+"I'd prefer it if [everyone] could give a meaningful
+English-language Subject: to patches, please.
+
+A well-chosen patch Subject: becomes a sort of globally-unique key by which
+the patch is tracked - I munge it into a patch filename and it propagates
+all the way into bitkeeper.  It can be used for searching email folders,
+googling, inter-developer discussion, etc, etc."

 11) Sign your work


=============================
Tim Bird
Architecture Group Co-Chair, CE Linux Forum
Senior Staff Engineer, Sony Electronics
E-mail: tim.bird@xxxxxxxxxxx
=============================
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