linux-kernel - Re: Software evolution around scripts for the semantic patch langugae

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Date:   Thu, 25 Aug 2016 23:04:58 +0200
From:   Cornelia Huck <cornelia.huck@...ibm.com>
To:     Julia Lawall <julia.lawall@...6.fr>
Cc:     SF Markus Elfring <elfring@...rs.sourceforge.net>,
        kvm@...r.kernel.org, linux-s390@...r.kernel.org,
        Christian Bornträger <borntraeger@...ibm.com>,
        David Hildenbrand <dahi@...ux.vnet.ibm.com>,
        Heiko Carstens <heiko.carstens@...ibm.com>,
        Martin Schwidefsky <schwidefsky@...ibm.com>,
        Paolo Bonzini <pbonzini@...hat.com>,
        Radim Krčmář <rkrcmar@...hat.com>,
        LKML <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
        kernel-janitors@...r.kernel.org, Walter Harms <wharms@....de>
Subject: Re: Software evolution around scripts for the semantic patch
 langugae

On Thu, 25 Aug 2016 14:23:35 -0400 (EDT)
Julia Lawall <julia.lawall@...6.fr> wrote:

> On Thu, 25 Aug 2016, SF Markus Elfring wrote:
> 
> > > Or some close variant.
> >
> > I have got more script variants evolving in my software collection.
> >
> > There are further approaches available from various contributors,
> > aren't there?
> 
> What she is asking for is a concise and precise decription of what you
> have done.  If you have some other variants, eg controlling where the
> sizeof argument is (left or right of *), you don't necessarily have to
> include it in the patch, if such a rule was not used for the specific
> patch anyway.

*nod*

If I see a patch that says "I've run the following cocchinelle patch to
perform $TRANSFORMATION, and here's the result", I can be reasonably
sure that the result will be what is intended to be changed in the
first place (and I can assess whether the change makes sense at all.)
If I see only the resulting patch, I won't know whether you have
performed the changes manually (and possibly introduced bugs, as
happens to all of us.)

Moreover, a good semantic patch is useful to others as well and might
even be reused in other contexts that have similar requirements. You
really lose value if you don't publish them.