Re: Updating NEWS for 2.26

[Zack Weinberg <zackw at panix dot com>]

On Wed, Jul 5, 2017 at 9:48 AM, Joseph Myers <joseph@codesourcery.com> wrote:
>
> Should we use those subject headings as standard for future releases?  So,
> change the template for the NEWS section for a new release cycle at
> <https://sourceware.org/glibc/wiki/Release> to include all those headings,
> on the basis that if a particular release doesn't have anything under one
> of the headings, we'll remove that section during the freeze.

I would like to see that happen, yes.

>> I am wondering whether we really need a comprehensive list of all the
>> TS 18661-3 macros and functions.  It's a giant wall of text and it may
>> make people think they're done reading, when the very important
>> "deprecated and removed features" section is just below.
>
> We should indicate in some way what the features are, at least, even
> without a full list. [...]

I think that most of what you describe is too much detail for someone
reading NEWS, who wants one- or two-sentence summaries of _all_ the
new features, not a dive on any one particular feature.  It would be
better to relegate all of this verbiage about TS 18661-3 to a separate
file that would be progressively updated as support for it becomes
more complete.

(I'd suggest a top-level FLOAT128 file but that would exacerbate the
existing problem of top-level ALLCAPS files where it's unclear how old
it is and whether it's even vaguely relevant to the present release.)

> Also: there's a statement "Support for more architectures will be added in
> future releases.".  I intend to enable support for _FloatN/_FloatNx
> functions in future *where they are aliases of functions for existing
> types*, but I'm still wary of making statements in NEWS about features to
> be added in future releases.  I don't think support for float128
> functions, specifically, is that likely to be added on more architectures
> where they aren't aliases for long double

Hmm, I didn't know that.  Please go ahead and take that statement back
out, then.

> I've applied this patch to say "GNU C Library" consistenly in NEWS items
> rather than the shorthand "glibc".

I don't like this; it sounds pompous and makes several sentences
harder to read.  For instance

> -  - glibc will now detect when /etc/resolv.conf has been modified and reload
> -    the changed configuration.  The new resolver option “no-reload”
> -    (RES_NORELOAD) disables this behavior.
> +  - The GNU C Library will now detect when /etc/resolv.conf has been
> +    modified and reload the changed configuration.  The new resolver option
> +    “no-reload” (RES_NORELOAD) disables this behavior.

changing this from a simple noun to a noun phrase means that an
already-complicated sentence now has a garden-path problem as well.

zw