Re: Doc/SubmittingPatches: re-phrashing a sentence about alternate solutions (was Re: [PATCH] Makefile: make NO_ICONV really mean "no iconv")

> On Sun, 2018-06-17 at 14:00 -0400, Eric Sunshine wrote:
> > Whether or not to talk about alternate solutions in the commit message
> > is a judgment call. Same for deciding what belongs in the commit
> > message proper and what belongs in the "commentary" section of a
> > patch. A patch author should strive to convey the problem succinctly
> > in the commit message, to not overload the reader with unnecessary (or
> > confusing) information, while, at the same time, not be sparing with
> > information which is genuinely needed to understand the problem and
> > solution.
> > 
> > Often, this can be done without talking about alternatives; often even
> > without spelling out the solution in detail or at all since the
> > solution may be "obvious", given a well-written problem description.
> > Complex cases, or cases in which multiple solutions may be or seem
> > valid, on the other hand, might warrant talking about those alternate
> > solutions, so we probably don't want to drop that bullet point.
> 
> Well explained, thanks. (Thinking out loud, it might be even nice to
> including the above paragraphs into Documentation/SubmittingPatches as
> I find it to be more "humane" than the terse bullets. But I refrained
> from doing so as the document is already a bit too-long ;-)