New subject: [xwiki-dev] [Coding rules] Author/Creator information

1 Jun 2005

Hi everyone,

Do you really want to keep the following which is part of most file headers:

 * Created by
 * User: Ludovic Dubost
 * Date: 26 nov. 2003
 * Time: 13:52:39

This seems to me information that can be retrieved from the SCM. And if we
want to store SCM information in the file then it is only fair that whoever
modifies the file should also get credit there. In addition usually we would
use the @author tag for storing this kind of information. Having it in an
undefined format like above is a bit strange... ;-)

So I think there are 2 options:

Option 1:
---------

- We do not store author information in the file
- We have a credits Wiki page that lists all contributors and what they have
done. Something like:
    - http://jakarta.apache.org/cactus/participating/contributors.html
    - http://cargo.codehaus.org/Credits
- It's still a good idea to have a @version tag in the file, as in:

* @version $Id: Container.java 348 2005-04-26 23:03:22Z vmassol $

The content of this tag is generated automatically by the SCM upon commit.

Option 2:
---------

- We save author information in the file using @author tags. For example

@author <a href="mailto:...@...">Ludovic Dubost</a>
@author <a href="mailto:...@...">Vincent Massol</a>
[...]

There have been *lots* of debates (which I'll spare you here but you can
google it) between these 2 options and the one chosen @ Apache is option 1.
I have done the same for Cargo.

I don't mind the chosen solution but I think the current option is not good
enough.

Thanks
-Vincent

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