Subject: Re: [PATCH 2/2] SubmittingPatches: describe cover letter

From: Junio C Hamano <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 02 Jun 2026 22:43:48 +0900

Derrick Stolee <[email-masked]> writes:

>> +. Make sure your target audience can understand what the patches are
>> +  about and why they are needed without prior context.
>
> The thing that I like to say about the cover letter is that this is
> your opportunity to communicate why the value of your change is worth
> the risk of regressions and the cost of maintenance. Perhaps:
>
> . Every code change comes with risk of regression and maintenance cost.
>   The cover letter should clearly communicate why the value of your
>   proposed change is worth applying. You can also describe how the risk
>   is reduced by the design choices you made while writing the patches.
>
> Or something similar may be helpful? I may just be over explaining.

Yeah, it may be a bit on the heavy side, but complements what I
wanted to achieve with this update very well.  I wanted to encourage
writing for wider audience, without leaving those "not in the know"
behind.  What you wrote above is more about what to write, which is
very much appreciated.  I think it fits well as the 0th item before
the three-bullet list.

>> +. For a second or subsequent iteration of the same topic, make sure
>> +  people who missed the earlier discussion can still understand what
>> +  the patches are about, so they can judge if the topic is worth their
>> +  time to read and comment on.
>> +
>> +. To help those who are familiar with earlier iterations, give a
>> +  summary of changes since the previous rounds.
>
> I find these updates to be particularly helpful, even for GitGitGadget
> PRs that include a range-diff automatically. It's good to double-check
> the human description of the update against the computed diff.

Oh, absolutely.

A GitGitGadget generated cover letter that lack any human input but
just range-diff dump is often very hard to read, and the receiving
end is better off pretending there was no useful information in the
cover letter.  "git diff @{-1}..." after applying the patches to the
same base is sadly a lot easier to read than "git range-diff @{-1}..."
for many series.