commented out parts of functs.mac. More generally, refereeing "share" or other contributions

Robert Dodier wrote:
> On 4/25/09, Barton Willis <willisb at unk.edu> wrote:
>
>   
>>> package_info("functs");
>>>       
>>     author: unknown,
>>     maintainer: unknown,
>>     approved by: nobody,
>>     revision: XXX,
>>     location: share/simplification,
>>     regression tests: none,
>>     last update: last Tuesday,
>>     ...)
>>     
>
> To the extent that any of this stuff is known, it's in CVS.
> I don't think it's worth the trouble of duplicating it.
>   
I disagree.  I think that the author of a program should have his or her 
name IN the file.
How much trouble could this possibly be?

Requiring the use of CVS or even knowledge of how to use CVS to 
determine who wrote
a program should not be necessary.  CVS is useful for a detailed 
backtracking of who
changed what when, but should not be the way to find out who is 
primarily responsible
for some program.

I also think that each contributed section in the manual should have an 
author's name on it.  Even if the author's name could possibly be 
deduced using CVS.


> About functs.mac, I agree it's a mess but for better or worse
> there's no sense in pointing fingers; it wasn't written or
> imported by any of the current developers.
So that means that people can add or delete code from it without 
mentioning why, (except if you look at at the CVS?)
It is simple enough to add a notation "commented out by XXX for reason 
YYY" in the code, it seems to me.

> I keep meaning to do a review of the share packages, to
> try to sort out what's worth keeping, and get started fixing
> up (bug fixes, documentation, test scripts) the ones we
> want to keep. Maybe I'll get started on that this summer.
>   
Sounds like a good idea!
RJF