emacs: Fix errors in receiving information.

[jackhill/guix/guix.git] / HACKING

diff --git a/HACKING b/HACKING
index ef8fb27..0231c7d 100644 (file)
--- a/HACKING
+++ b/HACKING
@@ -2,8 +2,9 @@
 
 #+TITLE: Hacking GNU Guix and Its Incredible Distro
 
-Copyright © 2012, 2013 Ludovic Courtès <ludo@gnu.org>
+Copyright © 2012, 2013, 2014 Ludovic Courtès <ludo@gnu.org>
 Copyright © 2013 Nikita Karetnikov <nikita@karetnikov.org>
+Copyright © 2014 Pierre-Antoine Rault <par@rigelk.eu>
 
   Copying and distribution of this file, with or without modification,
   are permitted in any medium without royalty provided the copyright
@@ -30,9 +31,9 @@ you didn’t run it, you may get the following error:
   make: *** No rule to make target `nix/libstore/schema.sql', needed by
   `nix/libstore/schema.sql.hh'
 
-Then, as always, run ‘./configure’.  If you get an error like this one:
+If you get an error like this one:
 
-  ./configure: line 6755: `PKG_CHECK_MODULES(GUILE, guile-2.0 >= 2.0.5)'
+  configure.ac:46: error: possibly undefined macro: PKG_CHECK_MODULES
 
 it probably means that Autoconf couldn’t find ‘pkg.m4’, which is provided by
 pkg-config.  Make sure that ‘pkg.m4’ is available.  For instance, if you
@@ -43,6 +44,8 @@ installed Automake in ‘/usr/local’, it wouldn’t look for ‘.m4’ files i
 
 See “info '(automake) Macro Search Path'” for more information.
 
+Then, run ‘./configure’ as usual.
+
 Finally, you have to invoke ‘make check’ to run tests.  If anything fails,
 take a look at “info '(guix) Installation'” or send a message to
 <guix-devel@gnu.org>.
@@ -83,7 +86,18 @@ wrapping it, swallowing or rejecting the following s-expression, etc.
 Development is done using the Git distributed version control system.  Thus,
 access to the repository is not strictly necessary.  We welcome contributions
 in the form of patches as produced by ‘git format-patch’ sent to
-guix-devel@gnu.org.  Please write commit logs in the [[http://www.gnu.org/prep/standards/html_node/Change-Logs.html#Change-Logs][GNU ChangeLog format]].
+guix-devel@gnu.org.  Please write commit logs in the [[http://www.gnu.org/prep/standards/html_node/Change-Logs.html#Change-Logs][GNU ChangeLog
+format]]; you can check the commit history for examples.
+
+Before submitting a patch that adds or modifies a package definition, please
+run ‘guix lint PACKAGE’, where PACKAGE is the name of the new or modified
+package, and fix any errors it reports.  In addition, please make sure the
+package builds on your platform, using ‘guix build’.  You may also want to
+check that dependent package (if applicable) are not affected by the change;
+‘guix refresh --list-dependent PACKAGE’ will help you do that.
+
+When posting a patch to the mailing list, use "[PATCH] ..." as a subject.  You
+may use your email client or the ‘git send-mail’ command.
 
 As you become a regular contributor, you may find it convenient to have write
 access to the repository (see below.)
@@ -152,7 +166,8 @@ patches include fixing typos, etc.)
 For patches that just add a new package, and a simple one, it’s OK to commit,
 if you’re confident (which means you successfully built it in a chroot setup,
 and have done a reasonable copyright and license auditing.)  Likewise for
-package upgrades.  We have a mailing list for commit notifications
+package upgrades, except upgrades that trigger a lot of rebuilds (for example,
+upgrading GnuTLS or GLib.)  We have a mailing list for commit notifications
 (guix-commits@gnu.org), so people can notice.  Before pushing your changes,
 make sure to run ‘git pull --rebase’.