bug#81223: [PATCH] Fix file-missing error during async native compilation

> Date: Fri, 7 Aug 2026 17:47:01 -0400
> Cc: Eli Zaretskii <[email protected]>, Andrea Corallo <[email protected]>,
>  [email protected], Sean Whitton <[email protected]>
> From: James Cherti <[email protected]>
> 
> @Sean: I decline to make this change, as doing so would
> encourage counterproductive behavior within the community.

Are you saying this because you feel there's some fundamental problem
with what Sean asked you to do, or because you are "fed up" with
requests for minor changes?  If the former, please elaborate about
that problem.

> The patch is ready to be merged. (Heavy nitpicking on small
> details, especially for simple patches, makes contributors
> hesitate before submitting future work.)

See, that's not necessarily "nitpicking".  One of our goals in making
such requests is to progressively make contributions adhere to our
standards as much as possible, with the purpose of eventually allowing
you and others write access to the tree, so you could install your
contributions with little or no peer review.  Yes, this sometimes
results in seemingly-unnecessary nitpicking.  For example, even the
latest variant of your patch leaves just one space between sentences,
whereas our conventions are to leave two spaces.

It is true that we can make these changes when we install, but that
would be less optimal for several reasons: (a) you never learn these
small; but important details, and thus we cannot let you install your
patches any time soon; (b) some of your changes need to be followed by
correction commits because we cannot change the code you submit and
attribute the modified code to you; (c) if a problematic commit log
message is pushed before it is amended, the problems are forever
there, since Git doesn't have a way of editing commit log messages
after they are pushed.  It also makes our job a tad harder, as we need
to carefully review these minor details and be alert to any minor
deviations, instead of just running "git am".

So if you really feel you cannot cooperate with us in this way, it's
up to you, but I just wanted you to understand why we are asking for
these minor changes.

Specifically, in this case, in addition to the two-spaces-between-
sentences issue (both in the commit log message and in the comments
that are part of your patch), there's this part of the commit log
message:

  The async native compilation queue can sometimes retain stale jobs for
  files that no longer exist on disk (for example, when files are removed
  during a package upgrade or deletion). Attempting to resolve the target
  .eln filename for these missing files signals a file-missing error.

This description belongs to the comments in the code, because it
explains why the code does a seemingly-strange thing.  Part of this
explanation is already in your comments, which is good.  But the part
which gives an example when this could happen is not in the comments,
and I think it should be added there.  People who read the code should
be able to understand why it does what it does, without having to
resort to reading the relevant commits, I hope you agree with that.

Are you okay with making these minor changes in your patch and posting
the result?