Re: Is it time to drop ChangeLogs?

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: John Wiegley <address@hidden>
> Cc: address@hidden
> Date: Mon, 07 Mar 2016 08:29:44 -0800
> 
> >>>>> Eli Zaretskii <address@hidden> writes:
> 
> > More generally, there's no way Git could replace ChangeLog style entries,
> > because they frequently include information that is not in the diffs. To say
> > nothing of the fact that understanding the change from reading Diff hunks is
> > much harder, and therefore much less efficient, than from reading a log
> > entry which describes the change in plain English.
> 
> I'm not saying that commit log entries are not necessary. Having a richly
> verbose description of a change is always good. I'm just saying that enforcing
> ChangeLog structure is orthogonal.

So you are saying we should come up with a completely new structure?
And you are sure we will do it correctly the first time?  I doubt
that.

ChangeLog structure is a well-known one, it has good support in Emacs
itself, including some quite exotic features (like invoking "C-x 4 a"
from diffs).  Developers that come from other GNU projects are
familiar with this format, and will have no difficulties to fit in.
None of this will be true for any new format we invent.  Sounds like
waste of energy to me.

> I do deep forensics in other projects all the time. I've never noticed having
> or not having a ChangeLog as bearing much on the ease of doing so. What
> matters more is how well documented a commit is, and how well each commit
> sticks to doing just one thing.

What can I say? we have very different experiences.