Re: [ft-devel] Re: Git and ChangeLogs

[Werner LEMBERG]

> I think this is what we want.

Hmm.

> Updating ChangeLog is already quite time consuming

Yes.  This is matter of fact, and it won't become less.  I really
insist on detailed informations which make clear what has changed and
why.

> and I already experienced a few frustrating merge conflict with it
> when pulling upstream into my own branches (these happen very easily
> when you updated a file that has been modified in the pulled
> upstream).

IMHO, conflicts in the ChangeLog file are rather easy to fix.

> So I guess we probably need to find a middle ground, i.e. generate
> an automatic ChangeLog from "git log" and use a different file to
> document the changes (one that would not necessarily need the list
> of all files modified, etc..).

I do not oppose in principle, but I really doubt that committers have
the discipline to really write concise commit messages (at least you
sometimes tend to be a bit sloppy :-) On the other hand, `gitk' is an
invaluable tool, and showing the code differences says more than
anything else.  If we abandon the ChangeLog file, we should do it
completely, *not* autogenerating it.  A developer downloads the whole
git repository; she can then easily say `gitk' or `git log'.  All
others are rather not interested in the ChangeLog at all, I think.

> Maybe we need another file like docs/INTERNAL-CHANGES.TXT ?

Please no.  This is even more work.

IMHO we should force everyone to commit *small* chunks, split into
easily readable code fragments.  This would help more than anything
else.


    Werner