From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Eli Zaretskii Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Is it time to drop ChangeLogs? (Was: bug#21998: Run 'make change-history' on release branch) Date: Mon, 07 Mar 2016 18:24:31 +0200 Message-ID: <83bn6quugw.fsf@gnu.org> References: <56BE7E37.3090708@cs.ucla.edu> <4hd1rw1ubr.fsf@fencepost.gnu.org> <83vb50wxhv.fsf@gnu.org> <87y49vz4cg.fsf@acer.localhost.com> Reply-To: Eli Zaretskii NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1457367903 13991 80.91.229.3 (7 Mar 2016 16:25:03 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 7 Mar 2016 16:25:03 +0000 (UTC) Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org To: John Wiegley Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Mon Mar 07 17:25:02 2016 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1acxxs-0001aM-3w for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Mon, 07 Mar 2016 17:25:00 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:56814 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1acxxr-0003an-IU for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Mon, 07 Mar 2016 11:24:59 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:53764) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1acxxT-0003Ur-2x for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 07 Mar 2016 11:24:38 -0500 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1acxxO-0008MC-1H for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 07 Mar 2016 11:24:33 -0500 Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::e]:46963) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1acxxJ-0008LN-KB; Mon, 07 Mar 2016 11:24:25 -0500 Original-Received: from 84.94.185.246.cable.012.net.il ([84.94.185.246]:1284 helo=home-c4e4a596f7) by fencepost.gnu.org with esmtpsa (TLS1.2:RSA_AES_128_CBC_SHA1:128) (Exim 4.82) (envelope-from ) id 1acxxI-0003lg-Ky; Mon, 07 Mar 2016 11:24:25 -0500 In-reply-to: (message from John Wiegley on Sun, 06 Mar 2016 13:52:04 -0800) X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.2.x-3.x [generic] X-Received-From: 2001:4830:134:3::e X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:201050 Archived-At: [I removed the bug address from the CC list, as we shouldn't cross-post.] > From: John Wiegley > Date: Sun, 06 Mar 2016 13:52:04 -0800 > Cc: 21998@debbugs.gnu.org, Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen > > Keeping ChangeLog style in the commit entry is not terribly > useful either, since the diff output of log -p lets you know which function or > variable is being modified. "git log -p" cannot do the job for changes in many types of files. For example, try it on Lisp or Texinfo files. 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've never missed not having that ChangeLog data in other projects, > of any size. Maybe you rarely need to do any forensics. Me, I do it all the time in Emacs, and ChangeLog files are a valuable tool in the chest.