Re: File names in ChangeLog entries

[Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca>]

>> > *  [master~1208] Save position in mark ring before jumping to definition
>> This is a good example of an unhelpful commit message.
>> There is no way to guess it's about lisp/help-mode.el.
> You don't need to guess, you need to look at the rest of the log
> message.

I guess that begs the question: what do you think is the role of the
Summary, IOW how is it intended/expected to be used?

In my own experience, there are two main cases where I've made use of them:

- When listing a chain of commits for a particular change.
  Usually the "particular change" already makes it clear which parts of
  the code will likely be affected, so having subsystem information
  there is not super important, admittedly.
  Instead, I read the summaries as a kind of "roadmap" for how the
  change is decomposed into a number of steps.
  Since we're usually talking about a handful of commits, the specific
  shape and content of those summaries doesn't matter very much (they
  just need to include enough info that I know which commit is which).

- When listing a number of commits that were applied to a branch like
  `master` or `emacs-28`, typically for code review, but other times to
  look for changes relevant to some problem I'm experiencing or some
  specific code I'm playing with.
  In that case, having subsystem information in the summary makes
  a world of difference in that I can much more easily skip changes
  which are "obviously" irrelevant.

I wonder how you use them.


        Stefan