From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Glenn Morris Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: ChangeLogs in the elpa branch Date: Mon, 26 Sep 2011 12:26:53 -0400 Message-ID: References: <87ipofdbka.fsf@gmx.de> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: dough.gmane.org 1317054422 3632 80.91.229.12 (26 Sep 2011 16:27:02 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 26 Sep 2011 16:27:02 +0000 (UTC) Cc: Michael Albinus , emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Stefan Monnier Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Mon Sep 26 18:26:58 2011 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([140.186.70.17]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1R8E1C-0004yZ-6x for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Mon, 26 Sep 2011 18:26:58 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:58990 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1R8E1B-0001UQ-N2 for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Mon, 26 Sep 2011 12:26:57 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([140.186.70.92]:56392) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1R8E19-0001RI-4n for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 26 Sep 2011 12:26:56 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1R8E17-0007nL-Oc for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 26 Sep 2011 12:26:55 -0400 Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([140.186.70.10]:41398) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1R8E17-0007nH-Lv for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 26 Sep 2011 12:26:53 -0400 Original-Received: from rgm by fencepost.gnu.org with local (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1R8E17-00025T-CN; Mon, 26 Sep 2011 12:26:53 -0400 X-Spook: Watergate Adriatic Centro Ansar al-Islam Rule Psix X-Ran: YBeOv|.vT5d(0^h2}_Okt,T%9V3|r\L~B0n9egIB&`VZ:&&1d:=9x=m%W-DX~DcMt|<58W X-Hue: red X-Attribution: GM In-Reply-To: (Stefan Monnier's message of "Mon, 26 Sep 2011 09:03:54 -0400") User-Agent: Gnus (www.gnus.org), GNU Emacs (www.gnu.org/software/emacs/) X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.6 (newer, 3) X-Received-From: 140.186.70.10 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:144314 Archived-At: Stefan Monnier wrote: > The decision for Emacs ChangeLogs was "to keep them for now". I'm very much against getting rid of ChangeLogs, but every time the issue has been mentioned it has been with some kind of "but we won't do this now", so I never know when to voice my objections. Seems like now may be too late, and this is not a democracy anyway, but here goes: Reasons I object to getting rid of ChangeLogs: 1) Using Emacs VC, you only have to write the ChangeLog, then use C-c C-a to insert it into the commit buffer. So there is no need to "write the same thing twice". 2) Sometimes I want to put more detail into the commit log, which is not appropriate for the ChangeLog. 3) ChangeLogs can be edited to correct mistakes, commit logs cannot. 4) I have the impression that having to write ChangeLogs leads to higher quality entries than just using commit logs would. Reasons I can see why people want to do this: 1) It makes merging between branches a bit easier. I don't think this is a compelling reason to change practice. bzr has a changelog_merge plugin that makes this easier, and I wrote some notes on how to use it with Emacs. Anyone who feels burdended by having to merge ChangeLogs between branches should try it out. It seems like a simple problem, conceptually. Personally I think the slight extra time involved in maintaining a ChangeLog is more than justified by the higher quality of said log.