Re: Abolishing ChangeLog files

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

> I would like to suggest another change - how about removing ChangeLog
> files from the development repository.  I think these files are
> redundant to the commit log of the vc.

We already dropped them from `elpa', but my experience is that the support
for writing commit logs entries is not yet up-to-par with the support
for writing ChanegLog entries.  I encourage people to work on that
(e.g. make C-x 4 a do something useful for those projects that don't
use ChangeLog files).

> Of course?  Generating the (structured) ChangeLog from (free form) log
> entrys isn't trivial.

Luckily, that's not quite the problem we're trying to solve: the commit
log messages in Emacs should (and mostly do) follow the exact same
conventions as the ChangeLog entries.

> Because bzr log take ages to popup, I guess it is one reason you relay
> on changelog files.

Agreed.  Commit logs are much more useful in Git where they show up much
more quickly.

Another big issue is that commit logs can't be fixed (it's not an
inherent limitation, just a limitation of "bzr log" and AFAIK of "git
log" as well).


        Stefan