On Fri, 21 Oct 2011, Bob Friesenhahn wrote: > On Fri, 21 Oct 2011, Stefano Lattarini wrote: >>> >>> Should I perhaps file a bug that the ChangeLog file should be >>> generated? >>> >> That would be a good idea in the long(ish) term. In fact, I pesonally >> see >> ChangeLogs as a relic of the pre-VCS era; they were surely VERY useful >> to >> track regressions and bugs and backward-incompatibilites back then, but >> today that we have the "real" project history in the VCS repo, and lots >> of >> tools to view and analyze it, the ChangeLogs (as well as the GCS rules >> to >> write them) are becoming more and more of a nuisance. ... > It is typical that ChangeLog messages are considerably higher grade > and more detailed than commit messages. However, the version control > system also offers capabilities (e.g. change sets) that the ChangeLog > does not offer.
Agreed. On my own "real" projects (the ones with real users), I view the version control logs as messages for active developers and ChangeLog as messages for users and occasional developers. So git sees small one-off messages on a regular basis, and the ChangeLog is updated when big user-visible changes are made. Then I review the git logs before each release candidate and edit the ChangeLog to make sure it has a good summary of all user-visible changes. In this model, the ChangeLog is quite important, but daily ChangeLog updates really don't make much sense. - Daniel
