Re: Is it time to drop ChangeLogs?

[Ingo Lohmar]

Hi Alan,

On Tue, Mar 08 2016 21:36 (+0000), Alan Mackenzie wrote:

> If a git log message starts off life unreliable (i.e. there are mistakes
> in it) it can never be corrected.  It stays unreliable for the lifetime
> of the repository.

That's pretty much what I meant.  It may not contain the information you
(and I) would like to see in it, but it is highly reliable in that it is
the message that was used to describe the commit.  I would like to
apologize if this comes about as nitpicking.

> I am an experienced Emacs contributor, and I have, even recently, made
> mistakes in my commit messages.  I resent the fact that it is so
> difficult to correct them, even before pushing to savannah.  I don't
> think I need any teaching on the importance of good commit messages.

I make a lot of mistakes in commit messages, and I do not agree that it
is difficult to fix them before pushing.  You surely don't need any
teaching about commit messages, but Eli has repeatedly referred to those
who do, and I try to counter the argument that Changelog fixing teaches
them a *good* lesson.

> Not everybody has access to the git repository, and not everybody who
> has is capable of using it effectively.  ChangeLogs remain a useful,
> easy to use summary of Emacs's progress.

I cannot speak for anybody but myself.  When I am a user of Emacs,
trying to get an idea of what has changed on the level of detail that
the Changelog provides, I would rather go to the authoritative source,
if online (without any repository) at
http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/emacs.git.