Re: Using VC for change descriptions

[John Darrington]

On Mon, Nov 27, 2017 at 12:14:57AM -0500, Mike Gerwitz wrote:
     On Sun, Nov 26, 2017 at 13:28:44 -0800, Paul Eggert wrote:
     > Of course, git commit messages can be done poorly, just as ChangeLog 
files
     > can be done poorly. Developers should use good practice in writing commit
     > messages. Although a common approach is to use ChangeLog-style format in
     > commit messages, they need less detail than traditional ChangeLog files
     > since the version control system lets you easily go to the diff
     > corresponding to the commit.
     
     This is what I do with my projects now.  Guix and Emacs do this well
     too, for example.  To Richard's point: while Git provides a wealth of
     information and tools to process it, it sucks looking over diffs when
     you want a high-level overview of what changed.
     
     rms: Git does not provide tools to replace the type of ChangeLog entries
     that you are describing.  But as Paul said, a combination of a good
     commit message and a diff can make ChangeLog entries more concise.  With
     that said, they can't be too concise, because users of a source
     distribution don't have direct access to the repository.
     
     I'm in favor of the hybrid approach (ChangeLog-style commit
     message)---when looking through commits, you see the relevant ChangeLog
     entry right there, rather than having to cross-reference with a separate
     ChangeLog file.
     
I agree with everything that both Paul and Mike have said.

J'


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