ChangeLog entry complexity

[Siddhesh Poyarekar]

On 26 March 2013 23:25, Joseph S. Myers <joseph@codesourcery.com> wrote:
> I think we *should* move to putting both title lines (as explicitly
> described in the GNU Coding Standards) and rationale at the top of
> ChangeLog entries, in addition to the descriptions of "what" changed, and

A description of what changed is pointless IMO because that bit can be
read from the patch itself.  The 'why' is important and the commit log
should be a good enough place for it.

> also putting that detailed patch description in the commit messages.  But
> this would require that the detailed description be reviewed for
> formatting and English usage in as much detail as the rest of the patch.

The blurb accompanying a patch submission should usually be clear
enough and wherever it is not, reviewers could make a note of it.  I
don't think a strict language review is necessary as long as what is
written is clear enough.

Also, while git has only one author 'field', the accepted practice is
to have a 'Signed-Off-By' for each contributor to that patch.  That's
a much more convenient compromise than writing convoluted ChangeLog
entries that hardly anyone reads.

Siddhesh
-- 
http://siddhesh.in