ChangeLog entry complexity

[Allan McRae]

Given this thread is now 40 messages long, I decided to read through and
make a summary of the pros/cons to keeping ChangeLogs that have been
mentioned so far.


Pros:
Requires paying attention to detail
Can be fixed post commit
Distributed in tarballs
Machine parsable
Can grep for file name or function


Cons:
Resources spent on writing/editing ChangeLog entries
Merging is more difficult
git log/blame is "equivalent"
Makes refactoring difficult  (long ChangeLog entries)
Do not provide detail needed to understand the change (why/how)
ChangeLogs are incomplete


The only thing that I will add is that I find it rather difficult to
find the "why" of many changes - although it is better now that we
enforce all but trivial patches to go via the mailing list, so there is
some (although far from ideal) reference there.

Allan