Re: Is it time to drop ChangeLogs? (Was: bug#21998: Run 'make change-history' on release branch)

[Eli Zaretskii]

[I removed the bug address from the CC list, as we shouldn't cross-post.]

> From: John Wiegley <address@hidden>
> Date: Sun, 06 Mar 2016 13:52:04 -0800
> Cc: address@hidden, Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <address@hidden>
> 
> Keeping ChangeLog style in the commit entry is not terribly
> useful either, since the diff output of log -p lets you know which function or
> variable is being modified.

"git log -p" cannot do the job for changes in many types of files.
For example, try it on Lisp or Texinfo files.

More generally, there's no way Git could replace ChangeLog style
entries, because they frequently include information that is not in
the diffs.  To say nothing of the fact that understanding the change
from reading Diff hunks is much harder, and therefore much less
efficient, than from reading a log entry which describes the change in
plain English.

> I've never missed not having that ChangeLog data in other projects,
> of any size.

Maybe you rarely need to do any forensics.  Me, I do it all the time
in Emacs, and ChangeLog files are a valuable tool in the chest.