Re: Is it time to drop ChangeLogs?

[David Engster]

Óscar Fuentes writes:
> David Engster <address@hidden> writes:
>
>> Óscar Fuentes writes:
>>> `git notes' is a documented feature available since a long time ago. It
>>> can turn the immutability of the commit log into a non-issue if you wish
>>> to produce a proofread ChangeLog to include in the tarball.
>>
>> I can't imagine that you have ever really used 'git notes'.
>
> I didn't.

Then please do. Just take one of your private repositories and add a
note to the current commit. And then, just for fun, read the git-notes
man page and figure out how to push that note to your server (seriously:
the word 'push' is not mentioned once, but note that they *do* tell you
how to create a binary note blob, which sure is nifty, even if you'll
never figure out how to push it).

>> It's a hack with terrible usability
>
> This is very vague. Is it good enough for solving our problem?
> (providing a fixed commit message in case the original one is not
> correct.)

https://git-scm.com/blog/2010/08/25/notes.html

See paragraphs "Sharing Notes" (which also includes the answer to the
above), "Getting Notes" and "Collaborating on Notes", and decide for
yourself.

Yes, that page is from over 5 years ago, but note that there is still
no 'git push --notes'. If you want to know why, see for instance

http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/235597

>> and no merge support.
>
> What's wrong with `git notes merge' ?

See the git-notes man page and read section "Notes on merge strategies"
(the one that begins with 'The default notes merge strategy is
"manual"'). The above gmane-link also has a script attached which shows
how to resolve a conflict with 'git notes merge'. I strongly suggest to
once go through it and see what it involves.

'git notes' is a quick hack that somehow survived until today, and now
it's too late to remove it. It is barely OK for things like attaching
test results from your CI server. It's pretty much useless for
everything else. For correcting commit messages, it'd be much easier to
cook up something for ourselves (like simply a file
SHA1:NEW_COMMIT_MESSAGE).

-David