Simon McVittie <s...@debian.org> writes: > I think you're the only person I've ever seen using unfinalized > changelog entries for Debian packages.
I think the fact you don't know we're using this workflow isn't very informative :-) > Broadly, the two extremes of workflows for Debian packages' changelogs > maintained in git seem to be: > > * Write the changelog as you go along: each commit includes its own > Debian changelog entry. Yes. The Debian changelog is documentation, and describes a particular state of the package. When that state changes, it's a fine practice to immediately update the documentation describing the package. > This works fine if every commit is final and immutable and is sent > directly to the master VCS immediately, but works very poorly if you > are proposing commits for someone else to merge at a later date - I don't see how this complaint is any different from the need to merge, for example, changes to API documentation and test cases that accompany a functional change. > * Write the changelog later: each commit just has a commit message > in a normal git way, and its debian/changelog is out of date. For the record, I don't have anything against that workflow either. I disagree that it should be preferred. > I'm concerned that the first model is optimized for people who know > Debian as well as you do, and do not need pre-commit review because > they get everything right first time. That concern is, I'd think, addressed by realising changes are not immutable; a new change is merely an additional commit away. Resolving a conflict in documentation isn't especially onerous compared with the general resolution of conflicts in a collaborative code base. I'm in agreement with Ian that the “write the documentation (including the changelog) along with the change it describes” workflow should have full support from our tools. -- \ “We tend to scoff at the beliefs of the ancients. But we can't | `\ scoff at them personally, to their faces, and this is what | _o__) annoys me.” —Jack Handey | Ben Finney
