ChangeLog's: do we have to?

[Segher Boessenkool]

On Thu, Jul 05, 2018 at 01:01:45PM +0200, Jakub Jelinek wrote:
> We have contrib/mklog that can do something semi-automatically, I guess any
> improvements there are welcome.
> It works on patches and thus is limited to the info that the patch (usually
> with diff -p) provides, I guess if it could optionally be fed with diff
> -U1000000 -bp or similar it could do somewhat better job at finding the
> actual function/variable names etc.
> 
> But still filling in prepared contrib/mklog output is a useful part in
> self-review of a patch and will help others understand the patch, free text
> in commit message will help far less.

Unfortunately mklog only automates the easy part of changelogs (and doesn't
always get that right).  I find it easier to type out a changelog without
the templates mklog makes.

Changelogs are also very useful when reviewing patches, in several ways
(it helps you understand a patch, it helps you catch errors in the patch).


Segher