[Pkg-xfce-devel] README: Proposal for unreleased packages/changelog entries

[Simon Huggins]

On Tue, Dec 20, 2005 at 02:44:31PM +0200, Jani Monoses wrote:
> > >  On top of this I'd like to propose that whereever possible we use a
> > >  common format for changes which are made by more than one person.
> > >
> > >  I personally like:
> > >
> > >   * (Simon Huggins)
> > >     * blah1
> > >     * blah2
> > >   * (Yves-Alexis Perez)
> > >     * blah3
> > >     * blah4
> > >  etc.
> > I *strongly* agree here, the method based only on initals was less
> > clear IMHO.
> On the topic of more people contributing to a changelog: ideally it
> would be easier if once a person changed something and added a
> changelog in svn it was followed by uploading to the archive. Hence
> changes by one person only per debian revision.

Beurk.  This isn't always a good idea but I agree that we do want
uploads for new upstream revisions and that the goodies do want general
cleanup uploads.

> This may not be practical because of the time a package needs to be
> tested before being considered ready for upload, but we should still
> strive for upload 'early and often' IMHO, for avoiding bottlenecks and
> the introduction of unrelated changes in a revision which
> theoretically make bug hunting harder.

I find this argument specious - it's all in SVN so if we want to we can
work out exactly what caused the introduction of a bug.

> In the cases when an upload is not made in time and another commiter
> has changes to the package I think the layout of the changelog would
> be better if it was a stricter format, so instead of what is above we
> had:
>  *blah1 (Simon Huggins)
>  *blah2 (Emanuele Rocca)
>  ...
>  *blahn (Simon Huggins)
> so they are added chronologically (as the changelogs themselves) not
> per author.

I really don't like this.  I much prefer the two original formats I 
suggested.

Also having the changes in chronological order doesn't really buy you
anything.  Our users only see things after uploads.

> this would make automatic handling a lot easier (I am now sedding
> across the files, and adding Bump Version to 3.6.2 (Jani Monoses) to
> 23 files  would be way easier if the format wasn't hierarchical and
> the corresponding header didn't have to be looked up.

Automatic handling isn't a big issue.  Sure you've had to change 23
changelogs and it's a bit of a pain but someone has to then upload 23
packages and inspect and check them all which is more pain :)

I think taking the time to respect the formats I provided is worth it
though if enough people prefer this one then I'm prepared to back down.

> Also grepping for changes by a person would be a lot more
> straightforward.

How often do you do that then? :p

> please consider this format before starting to update existing
> changelogs en-masse

I'm just not convinced yet.

Simon.

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