Re: Script to generate ChangeLogs automatically

[Alfred M. Szmidt]

   On Fri, 30 Nov 2018, Richard Stallman wrote:

   > We have already established that "git blame" and "git log -L" fail to
   > do this job reliably.

   No, we haven't established that.  We've established that the names in 
   *diff hunk headers* from "git diff" or "git show" aren't sufficiently 
   reliable - which is a completely different matter.

Your decsription on how to use those two commands is I think good
reason why they are not suitable.  One does not need to learn yet
another tool for reading ChangeLog entries.  One does not need to
learn how multiple version control systems these things in their own
particular ways.  And one does not need to figure out magical
incantations to get just the right result.

   > Fortunately, a good candidate is now being developed.  With some
   > attention to the complex cases, we could have a tool that is entirely
   > adequate.  Then we could stop writing lists of entity names by hand,
   > and not sacrifice anything in future maintenance.

   Anything requiring an up-front examination of 17000 source files in glibc 
   (or 86000 source files in GCC, etc.), written by hundreds of people over 
   three decades, to identify all relevant formatting peculiarities and 
   ensure a script handles them - as opposed to handling all the common 
   cases, which was the previously stated requirement ("reliably enough that 
   errors are rare and not a problem") - is clearly not a practical solution.

If that gives us a tool that is very good at the job, then that is
something of practical usage.  Figuring out magical incantations of
git is what is not practical.