Re: git and changelogs

[Neil Jerram]

Andy Wingo <address@hidden> writes:

> Hi Neil,
>
> On Sat 10 May 2008 00:41, Neil Jerram <address@hidden> writes:
>
>> Andy Wingo <address@hidden> writes:
>>
>>> Now that we've switched to git, hows about moving our changelogs to
>>> ChangeLog.old, and just using commit logs? We can still generate
>>> changelogs on release, if that's a desire.
>>
>> Do you mean that we would still have the same level of detail that we
>> currently put in ChangeLog, but we would put that in the commit
>> message instead?
>
> Yes, that's what I mean.

Cool.

>> I'm worried that there isn't AFAIK anything as nice as `C-x 4 a' for
>> adding one detail of a change to a pending commit message.
>
> Ludovic mentioned emacs' git.el, which I'm unfamiliar with.

I started using git.el, because I relied heavily on pcl-cvs with CVS,
and git.el says that it's pcl-cvs for Git.  But I found quickly that
the Git command set is just so rich that I don't need it; now I just
use Git commands in a shell.

> I use the
> great DVC. I wrote about it here:
>
>   
> http://wingolog.org/archives/2008/03/11/using-newfangled-version-control-systems-from-emacs

That looks just the job.

> In short: there are excellent solutions. Unfortunately none of them are
> bound to C-x 4 a. Fortunately C-x 4 a was always hard to type anyway.

Harder than `t', I'll agree.  Given this, I'm happy with your
suggestion to retire ChangeLog.  Perhaps you should add something to
HACKING about this, though?

Incidentally, I think I have to disagree with your:

> As an aside, I think people that like git do so out of a kind of
> software Stockholm syndrome: you have to learn so much about esoterics
> like refs, the object database, the index, etc. that you end up
> feeling empathy for git's idiosyncracies. Because objectively, git's
> working tree index should not be a concept that occupies space in my
> mind.

Git for me was a sizeable hiccup, but I think I got over that pretty
quickly, and now I'm loving it.  As far as the index is concerned: I
was bowled over by `git add -i', and I think that the concept of a
staging area is needed to do that.  If that's correct, I'm more than
happy to have a few brain cells devoted to the Git index.

Regards,
      Neil